Research

There are a lot of publication and reporting biases in studies of the efficacy of second-generation antidepressants for the treatment of anxiety.

-The US government has been "chipping away" at the FDA's powers in order to speed up drug approvals.

-A fired government health economist says that his research was showing that 60,000 Americans now taking antipsychotic medications will die prematurely.

For decades the gold standard for medical evidence was the review article - an essay looking at most or (hopefully) all of the research on a particular question and trying to divine a general trend in the data toward some conclusion ("therapy X seems to be good for condition Y," for example). More recently, the format of review articles has shifted - at least where the questions addressed have leant themselves to the new style. The idea has been to look at the original data for all of the studies available, and in effect reanalyze them as though the research participants were all taking part in one gigantic study. By increasing the number of data points and averaging across the vagaries of different studies, a clearer finding might emerge. The meta-analysis has gone on to be revered as a strategy for advancing healthcare. It has vulnerabilities.

-Experts comment on AstraZeneca's latest way of attempting to comply with pressures to provide open data.

-Public Citizen analyzed public comments on proposed government rule changes for drug company sales representatives.

-Some online counseling services have half-hidden disclaimers that they aren't actually providing "counseling."

Scholars from the Centre for Global Health Policy describe changes in drug policies being taken by many national governments that are motivated by national security concerns.

-John Horgan defends a celebrity's right to challenge scientists on vaccines, and points to psychiatry as an example of the dangers of simply deferring to supposed scientific experts.

The more a country's system of medical care expands, the sicker people feel -- and much of that effect seems related to psychiatry.

After a second critical report this month about its psychiatry department's ethical practices and conflicts of interest, the University of Minnesota has temporarily suspended enrollment in its psychiatric drug trials.

-Vox interviews the author of the most read article in the history of PLoS Medicine.

-John Horgan criticizes psychiatrist Richard Friedman's effusive portrayal of a study that allegedly identified the "feel-good" gene in humans.

-Neuroskeptic previews an upcoming debate, in which he's involved, on the topic of whether science is "broken."

-Vox interviews the founders of a platform for sharing peer reviews of scientific articles.

Recently the problem of publication bias has been shaking the foundations of much of psychology and medicine. In the field of pharmacology, the problem is worse, because the majority of outcome trials (on which medication approval and physician information is based) are conducted by pharmaceutical firms that stand to benefit enormously from positive results, and run the risk of enormous financial loss from negative ones. Numerous studies have found that positive results tend to be published, while negative ones are quietly tucked under the rug.

The majority of clinical trials are still not reporting their results to the US government's ClinicalTrials.gov.

-Healthy Debate discusses some experiments with doctors paying their patients to engage in healthier behaviors.

-A psychiatric study widely hailed in Swedish media which led to new treatment guidelines was a "fraud," states health reporter and researcher Janne Larsson.

The latest investigative report into the University of Minnesota's psychiatric research practices was "scathing," reported Forbes in a two-part story.

-Pharma Guy reports on the new FDA app that helps monitor drug shortages, and searches for an app to report on adverse side effects.

-On a list of prescription drugs that generated the most in global sales dollars in 2014, the antipsychotic Abilify was number twelve at $5.7 billion.

Pharmaceutical companies are regularly breaching industry codes of conduct in their promotion and advertising of their drugs in Europe.

Clinicians are following best practice guidelines only half of the time when giving antipsychotic medications to children, and following FDA-approved indications only one-fourth of the time.

Data on OpenSecrets.gov show Murphy is being heavily funded by the same interests that stand to benefit financially from his Helping Families in Mental Health Crisis Act -- pharmaceutical companies and psychiatric hospitals.