Do Insurance Companies Profit from Rising Drug Costs?
Many insurance companies have little interest in slowing the rise of inappropriate over-prescribing of pharmaceutical drugs, according to a study in Health Policy. That's...
Can Psychiatrist and Psychologist Court Experts Be Trusted on Memory Science, Round Two
The British Psychological Society Research Digest weighs in on a study previously reported in Mad in America, showing that psychologist and psychiatrist expert court...
Prominent Patient Safety Advocate Was Taking Kickbacks from Pharma
ProPublica revisits the story of Dr. Chuck Denham, the previous editor of the Journal of Patient Safety and former "co-chairman of a committee that...
Finding Human Life on Earth
Through the ISPS listserve, I read a blog this morning written by Thomas Insel, director of the NIMH. The way he described people I daily meet in work and in my own life created a rising pulse, so I decided to find out some more about his thoughts and practice. I am not saying that what I read on his blog is unknown to me, but still it made me wonder how on earth is it possible to invest so much money - and resources - in research which is so distant from practice, and so far away from humanistic and holistic ideas and theories.
Health Professionals Question Using Animals for Studies
National Institute of Mental Health Director Thomas Insel explains why using mice to try to help solve human psychological problems doesn't work very well....
Interview with Peter GĆøtzsche: How Psychiatry Has Gone Astray
Dr. McDougall's Health and Medical Center has posted a three-part interview with MIA Foreign Correspondent Peter GĆøtzsche, author of the book Deadly Medicines and...
“Pay $1000 to criticize a bad āblood test for depressionā article?”
In the PLOS Blog Mind the Brain, James Coyne recounts how he wanted to participate in post-publication peer review surrounding the "bad science" in...
Psychologists “Devised” and Played “Central Role” in CIA Torture Program
Professional psychologists designed most of the main techniques and strategies and played ongoing, active, central roles in the CIA's torture of people it was...
Psychiatrist Discovers Who Was Secretly Paying the Psychiatrists Who Mocked Her
Young psychiatrist Jean Kim argues that psychiatrists need to reflect more on the morality of their work, then gets "laughed out of the room"...
Sunshine Act Could Make Pharma Target Other Groups Over Doctors
More action will be required if the public hopes to benefit from the new legislation requiring doctors to disclose the money and gifts they've...
Lax Online Security Makes Hacking Your Way to Scientific Prominence Easy
How easy is it to gain access to some of the biggest online hosts of academic research journals in the world, and then start...
NIMH Webinar Explains New Way of Categorizing Mental Disorders
The US National Institute of Mental Health is providing public access to a video of a webinar explaining the Research Domain Criteria initiative and...
Understanding Psychosis and Schizophrenia? What About Black People?
In many respects it is difficult to fault the report Understanding Psychosis and Schizophrenia, recently published by the British Psychological Society (BPS) and the Division of Clinical Psychology (DCP)[i]; indeed, as recent posts on Mad in America have observed, there is much to admire in it. Whilst not overtly attacking biomedical interpretations of psychosis, it rightly draws attention to the limitations and problems of this model, and points instead to the importance of contexts of adversity, oppression and abuse in understanding psychosis. But the report makes only scant, fleeting references to the role of cultural differences and the complex relationships that are apparent between such differences and individual experiences of psychosis.
Nurse with Secret Recordings Exposes More about University of Minnesota Research Scandal
A senior nurse who has been involved for 22 years with the University of Minnesota's psychiatric research program is accusing the university of a...
NIMH Director Insel Proposes Solutions to Lack of Reproducibility in Research
National Institute of Mental Health Director Thomas Insel laments the lack of reproducibility in such a large majority of mental health-related research. He describes...
“Failed Replications: A Reality Check for Neuroscience?”
In Discover, Neuroskeptic discusses a new study that "attempted to replicate five different papers which, together, reported 17 distinct positive results in the form...
Two Canadian Sources of Independent Health & Mental Health Research Shut Down
The Canadian Women's Health Network (CWHN), for two decades a major source of critical, independent research and information on women's health and mental health,...
Lancet Editorial Argues for Better Science in Mental Health
An editorial in the Lancet Psychiatry suggests that mental health professionals rely more on intuition and "good intentions" than "good science," and that needs...
Previously Hidden Data Shows Anti-flu Drug Linked to Psychosis and Suicides
"(A)t least 70 people have died, many of them by suicide, after Tamiflu-induced episodes," reports Newsweek, in an article about the popular anti-flu drug...
Pavlov
The history, personality, and dogs of one of the western world's most well-known names in behavior research, Ivan Pavlov, is the subject of an...
California Foster Care Physicians Taking Double the Average in Pharma Money
Drug companies spent over $14 million from 2010 to 2013 to "woo" California doctors who specialize in treating foster children, according to part three...
American Psychological Association Begins Inquiry into Torture Allegations
"The American Psychological Association (APA) last week named a former federal prosecutor to lead an investigation into its role in supporting the U.S. governmentās...
Global Rise in ADHD Diagnoses: Medicine or Marketing?
The dramatic rise in ADHD spreading from the United States to the rest of the world is more an "economic and cultural plague" than...
US Government Proposes Stronger Rules for Disclosure of Medical Trial Results
The US government is proposing to toughen the rules governing medical trials involving human subjects, to help ensure the trials are registered in advance...
Psychiatrists and Psychologists Not Reliable Expert Witnesses
Psychiatrists and psychologists who work as expert witnesses for the courts are generally no more scientifically knowledgeable or accurate about issues that involve human...
