Despite Official Recommendations, Depression Screening in Children is Not Supported by Research
Earlier this year, the US Preventative Services Task Force (USPSTF) came out with the controversial recommendation that all adolescent and adult patients undergo depression...
Psychotherapy Effectiveness for Depression Inflated by Publication Bias
While publication bias has been known to overestimate the efficacy of antidepressant treatments, a new study suggests that research on the use of psychotherapy in depression suffers from a similar bias.
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.
“Many Psychology Findings Not as Strong as Claimed, Study Says”
Today’s NY Times front page featured a story on the problem reproducibility poses for many psychology studies. The story is based on the results of a year-long study where the researchers found they were unable to reproduce 60 out of 100 studies published in three leading psychology journals. “The overall ‘effect size,’ a measure of the strength of a finding, dropped by about half across all of the studies.”
Big Pharma Funds “Independent” Advocacy Groups
From The Intercept: Several seemingly independent advocacy groups have recently published advertisements opposing newly proposed legislation that would lower drug prices. In fact, the organizations have undisclosed...
“Many Antidepressant Studies Found Tainted by Pharma Company Influence”
The Scientific American reports on a new analysis of antidepressant trials revealing that the vast majority of meta-analyses have industry links and suppress negative results.
“With Sobering Science, Doctor Debunks 12-Step Recovery”
NPR interviews Dr. Lance Dodes, author of The Sober Truth: Debunking the Bad Science Behind Twelve-Step Programs and the Rehab Industry. Despite the fact...
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.
“How Open Data Can Improve Medicine”
“Those who possess the data control the story.” In the wake of the reanalysis of the infamous Study 329, where scientific data claiming the antidepressant Paxil was safe and effective for teens was egregiously manipulated, researchers are pushing for open access to raw data. “The issue here, scientists argue, is that without independent confirmation, it becomes too easy to manipulate data.”
