An article in the New York Review of Books takes a look at three recent titles exploring a current American phenomenon that writer Marcia Angell terms a “rampaging epidemic of mental illness.”
The three titles are: The Emperor’s New Drugs: Exploding the Antidepressant Myth
by Irving Kirsch; Anatomy of an Epidemic: Magic Bullets, Psychiatric Drugs, and the Astonishing Rise of Mental Illness in America by Robert Whitaker; and Unhinged: The Trouble ...
According to a story on the NBC News Website, some patients who take antidepressants experience severe withdrawal symptoms when they try to go off the drugs – raising concerns that they’re essentially stuck taking them for the rest of their lives.
The report quotes a patient named Gina O’Brien as saying she feels that she’s now hooked on the drug and that its manufacturer controls her.
An inability to stop taking antidepressants ...
continue reading...In a column for Fox News, psychiatrist Dr. Keith Ablow writes of recently available laboratory testing that helps psychiatrists identify which antidepressants are the best match for a patient’s genetic makeup.
According to Ablow, medical professionals hope the testing may help counteract some of the documented drawbacks to antidepressants.
For example, Ablow notes that recent studies have suggested some antidepressants don’t work much better than placebos for many patients suffering from mild ...
continue reading...A recent study suggests that creatine, a supplement commonly used by athletes to help build muscle mass, is a promising treatment for depression.
According to an article in The Atlantic, researchers have previously found that creatine aids in treatment of depressed female rats. It was tested for the first time on depressed women as a booster to standard antidepressant treatment.
The Atlantic says the common antidepressants classified as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors ...
continue reading...John Horgan, director of the Center for Science Writings at the Stevens Institute of Technology, wrote an article for the Chronicle of Higher Education in which he questions whether the surge in antidepressant prescriptions may be doing more harm than good.
In fact, he writes that clinical evidence suggests “American psychiatry, in collusion with the pharmaceutical industry, is perpetrating what may be the biggest case of iatrogenesis—harmful medical treatment—in history.”
When he ...
continue reading...In an interview with reporters, GlaxoSmithKline chief executive officer Andrew Witty addressed the record $3 billion in penalties recently assessed against his company – including the question of whether jail time for company executives might be appropriate in such cases.
In a blog entry about the interview, the Philadelphia Inquirer’s David Sell mentions that Witty became CEO in May 2008, which is after the criminal conduct involved in the plea agreement. The GSK board of directors was aware of the investigation ...
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