Remember...
when the book, Listening to Prozac came out back in 1993? Remember the notion that it could make people better versions of themselves? I was deeply skeptical then and I confess to feeling a bit of schadenfreude over the current state of affairs in psychopharmacology.
This week David Healy posted a wonderful piece on the 25th anniversary of Prozac. He concludes:
Twenty-five years ago, no one could have imagined that the bulk of the treatment literature would be ghostwritten, that negative trials could be portrayed as glowingly positive studies of a drug, that controlled trials could have be...
Source: Jung At Heart - February 7, 2013 Category: Psychiatrists and Psychologists Source Type: blogs
Drugs for Diabetes Pain
By David Spero
Pain researcher Rebecca Sudore, MD, says, "Adults living with Type 2 diabetes are suffering from incredibly high rates of pain, at levels similar to patients living with cancer." Sounds awful. But what can we do about it? Actually, quite a bit.
Let's look at medications first. Because chronic pain involves emotions, thoughts, stress, general health, and the entire body, there are at least six different categories of drugs that can help with pain. They include: narcotics, anxiolytics (“tranquilizers"), antidepressants, anti-inflammatories, medicines for seizures, and alternative treatments.
With all tho...
Source: Diabetes Self-Management - February 6, 2013 Category: Diabetes Authors: David Spero Source Type: blogs
Healing PTSD with Pets for Vets
“Healing Power of Pets: Veteran with PTSD finds new life with dog” is a video profiling a United States Marine Corps veteran who served in the Iraq war and like many returning veterans, suffers from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Blade, a brave, strong man, developed debilitating symptoms of PTSD including suicidal thoughts, and nearly ended his own life.
Fortunately, he connected with Pets for Vets instead. They’re a 501(c) non-profit organization who rescue dogs from shelters, rehabilitate and train them to become certified psychiatric service dogs, and match them to veterans who can benefit fr...
Source: Channel N - February 3, 2013 Category: Neurologists Authors: sandra at psychcentral.com (Sandra Kiume) Tags: All Documentary anxiety brain dog pets psychology ptsd service dog therapy treatment vets video Source Type: blogs
The Antidepressant Era: the movie
No apologies here, this article (and videos) have been lifted straight from David Healy’s excellent website.
It’s important that as many people as possible have the chance to read the piece and take time to watch the film.
As far as the pharmaceutical industry is concerned, I can tell you from first hand experience that the industry still believes in its own hype… do more, feel better and live longer is Glaxo’s strapline and no one in that company thinks there’s even a hint of irony in that.
Now for Dr Healy’s piece:
The Antidepressant Era: the movie
The Antidepressant Era was written i...
Source: seroxat secrets... - February 3, 2013 Category: Mental Illness Authors: admin Tags: Drug Marketing Glaxo Uncategorized Big Pharma GlaxoSmithKline Source Type: blogs
A Condemnation of Suppression of Medical Research... by Ben Goldacre in the New York Times
Amazingly, this topic now seems to be in the mainstream.The Goldacre Version in the New York Times in 2013 In his op-ed, Ben Goldacre introduced it thus:the entire evidence base for medicine has been undermined by a casual lack of transparency. Sometimes this is through a failure to report concerns raised by doctors and internal analyses, as was the case with Johnson & Johnson. More commonly, it involves the suppression of clinical trial results, especially when they show a drug is no good.He noted that this problems was supposed to be fixed by the registration of clinical trials, and by changes in editorial polici...
Source: Health Care Renewal - February 2, 2013 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Tags: perverse incentives impunity You heard it here first transparency anechoic effect suppression of medical research Source Type: blogs
Brand names make it to the OED!
I first created this post in 2007, and apart from the home page, it has been the most viewed page on my blog (over 6,000 views). So here it is again, with a link to the latest OED update.
It’s fascinating to peruse the new words added to the OED. (Here is the latest update, December 2010.) Brand names often enter the language as generic terms, and I’ve listed a few of them below. (I wonder who they have in mind with the word “flip-flopper”. And what on earth is a cotylosaur? I thought “chicklet” meant a little piece of gum, but I was disappointed to discover that it means a small chick o...
Source: ANNE T-V's BLOG - January 18, 2011 Category: Professors and Educators Authors: annietv600 Tags: Friday Fun Uncategorized Source Type: blogs
Fluoride is killing us
FLUORIDE IS KILLING US Fluoride is killing us adults. It’s time to eliminate fluoridation. More children are swallowing toothpaste, getting fluoride in their soft drinks, fruit juices, and dental fluoride application, and are getting fluoride intoxication by the age of eight. The government is now recommending reducing the level of fluoride in drinking water by 40%. After 65 years of fluoridation in 64% of American families,, researchers find that over 40% of our children before the age of 15 have spotting or streaking under their teeth( up by 50% over The last decade)...
Source: Dr. Needles Medical Blogs - January 9, 2011 Category: Physicians With Health Advice Tags: FLUORIDE IS KILLING US Source Type: blogs
Notes on autism severity and the DSM-V
I was asked briefly to comment onthe notion of " severity " of autism as currently proposed for the DSM-V. Here are some far from complete notes (some from earlier writing or work of mine) I organized in response:Currently, “severity” of autism most often refers to the attempt to quantify the obviousness of autistic traits and abilities. The more obvious these traits and abilities are judged to be, and therefore the more atypical a person is judged to be, the more “severe” autism is considered to be.Being “more severe” (having more obvious autistic traits and abilities, or being more obviously atypical) is wide...
Source: The Autism Crisis - June 15, 2009 Category: Child Development Source Type: blogs
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Is the customer always right? I don't think so, and neither does The Chief Happiness Officer.I worked in a hospital where the corporate policy was to do Medical Screening Evaluations (MSE's) and to require pre-registration and pre-payment for those who we determined did not have an Emergency Medical Condition. When I started there, the ER director, a nurse administrator, explained that the corporations intent was to "train the community" in the proper utilization of the ER and to discourage inappropriate use.A number of hospitals don't do this, both because of a fear of liability and a fear of alienating "customers." I alw...
Source: DrTony - July 18, 2006 Category: Family Physicians Source Type: blogs
