Abilify Runs Amok, Runs Stealth Safety Campaign in Medical Journal
Furious Seasons has a rather distressing piece of news from a recent Bristol-Myers Squibb conference call. To sum it up quickly, BMS claims that 10.6% of depressed patients are now receiving atypical...
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Phase V, Abilify, and Vanishing Akathisia
If you've been reading about Abilify for depression on this site, you've probably noticed that I've been down on Abilify for causing akathisia in a frighteningly high percentage of patients. In two...
View ArticleOpen Up Yer Wallets
Yeah, I know the economy is in very bad shape and possibly getting worse. But for the kind of fantastic investigative journalism we get from the inimitable Philip Dawdy at Furious Seasons, one really...
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Pseudoscience, Candy, and Lamar Odom: Brought to you by Daniel Amen
If you follow professional basketball, you've probably noticed that LA Lakers forward Lamar Odom has a well-deserved reputation for inconsistent play. When he's good, he's close to amazing, and when...
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Abilify for Depression: Patients Give it an Oh-For-Three
Abilify for depression: you've seen the ads. You've hopefully read this blog (1, 2) and the excellent series in the LA Times from Melissa Healy. The advantage over placebo is nothing to get...
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Greedy and Ghostly Scientists
Story one: Zachary Stowe, psychiatrist at Emory University becomes Charles Nemeroff, Jr. Read all about it the Carlat Psychiatry Blog and University Diaries. And check out the WSJ Health Blog as well....
View ArticleNew American Psychiatric Association Prez: We Want Money
In a recent speech, incoming American Psychiatric Association president Alan Schatzberg was quoted as saying:"As the recent attacks on APA and leaders of the profession have occurred, it has struck me...
View ArticleAward Winning Journalism (?)
Erroneous reporting wins prestigious award, starring Charles Nemeroff. Oy. Brought to you courtesy of Health Care Renewal. Read the full story and shake your head. Teaser:Something about the...
View ArticleWill Pharma's (Tax) Free Speech Be Limited?
Dan Neil has an absolutely marvelous column in the LA Times about pharma's bitching/moaning regarding increased regulation of its advertising and its potential loss of tax writeoffs associated with...
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Thanks For Your Service, Now Take This Pill
According to a freshly published study, one in five depressed patients receiving services through the VA healthcare system in the United States is taking an antipsychotic. Of those taking...
View ArticleThe Asenapine Chronicles?
I'm not sure what to make of this. A lot of documents have become available on the Shearlings Got Plowed blog, which deal with the new antipsychotic drug asenapine. If I had the time, I'd be burying...
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Key Opinion Leader Syndrome
I ran across a rather hilarious article from Medical Hypotheses, in which David Healy described "Krapelin-Fraud Syndrome", which I have also dubbed "Key Opinion Leader Syndrome." See below for the...
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Wanted: Drug Pimp/Key Opinion Leader
Daniel Carlat from the Carlat Psychiatry Blog received an invitation to the key opinion leader club from the good people at Schering-Plough. The company wanted him to read their slides to other...
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Lend Me Your Name
Journalism regarding the horrors of ghostwritten papers in medical journals is all the rage these days (1, 2, 3). Here's my very small contribution. The document shown below from a medical writing...
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Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation for Depression: Not so Effective, but FDA...
Apparently, the FDA will approve just about anything as an antidepressant. Despite patients indicating that they don't perceive Abilify to work as an antidepressant, the FDA approved it, likely leading...
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Atypical Antipsychotics For Depression: Now With "Considerable Evidence"
I've been wanting to write about this for months. Here goes. We know that antipsychotics are the new panacea for all things mental health-related, including depression (1, 2, 3). But critics kept...
View ArticleDo You Have Mild, Moderate, or Severe Depression? Here, Take This Placebo,...
Yet another meta-analysis with the same damn result -- antidepressants for most cases of depression are placebos. This is in a paper with authors including Jay Amsterdam, Richard Shelton, and Jan...
View ArticleSay Hello to Temper Dysregulation Disorder with Dysphoria
The buzz around the new version of the DSM is already starting. The draft version is now online and it features a new condition with the ungainly moniker of "Temper Dysregulation Disorder with...
View ArticleIf You Don't Learn Your Lesson the First Time
I'm short on time, so I apologize for the lack of details. The short of it: A researcher at the University of Sheffield (Guirong Jang) submitted research findings regarding Procter & Gamble's...
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Editorial Support, CME, and the Primary Care Companion
By now, everyone who has been paying attention should know that a journal article which lists "editorial support" is an article that was ghostwritten. Yet the average reader of these articles is...
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