Mental Health Patients Overlooked in Compulsory Treatment
From The Sydney Morning Herald: A new review found that mental health patients' decision-making capacity is very rarely considered in court rulings on involuntary treatment.
"The...
The More Opioids Doctors Prescribe, the More Money They Make
An exclusive analysis by CNN and researchers at Harvard University found that opioid manufacturers are paying physicians huge sums of money â and that doctors with higher...
Three Experts Discuss the Role of Insanity in Our Legal System
Three leading legal scholars speak to Pacific Standard about the nature and history of the insanity defense, as well as its impact on our criminal...
Bill to Force Pharma to Disclose Payments to Advocacy Groups
From STAT: Last month, Senator Claire McCaskill released a report showing that opioid manufacturers had funneled nearly $9 million to patient advocacy groups between 2012...
Disclosing Corporate Funding is Not Nearly Enough
From The Chronicle of Higher Education: A number of studies have shown the significant problems that arise from financial conflicts in research. Disclosure of researchers'...
The Poison We Pick
In this piece for New York Magazine, Andrew Sullivan traces the history of the use of opiates in the U.S. and explores the social, economic,...
Pharma Backing of Advocacy Groups: A Call for Transparency
From HealthNewsReview.org: In light of the opioid crisis, lawmakers are growing increasingly concerned about financial conflicts of interest in patient advocacy groups. Ontario has enacted...
How Would We Know If We Overthrew the Mental Health System?
What would it take to go about abolishing psychiatry? If we truly eliminated all the horrid practices that are currently committed by the mental health system, what would the world look like? What follows are 15 ways our society would need to change before we could be confident that we are free from the tyranny of the mental health system.
How I Know That Psychiatric Hospitals Don’t Cure Gun Violence
In this piece for the Hartford Courant, Kathleen Flaherty describes why President Trump's assertion that more psychiatric hospitals would prevent mass shootings is inaccurate and...
Do Antidepressants Work? A People’s Review of the Evidence
After a meta-analysis of RCTs of antidepressants was published in Lancet, psychiatry stated that it proved that "antidepressants" work. However, effectiveness studies of real-world patients reveal the opposite: the medications increase the likelihood that patients will become chronically depressed, and disabled by the disorder.
Royal College of Psychiatrists Accused of Misleading Claims
From The Herald: A group of mental health experts and patients have submitted a formal letter of complaint accusing the Royal College of Psychiatrists of...
Bill Would Introduce Fraud Convictions for Gay ‘Cure’ Therapists
From PinkNews: A new bill has been introduced in California would would see practitioners of gay conversion therapy prosecuted for fraud.
"The bill would build on the...
Two Who Died in Psychiatric Hospitals Were Improperly Medicated
From The Boston Globe: According to a new report from the Disability Law Center in Boston, two patients who died at Arbour Health System psychiatric...
New Site Names Companies Who Fail to Report on Clinical Trials
From Pacific Standard: The U.S. government has never penalized anyone for breaking a law that requires institutions to report the results of clinical trials. A...
#MeToo in Medicine: Women Harassed in Hospitals
From NBC: Although sexual harassment is widespread in the field of medicine, women face significant barriers to speaking out and reporting abuse. In light of...
For-Profit Medicine Incentivizes Overmedicating Our Elderly
From NBC: According to human rights investigators, anti-psychotic drugs are often administered to nursing home residents to address behavioral issues. Our nation's lack of funding...
We Need to Encourage People to Make Advance Directives
In this piece for STAT, Jennifer Adaeze Okwerekwu describes the value of psychiatric advance directives for those at risk of experiencing an emotional crisis.
"'Itâs something that can...
More Critiques of the Lancet Antidepressant Study
Researchers and advocates have continued to critique The Lancet's recent study claiming to prove definitively that antidepressants are more effective than placebo. Below are a...
Benzodiazepines: Our Other Prescription Drug Epidemic
From STAT: Although benzodiazepines are some of the most commonly prescribed psychiatric medications in the U.S., few people realize how dangerous and addictive these drugs can be.
"Highly...
Privacy for Whom?
From The New Inquiry: Civil libertarians and liberal privacy advocates often frame government surveillance as a universal threat. But two new books show that surveillance...
Anti-depressants: “I’ve Lost My Identity and Who I Am”
From BBC: Mad in America Radio Host and Program Director James Moore speaks about the impact that antidepressant withdrawal has had on his life.
"The 46-year-old has...
The Mental Health System Can’t Stop Mass Shooters
In this piece for The New York Times, psychiatrist Amy Barnhorst explains why it is not feasible for mental health professionals to identify or treat people...
Apology Sought for Confinement of People with Disabilities
From the National Post: An independent report found that disabled people were being unjustly confined in a Nova Scotia psychiatric hospital. Law professor Archie Kaiser...
When Data Doesn’t Mean What We Think It Does
From The New York Times: In recent years, social scientists have become increasingly concerned about the "replication crisis," i.e. the dearth of reproducible research results....
The Female Subject in Psychiatry From Pathology to Prozac
In this piece for The New Inquiry, Sophie Putka chronicles the mental health profession's long history of pathologizing, diagnosing, and medicating women's emotions.
"With Freudâs claims...
