2nd-Generation Antipsychotics Cause Extrapyramidal Side Effects as Much as 1st-Generation
According to researchers from Yale and the U.K., the improvements in extrapyramidal side effects expected from 2nd-generation antipsychotics has not been realized, while the...
Risperdal Whistle-Blower Honored in Texas, Fired in Pennsylvania
Allen Jones, the whistle blower whose testimony resulted in a $158 million settlement by Johnson & Johnson for fraudulent marketing of Risperdal in Texas,...
Active Engagement More Important Than Type of Treatment
Researchers (including Irving Kirsch) in the U.S., Israel and the U.K. find that a combination of psychotherapy and antidepressants may provide a slight benefit...
Death of a Child Linked to Onset of Psychosis
Using data from the National Comorbidity Survey, researchers found that individuals with a psychotic disorder who had lost a child had a significantly later...
Benzodiazepines Associated With 3.5x Greater Dementia Risk
Researchers in the U.K. find in a 22-year prospective study of 1134 men, 103 of whom took benzodiazepines regularly for one or more period...
Why Most Biomedical Findings Echoed by Newspapers Turn Out to be False
Researches in France and the United States found that seven of the top ten most reported-upon studies on ADHD in newspapers in the 1990s...
Misrepresentation of Research in the News
French researchers, publishing in PLoS Medicine, find that the mismatch between perceived and real beneficial effects of new treatments is related to the presence...
Antidepressants Associated With Increased Driving Risk
Researchers from the Taiwan and the United States find through a study of 5,183 subjects with motor vehicle accidents (MVAs) and 31,093 matched controls...
Psychotropics Drive Record 4.02 Billion U.S. Prescriptions in 2011
With drugs for ADHD increasing 17%, and an "unprecedented increase in patients taking antidepressants and antipsychotics," overall prescription drug sales in the United States...
Thomas Szasz, April 15, 1920 – September 8, 2012
Thomas Szasz, relentless "critic of coercive psychiatry, the 'therapeutic state,' and the war on drugs," died at his home in Manlius, N.Y. over the...
Off-Label Antipsychotic Use Among Children Soaring
Researchers from Philadelphia and Baltimore find, in a study of Medicaid records for 50 states and the District of Columbia, that antipsychotic prescribing to...
Former FDA Counsel: J&J Settlement ‘Is Huge’
In an interview with Pharmalot, former FDA associate chief counsel Arnie Friede discusses the impact of last month's $181 million Risperdal settlement on pharmaceuticals'...
J&J Settles Risperdal Lawsuit on Opening Day
Johnson & Johnson settled one of about 420 Risperdal-related lawsuits on the trial's opening day. "The case is resolved and the client is satisfied,"...
The Anterior Cingulate: a Cortex in Competition
The anterior cingulate figures in much research on addiction, OCD, schizophrenia, ADHD, social anxiety, and depression. Here, Scientific American looks at its apparent connection...
Link Between Childhood Adversity and Psychosis Withstands Scrutiny
Researchers from Spain, Belgium and the Netherlands find, in a study of 226 monozygotic twins, that where there is a correlation between childhood adversity...
Eli Lilly is Overvalued
The investment newsletter Seeking Alpha reports that Eli Lilly's research woes, including the halting of research into a new antipsychotic, mean that Lilly's stock...
Low Prevalence of Obesity and Metabolic Syndrome in Never-Treated Chronic Schizophrenia
Research from India indicates that "schizophrenia in the absence of antipsychotic drug treatment is not a factor contributing to high prevalence of metabolic abnormalities."
Abstract...
Cortisol Levels Increased in Youth at Risk for Psychosis
Researchers from Columbia University and the Institute of Neurosciences in Barcelona assessed cortisol levels in 33 patients at clinical high risk of psychosis. Cortisol...
Type of Treatment for Depression is Less Important than Engagement
An international team of researchers (including Irving Kirsch) found in a review "of 62 pivotal antidepressant trials consisting of data from 13,802 depressed patients"...
Pediatric Drugs: More Illness, But Less Research
An international team of researchers identified all drug trials registered in ClinicalTrials.gov between 2006 and 2011 and tracked the resulting publications, finding that although...
Happiness and First-Episode Schizophrenia
Canadian researchers find that 31 people with first-episode schizophrenia diagnoses were as happy as 29 controls, according to a self-reported questionnaire measuring happiness, life...
“Grief is Good News for Pharmaceutical Companies”
The U.K.'s Guardian writes today that "the proposal by the American Psychiatric Association to create a new illness – prolonged grief disorder – and...
Top Docs Call Psych Diagnoses by Brain Scans “Modern Phrenology”
The Washington Post profiles Daniel Amen, "the most popular psychiatrist in America," who claims in copious books, DVDs, television and speaking engagements to be...
South Dakota Court Revives Cymbalta Suicide Case
A federal appeals court has reversed a lower court's summary judgment in favor of Eli Lilly, allowing the parents of a South Dakota...
NIH Defends Nemeroff Grant, Issues Talking Points
When it awarded yet another multimillion-dollar grant to Charles Nemeroff, a key figure in the controversy over conflicts of interest involving pharmaceutical research, U.S....
