Joshua Gordon Wants to Remake Mental Health Care
From Undark Magazine: Joshua Gordon, the new director of the National Institute of Mental Health, plans to invest heavily in brain research; he hopes to...
Do Antidepressants Increase Risk of Adult Suicide?
From From Insults to Respect: It is commonly assumed that antidepressants increase the risk of suicide in children and young adults, but not in adults...
Study Investigates Physicians’ Beliefs About Placebo and Nocebo Effects of Antidepressants
Surveyed doctors overestimate pharmacological effects of antidepressants and underestimate placebo effects.
‘Salami Slicing’ Found in Analyses of Antipsychotic Trials
Evidence of duplicate publishing in articles analyzing data from clinical trials testing second-generation antipsychotics for depression
FBI Raids Lab That Pays Doctors to Promote Genetic Tests
From STAT: Federal investigators recently searched Proove Biosciences, a genetic testing company that purports to determine an individual's likelihood of becoming addicted to opioids. Proove's genetic...
The Crisis of Expertise
From Aeon: Experts have been wrong many times throughout history, from nutritional scientists' claims that eggs might be lethal in the 1970s to the Nobel...
United Nations Report Calls for Revolution in Mental Health Care
In a new report, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the right to health, Dr. Dainius Pūras, calls for a move away from the biomedical model and “excessive use of psychotropic medicines.”
Are Pharmaceutical Companies to Blame for the Opioid Epidemic?
From The Atlantic: As opioid abuse rises, some attorneys general and advocates are filing lawsuits against pharmaceutical companies for misleading doctors and the public about...
Researchers Reveal Misconceptions About ADHD
A new article explains common misconceptions about ADHD that are held by teachers and mental health professionals and may lead to overdiagnosis and overmedication in schools.
Corrupt Health Care Practices Drive Up Costs and Fail Patients
From The Huffington Post: Corruption is insidiously pervasive in our healthcare system and dramatically increases our health expenditures. Patients are increasingly being given unnecessary treatments...
Big Pharma Might Be Intentionally Confusing You
From Benzinga: The FDA has suggested that drug commercials may intentionally list potential side effects in such a rapid-fire, overwhelming way that the warning messages...
Ohio Attorney General Sues Prescription Opioid Manufacturers
Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine has filed a lawsuit against five leading prescription opioid manufacturers and their related companies in Ross County Court of Common...
Opioid Conflict-of-Interest Reveals Big Pharma’s Ties to Doctors
From CBC News: A McMaster University committee has been assigned to develop new opioid-prescribing guidelines for Canada's doctors. While the rules explicitly prohibited anyone with ties...
‘A Little Bit of OCD’: The Downside of Mental Health Awareness
From The Guardian: People often claim to experience mental health problems only to excuse their unpleasant or hurtful behaviors. This can exacerbate prejudice toward those...
Some Social Scientists are Tired of Asking for Permission
From The New York Times: The Department of Health and Human Services's Office for Human Research Protections recently revised its rules for social science research. Studies...
Researchers Find that Textbooks Include Biased Information About ADHD
A review of academic textbooks finds that they often leave out effect sizes and molecular genetics findings, both of which suggest minimal impact of genetics on ADHD. Instead, textbooks focus on overblown conclusions from behavioral studies.
Doctors Too Reliant on Pfizer’s Depression Questionnaire
From The Telegraph: Depression is being overdiagnosed due to doctors' reliance on a nine-question form designed by pharmaceutical company Pfizer to assess patients for depression.
Article...
Restricting Pharma Reps Contact with Docs Decreases Prescriptions
Implementing policies that regulate pharmaceutical sales representatives’ interaction with physicians may reduce prescription of promoted drugs.
Lancet Psychiatry’s Controversial ADHD Study: Errors, Criticism, and Responses
Amid calls for a retraction, Lancet Psychiatry publishes articles criticizing the original finding and a response from the authors.
Scott Gottlieb Confirmed as Head of the FDA
From Pacific Standard: This past Tuesday, the Senate confirmed Scott Gottlieb as head of the Food and Drug Administration.
"Although some Senate Democrats had worried about...
From Protoscience to Proper Science
From The Guardian: The field of psychology is fraught with fundamental problems in its research practices, from publication bias to data corruption. The field must...
Introducing the Doing the Right Thing Award
From STAT: STAT has recently awarded the first-ever Doing the Right Thing (DiRT) Award to the American Diabetes Association and its flagship journal, Diabetes, for championing correct...
Brain Stimulation Research Lacking in Reproducibility and Scientific Integrity
Questionable research practices and poor reproducibility in electrical brain stimulation (EBS) studies.
Dear Scott Gottlieb: Add New Warnings to Paxil Labels
From STAT: Scott Gottlieb, Trump's pick to lead the FDA, should consider pursuing a stronger warning label for the antidepressant Paxil. Paxil's label currently does...
Phony Peer Review: The More we Look, the More we Find
From STAT: Publishers are increasingly finding previously published studies that need to be retracted due to fraudulent peer review processes. Springer recently announced the retraction of...
