Stimulants Double Adverse Cardiovascular Events in Children
In what they describe as the first large-scale, long-term, nation-wide study of its kind, Danish researchers have confirmed that ADHD stimulants double the risk...
More Evidence Antipsychotics Reduce Brain Volume
People diagnosed with schizophrenia experience reductions in brain volume that increase over time, and the amount of those reductions increases in proportion to the...
Glucose Metabolism “Derangements” from Second Generation Antipsychotics Clarified
New Zealand and Chinese investigators believe they have clarified the mechanisms by which second generation antipsychotics cause serious "derangements" in glucose metabolism in the...
Pharma-linked Panel Advises Wider Use of Statins Even as Drugs’ Links to Dementia Re-affirmed
People who take statins are at “significantly greater” risk of memory impairment than those who don’t take the popular cholesterol-lowering drugs, according to research...
Former Duke Psychiatry Chair Calls for BMJ to Retract Article about Antidepressant Black Box...
A former Duke University psychiatry chair is calling for a retraction of a study suggesting that the FDA's black-box warnings about increased suicidality in youth taking SSRIs led to increases in adolescent suicide attempts.
FDA Invites Comments on Guidelines for Informed Consent
The United States Food and Drug Administration is inviting comments on its new draft guidelines for informed consent. "This guidance is intended to provide...
Here’s the Real Data: No Increase in Suicide Attempts Following Black Box Warning
A British Medical Journal study led by Harvard Medical School's Christine Lu suggested that black box warnings about increased suicidality in youth who take antidepressants actually led to increases in adolescent suicide attempts. However, the latest in a stream of critics of that conclusion are the authors of one of the key studies cited by Lu in support of her team's analysis.
Smoking Restrictions Linked to Reduced Suicide Rates
Smoking laws and cigarette taxes have strong links to suicide rates, according to psychiatrists from Washington University in St. Louis. Previous studies have presumed...
Spiritual Experiences Vital for Black American Women’s Mental Health
Spirituality and transcendental experiences are even more important than religion to the psychological well-being of many Black American women, according to a study in...
A Call to Crack Down on Scientific Fraudsters
In the New York Times, two co-founders of Retraction Watch ponder examples of scientists caught committing research fraud to gain grants and further their...
Long-term Safety of ADHD Drugs Has Never Been Studied
Even though about 10% of American children have been diagnosed with ADHD and most are taking stimulant medications for it, Boston Children’s Hospital researchers...
Sleep Deprivation Leads to Schizophrenia-like Experiences
Researchers from the University of Bonn and King’s College London were “amazed” at the range of experiences associated with schizophrenia that were induced in...
US Government Reviews Antidepressants During and After Pregnancy
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality has released a meta-analysis “Evidence Report” of the studies into...
Most Media Health Stories Pump Positives, Minimize Harms
A "Special Communication" by HealthNewsReview.org publisher Gary Schwitzer published in the Journal of the American Medical Association reports that most news media present very...
Suicidal Behavior After FDA Warnings
On June 18, the British Medical Journal published an article by Christine Lu, et al., titled Changes in antidepressant use by young people and suicidal behavior after FDA warnings and media coverage: quasi-experimental study. < /em>Here's the conclusion paragraph from the abstract: "Safety warnings about antidepressants and widespread media coverage decreased antidepressant use, and there were simultaneous increases in suicide attempts among young people. It is essential to monitor and reduce possible unintended consequences of FDA warnings and media reporting." Note the slightly rebuking tone directed against the FDA and the media.
Certain Hospitals, Physicians Over-medicate More
In an upcoming study in Psychiatric Services, US and Canadian researchers report that the strongest predictors for over-medicating of people being treated for schizophrenia...
Even Low Lead Levels Affect Child Behaviors
A team of American and Chinese researchers funded by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences report in JAMA Pediatrics that lead concentrations in...
“Justina’s Law” seeks to curb experimentation on foster children
A bipartisan group of House lawmakers have introduced a bill called "Justina's Law" to limit federal funding for medical research involving foster children, according...
Irritable Bowel Syndrome Linked to Psychiatric Conditions
A review published by Romanian and German researchers in the Journal of Molecular Psychiatry suggests that many psychiatric conditions have strong links to Irritable...
Protests Erupt Over Facebook’s Secret Psychology Experiment
Facebook altered the news feeds of 689,003 users as part of a massive experiment in "emotional contagion," according to a study published in the...
Five-year Study Re-affirms that Housing Stabilizes People
A five-year study involving 497 homeless people with mental health or addictions problems in Vancouver found that, when provided free apartments, most people “stabilized...
“Why Most Published Research Findings are False” Passes One Million Views
“The problem is when you come up with something really unusual, because there are hardly any standard venues for real innovation or out-of-the-box endeavors,”...
More Research Links Autism to Pesticides
Autism and rates of other neurogically-related problems are higher in areas where large amounts of chemical pesticides are used, according to University of California...
Antipsychotics During Pregnancy Linked to Infant Problems
“Live, healthy babies are the most common outcome following the use of antipsychotic medication in pregnancy,” conclude Australian researchers in a study that was...
Upon Further Review: Did the Black Box Warning on SSRIs Lead to Increased Suicide...
A study that appeared online in the British Medical Journal suggests that the FDA’s warning in 2003 that antidepressants increase the risk of suicidal ideation in youth paradoxically led to an increase in suicide attempts in this age group. Media reports on the study tell of how the black-box warning “backfired.” But is this conclusion warranted by the study? Or is the study flawed? And how did the media report on this story?
