Yesterday, we wrote that a new study found the accuracy of ads for antidepressants and antipsychotics often make claims that can’t be verified and attempts to obtain data cited in the ads from the drugmakers were rarely successful. The study, which examined the accuracy of 69 ads that appeared in four widely read medical journals [...]

A new study finds that the accuracy of ads for antidepressants and antipsychotics often make claims that can’t be verified and attempts to obtain data cited in the ads from the drugmakers were rarely successful. The study examined the accuracy of 69 ads that appeared in four widely read medical journals - Archives of General [...]

Amid the ongoing debate over antidepressants is a point that, sometimes, gets overlooked. And that is the extent to which these drugs may affect psychological development and even identity. That’s the issue raised in a thoughtful essay by Richard Friedman, a psychiatry professor at Weill Cornell Medical College. “Most of my patients, who are adults, [...]

The US Supreme Court has declined to hear an appeal from a South Carolina teenager who was sentenced to 30 years in prison for killing his grandparents with a shotgun when he was 12 years old, The New York Times reports. Without comment, the justices refused to review the sentence imposed on Christopher Pittman, whose [...]

A federal appeals court has decided that the drugmakers can’t be held liable for a pair of suicides that were blamed on antidepressants and an alleged failure by the manufacturers to include sufficient warnings about links to suicide. The ruling comes just months before the US Supreme Court is scheduled to review preemption and whether [...]

This is certain to cause a ruckus. Two years after Health Canada warned about prescribing antidepressants to children, a new study reports that the number of children and teens who died by suicide increased 25 per cent after years of steady decline, The Vancouver Sun writes. At the same time, the increased suicide rate coincided [...]

In January, Erick Turner, a professor of psychiatry at Oregon Health & Science University and a clinician at the Portland VA Medical Center, shook up the medical community, provoked the pharmaceutical industry and, perhaps, disappointed millions of depressed Americans, Phil Dawdy writes in The Willamette Week. That’s because he published a paper in The New [...]

Close to 10 percent of men and women in America are reportedly taking drugs to combat depression. How did a once rare condition become so common? That’s the question asked in a lengthy piece in a recent issue of Scientific American. And the author suggests there are two overarching reasons…
1 - Many docs conflate conventional [...]

An Indiana man charged with beating another man in the head with a metal bar told police the devil made him do it, The Indianapolis Star writes. But according to a police report, Leo Wantuch III, 37, of Mishawaka told police the devil only began controlling him after he started taking the Paxil antidepressant drug [...]

A controversial New Jersey bill to require informed consent from a minor’s parent before a doc, nurse practitioner and other healthcare providers can write a prescription for any psychotropic that already carries a Black Box warning was approved overwhelmingly by the state assembly yesterday in a 72-to-3 vote. You can read the bill here. Now, [...]