Tag: psychiatric drugs

From the Council for Evidence-Based Psychiatry: A major national newspaper is looking for people in the UK willing to share recent stories of negative effects...

We talk to Giovanna from Australia who was prescribed an antidepressant aged 17 and tried many times to withdraw over the next 23 years. She shares her experiences with us including the advice and support that she received and her hopes for the future.

Claire shares her powerful story of being prescribed antidepressants at the age of 16 and her experiences of trying to withdraw., describing how she tapered gradually over 2 years, but went on to experience SSRI discontinuation syndrome

Based on more than 10 years work in the peer support movement,The Icarus Project and Freedom Center’s 52-page guide is used internationally by individuals, families, professionals, and organizations to support reducing and coming off psychiatric drugs.

Researchers call for shift toward proven alternatives like psychotherapy in face of continued evidence of safety risks of benzodiazepines.

The Council for Evidence-Based Psychiatry announces the release of a new book called 'The Sedated Society: The Causes and Harms of our Psychiatric Prescribing Epidemic.'...

From Daily Mail: The anti-psychotic drug Abilify is at the center of hundreds of lawsuits accusing the drug of dangerous side effects including compulsive gambling,...

An issue that often crops up is the question of whether treatment would be safer if given by specialists (partialists) rather than general practitioners (generalists). This could not be more wrong. In most areas of medicine, nobody looks or listens anymore, least of all in psychiatry.

From Scientific American: Recent studies confirm the thesis of Robert Whitaker's Anatomy of an Epidemic - although prescriptions for psychiatric drugs continue to increase, mental health...

The Washington Post investigates the epidemic of suicide and the overuse of psychiatric drugs that is sweeping through towns in Colorado.

A new study finds that individuals being treated with open-label placebos showed significant reductions in pain and disability, even when compared to individuals receiving treatment as usual.

A new study finds that elderly individuals using antidepressants are at significantly higher risk for dementia compared to depressed individuals who did not take the drugs.

A recent review found that hypnotic medications are associated with risks of suicide and suicidal ideation.

Particularly since ketamine has been referred to as the “miracle cure” for depression, and as researchers continue to search for the next biochemical panacea, it is important to remember that even if a substance has antidepressant effects, it still may not be an appropriate treatment for depression.

Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (such as Prozac and Zoloft) are the most commonly prescribed medication for depression. SSRIs have long been associated with an...

A group of researchers recently found serious bias in the reporting of harm due to adverse events in antidepressant medication clinical trials. They report...

A group of French doctors presented a new study in the area of pediatric anesthesiology at this year’s World Congress of Anaesthesiologists in Hong...

Historian Peter Frankopan delves into the use of drugs to fuel combat “from berserkers to jihadis.” “Of the US pilots who took part in...

The general theme, that various "mental illnesses" are being "overdiagnosed" is gaining popularity in recent years among some psychiatrists, presumably in an effort to distance themselves from the trend of psychiatric-drugs-on-demand-for-every-conceivable-human-problem that has become an escalating and undeniable feature of American psychiatric practice. But the implicit assumptions – that there is a correct level of such labeling, and that the label has some valid ontological significance – are emphatically false.

The assertion that the so-called antidepressants are being over-prescribed implies that there is a correct and appropriate level of prescribing and that depression is a chronic illness (just like diabetes). It has been an integral part of psychiatry's message that although depression might have been triggered by an external event, it is essentially an illness residing within the person's neurochemistry. The issue is not whether people should or shouldn't take pills. The issue is psychiatry pushing these dangerous serotonin-disruptive chemicals on people, under the pretense that they have an illness.

In my wildest dreams, I could never have imagined being drawn into a story of intrigue involving my own government’s efforts to hide, from the public, reports of psychiatric drugs associated with cases of murder, including homicides committed by youth on the drugs. But that is precisely the intrigue I now find myself enmeshed in.

Psychiatry would long since have gone the way of phrenology and mesmerism but for the financial support it receives from the pharmaceutical industry. But the truth has a way of trickling out. Here are five recent stories that buck the psychiatry-friendly stance that has characterized the mainstream media for at least the past 50 years.

Sinead says she was misdiagnosed after giving birth eight years ago and has suffered greatly from the psychiatric drugs she was prescribed. “They are...

Jim van Os, professor of Psychiatric Epidemiology at Maastricht University and member of the Royal Dutch Academy of Science with more than 700 publications, is one of the top one percent highly cited scientists in the world.

When I wrote Anatomy of an Epidemic, one of my foremost hopes was that it would prompt mainstream researchers to revisit the scientific literature. Was there evidence that any class of psychiatric medications—antipsychotics, antidepressants, stimulants, benzodiazepines, and so forth—provided a long-term benefit? Now epidemiologists at Columbia University and City College of New York have reported that they have done such an investigation about antipsychotics, and their bottom-line finding can be summed up in this way: Psychiatry’s “evidence base” for long-term use of these drugs does not exist.