Legislation & Regulation

In this month’s issue of the journal Brain a new study investigates whether the drugs prescribed to control seizures can increase the risk of...

A new study, published in the JAMA Psychiatry, investigates the effect of stimulant ‘ADHD’ drugs on the brains of children and young adults. The...

Organized psychiatry, committed irrevocably and wholeheartedly to drug pushing and to their corrupt and corrupting relationship with pharma, simply will not countenance the fact that their primary product is fundamentally flawed and destructive. So they hire a PR company; they fund and lobby politicians; they parrot slogans; and they encourage one another to ever-increasing heights of self-congratulation. But they will not commission a definitive study to clarify and assess the scale of this problem once and for all. And the reason for this inaction is because they know that it would be bad for business. It would "cause a lot of people to stop taking their medications."

Dr. Raymond Armstrong and I are currently working together to push Texas lawmakers to adopt restrictions on the prescription of benzodiazepines and sleep drugs. We feel fortunate to be able to draw from the experience of the benzo movement in Massachusetts, and we are grateful for the information that long time advocates like Geraldine Burns have provided us.

My first real introduction to the world of madness and “mental illness” was when I was 21 years old and I left home to start my mental health nurse training. Reflecting on my own experiences has led me to consider how the trauma of participating in the psychiatric system can affect the way we care for others.

A new study published in Lancet Psychiatry challenges the common practice of locking psychiatric wards to prevent patients from attempting suicide or leaving against...

For STAT, Sheila Kaplan reports how the pharmaceutical industry is lobbying presidential candidates and making major contributions, even to candidates who have criticized the...

A Canadian woman is attempting to assert her right to a lawyer in order to fight an involuntary psychiatric hospitalization. While homeless, the patient...

A new study, published in the American Journal of Physiology, investigates how the use of antidepressants during pregnancy can lead to a life-threatening lung...

Today’s New York Times features a story of a drug salesman, Ashish Awasthi, who committed suicide when he felt he couldn’t keep up with...

In part six of a seven-part “Drugging Our Kids” series by The Mercury News, Karen de Sa and Tracy Seipel unveil California’s top foster...

The Lancet Psychiatry published a study last week finding no benefit to locking up patients in mental health hospitals. Data on 145,000 patients found...

In 2004, the American Psychiatric Association published a paper supporting the use of the antidepressant citalopram (Celexa) in children and teens. After reanalyzing the...

HealthNewsReview.org founder Gary Schwitzer talks to New York Magazine on the media coverage of medical research. “We in journalism have to look in the mirror...

“Hailed as a rare bipartisan victory, the Murphy Bill lets politicians falsely claim progress against gun violence while stigmatizing people with 'mental illness,' undermining...

On NPR’s Morning Edition, Lauren Silverman debunks the assumption that mass shooters are usually ‘mentally ill,’ and that mental health policy can substitute for...

Despite the fact that clinical practice guidelines specifically recommend against the use of more than one antipsychotic at once, new research reveals that as...

Mental health nurse education supports institutional psychiatric practice in an insufficiently questioning way. Its formal curricula in universities are often undermined by the informal curricula of practice environments. As an institution, mental health nursing pays insufficient attention to both these issues because it is an arguably un-reflexive and rule-following discipline.

Pharmalot’s Ed Silverman reports that a number of generic drugs, sold by Novartis and Teva Pharmaceuticals, may be pulled off of the shelves after...

Long-term treatment with antipsychotic drugs is currently considered the standard treatment for patients diagnosed with ‘schizophrenia.’ A new study challenges this practice, however. The...

Drug Watch releases an in-depth investigation into the marketing practices of pharmaceutical companies in the United States. “Companies spend billions advertising to doctors to...

The media is now reporting details about the 18-year-old who shot and killed nine and wounded many others before killing himself on July 22 in Munich. My clinical and forensic experience leads to a distinction among people who murder under the influence of psychiatric drugs. Those who kill only one or two people, or close family members, often have little or no history of mental disturbance and violent tendencies. The drug itself seems like the sole cause of the violent outburst. On the other hand, most of those who commit mass violence while taking psychiatric drugs often have a long history of mental disturbance and sometimes violence. For these people, the mental health system seems to have provoked increasing violence without recognizing the danger.

“When the federal government takes the rare step of fining medical providers for violating the privacy and security of patients’ medical information, it issues...

Pharmalot’s Ed Silverman reports on a Senate bill aimed at loosening requirements around the reporting of financial conflicts of interest between companies and physicians....

Over the past twenty years, the number of prescriptions for atypical antipsychotics written to children and young adults between four and eighteen has increased...