DSM Panels Rife With Conflicts of Interest
Safeguards ostensibly put in place to ensure "a transparent process of development for the DSM," and an "unbiased, evidence-based DSM, free from any conflicts...
Justice Department Raises J&J Settlement to $1.8 Billion
Following Johnson & Johnson's $158 million resolution with Texas several states have demanded higher payments, leading the U.S. Justice Department to raise its demand...
Popularity of Off-Label Antipsychotic Use Grows
Fueled by aggressive marketing that hyped atypical antipsychotics as safe and effective for off-label uses, states an article in The Washington Post yesterday, sales of the drugs...
NYPD Whistleblower Fights Forced Hospitalization
The Village Voice reports this week on NYPD whistleblower Adrian Schoolcraft's two-year fight for justice after high-ranking NYPD officials illegally removed him from his house and had...
Scientific American Reviews “Anatomy of an Epidemic”
Scientific American calls "Anatomy of an Epidemic" one of the most disturbing and consequential works of investigative journalism "in a long time. Perhaps ever." In...
$1 Billion J&J Settlement Rejected as Insufficient
Federal prosecutors have rejected as insufficient the $1 billion settlement reached two months ago between Johnson & Johnson and prosecutors in Philadelphia to resolve...
Senator Pursues Antipsychotic Prescription Practices
Senator Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) "inappropriate prescriptions." Finds "shocking" that medicaid prescribers write "more prescriptions than seems humanly possible."
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100% Of DSM Schizophrenia and Mood Disorder “Experts” Have Ties to Drug Companies
A 2006 study in the journal Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics finds that 100% of schizophrenia and mood disorder experts and over 80% of other experts advising...
Leading Drugs For Psychosis Come Under New Scrutiny
May, 2003 article in the New York Times questioning the promise of second-generation antipsychotics.
Go to New York Times ...
Atypical Antipsychotics in the Treatment of Schizophrenia: Systematic Overview and Meta-Regression Analysis
An overview of 52 randomized controlled trials of conventional v. atypical antipsychotics in a total of 12,649 patients, published in the British Medical Journal in...
Mental Illness Mortality is Climbing
Mortality rates in schizophrenia and bipolar patients in the year after hospitalization were about double the national average and rising, according to this study...
Medical Model Does Not Increase Social Acceptance
A review of all studies of mental illness-related beliefs and attitudes in the general population published before March 31, 2011 found that understanding of...
Cumulative Risk of Impairment and Death From Anticholinergic Medication
The New York Times reports that a two-year longitudinal study of over 13,000 men and women over 65 found that anticholinergic medications, which include many...
The Depression Diagnosis Under Scrutiny
Researchers in Denmark find that the diagnosis of depression in the DSM-IV contains at least 1,497 possible combinations of symptoms, with the potential for...
Antipsychotics for Dementia: Not Justified and Risky
In a study of antipsychotics used to treat 75,445 patients in nursing homes in the United States, researchers from Harvard Medical School, Columbia and...
NH Wins $10 Million to Expand Fitness Program
New Hampshire's SHAPE program to promote physical fitness for the mentally ill has been so successful that the federal government has awarded $10 million...
Better Recovery and Less Relapse Without Meds: A 20-Year Study
Researchers at the University of Illinois College of Medicine found, in a 20-year prospective study of 139 psychotic patients, that patients had a far...
Psychosis as a Basic “Disturbance of Self”
Researchers in Australia and the U.K. found that a basic disruption of the sense of ownership of one's experience and a lack of self-agency...
Criticism of the DSM Goes Mainstream
Criticism of the upcoming revision of the DSM has gone mainstream, with Forbes Magazine weighing in on the economics of medicalizing grief, and Fox News questioning the...
Psychosis in the General Population
Schizophrenia Bulletin explores "the extended psychosis phenotype," finding that affective dysregulation, psychotic experiences, motivational impairments, and cognitive alterations are distributed throughout the population, and suggestive...
Schizophrenia Bulletin Questions the “Psychosis Phenotype”
In an editorial introducing its March issue, Schizophrenia Bulletin explores the categorical distinctions that have defined and directed research into psychotic disorders since the late 19th...
60 Minutes to Cover Antidepressant/Placebo Controversy This Sunday
Lesley Stahl interviews Irving Kirsch of the Placebo Studies Program at Harvard Medical School this Sunday's edition of 60 Minutes. Stahl says the implication...
England Seeks to Stop Antipsychotics For Dementia
English health minister Paul Burstow is seeking to outlaw the 'silent scandal' of inappropriate antipsychotics for dementia by proposing legislation that imposes up to...
David Healy Critiques Gibbons’ Reanalysis of Antidepressants and Suicide
David Healy critiques the reanalysis by Robert Gibbons of antidepressants and suicidality in children and adolescents that was reported on this page yesterday. He...
Lawsuit Filed for Alleged Zoloft-Related Birth Defects
Lawyers in St. Louis have filed a lawsuit against Pfizer that alleges 18 children were born with birth defects caused by the antidepressant Zoloft...
