This post links to From Just Say No to Getting to Yes. If I prescribe you a medicine, the science starts when you swallow it. The observers at this experiment are you, your family, friends, people you work or live with – and me. Science is said to be based on Show Me not| RxISK - Making Medicines Safer for All of Us
When your loved one goes to the emergency room (ER) with aggressive or agitated behavior, doctors may give medications to help keep them safe and calm. As an adult child or family member, it’s important to understand what these medications are, why they’re used, and what to expect when your loved one returns to the nursing home. The post When Your Loved One Goes to the ER appeared first on Encounter Telehealth.| Encounter Telehealth
Yesterday, the BBC reported that following inquests where older drivers with compromised eyesight have killed pedestrians, and what, possibly thanks to the work of the BBC's Hazel Martin (SSRIs and Alcohol), the British government has called "a catastrophic rise" in deaths linked to alcohol, it has been announced that there will be a tightening of| RxISK - Making Medicines Safer for All of Us
How Prozac helped me rediscover my life by easing depression, restoring joy, and rebuilding my connection to everyday pleasures.| How Prozac Helped Me Rediscover My Life in the Most Unexpected Way
The recent FDA Panel on SSRIs and Pregnancy attracted a scathing Media Response. See Unsafe Safety Systems for 25 responses including the American Psychiatric Association and Britain’s College of Psychiatrists. For the most part the responses were remarkably similar, displayed complete amnesia for previously accepted facts, and downplayed any risks with phrases like earlier smaller […] The post The Miracle of Artificial Intelligence first appeared on Dr. David Healy.| Dr. David Healy
Following the FDA Panel on SSRIs and pregnancy, there have so far been 25 English language US-based media reports and counting. These are reproduced following the UnSafe Safety Systems post. There will likely be more from professional medical groups and medical journals which will be posted after this post. Anything anyone spots would be good […] The post Antidepressants and Pregnancy Adam Urato first appeared on RxISK.| RxISK
On behalf of FDA Commissioner Marty Makary, M.D., M.P.H., the FDA is holding a series of roundtable discussions with independent panels of scientific experts that will review the latest scientific evidence, evaluate potential health risks, explore safer alternatives, and may offer recommendations for regulatory action. This initiative is part of the FDA’s broader efforts to apply| RxISK - Making Medicines Safer for All of Us
On behalf of FDA Commissioner Marty Makary, M.D., M.P.H., the FDA is holding a series of roundtable discussions with independent panels of scientific experts that will review the latest scientific evidence, evaluate potential health risks, explore safer alternatives, and may offer recommendations for regulatory action. This initiative is part of the FDA’s broader efforts to […] The post FDA Panel: SSRIs and Pregnancy first appeared on Dr. David Healy.| Dr. David Healy
Mental health conditions are real health issues that deserve appropriate and individualized medical care. Making informed healthcare decisions requires that women and their healthcare providers be aware of the available safety information for each specific medication they might be considering. We encourage pregnant women and those planning a pregnancy to have open conversations with their healthcare […]| MotherToBaby
On his site Ecstatic Integration, the writer Jules Evans published a post titled ‘Are you a psychedelic cultist?’ It features a ‘Psychedelic Cultism Questionnaire’ to help readers assess how ‘culty’ they are when it comes to psychedelics. It consists of eight statements – all in the vein of a rosy, utopian, ‘no bad vibes allowed’…| Sam Woolfe
Most of us can relate to feeling sad or blue, sometimes for days at a time. It may be in response to a major life event like losing a job, a break-up, or as part of grief. These sad feelings can lead us to feel less interested in enjoyable activities, make us lose our appetite […]| Better Health While Aging
Epidemiology deals in correlations that are subject to confounding. Think tobacco and lung cancer. Although studies should attempt to account for confounding, confounding can also be exploited to explain away inconvenient data as tobacco company claims that correlations do not prove causation illustrated. This underpinned the famous Doubt is our Product tobacco company strategy, which| RxISK - Making Medicines Safer for All of Us
In Epidemiology of Autism Spectrum Disorder on RxISK, I mention that for me a key paper in a reference list of 27 references was one by Ann Bauer and colleagues, who recognized limitations to the epidemiological data but nailed their colours to the mast in saying that there was sufficient evidence here that pregnant women […] The post Bauer Power and Informed Consent first appeared on Dr. David Healy.| Dr. David Healy
I took part in a podcast recently at the invitation of John Wilks and Our Birth Journey a group John is linked to. Our conversation is on this link: Antidepressants and Acetaminophen Use During Pregnancy The title says Antidepressants and Acetaminophen (U.S. for Paracetamol). The original invite was to talk about Antidepressants and Pregnancy. The| RxISK - Making Medicines Safer for All of Us
Is the 60-year battle to conquer the Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV) in its final phases? Is bronchiolitis about to be banished for ever? The propaganda might lead you to think so. Most developed countries from USA to Australia and Luxembourg to Nicaragua have jumped on the bandwagon and give “free” immunisations with either Pfizer’s maternal| RxISK - Making Medicines Safer for All of Us
From Josef Witt-Doerring's YouTube Channel: "In this interview, David Carmichael shares his devastating experience with psychiatric medications,| Mad In America
Those using antidepressants long-term were more likely to experience withdrawal and to have severe withdrawal symptoms.| Mad In America
In 2023 a new set of Canadian Guidelines for the Management of Alcohol Use Disorders put a serious problem on the radar for doctors that few of them likely expected. See Antidepressants, Alcohol and Anne-Marie. The antidepressants doctors commonly prescribed, often telling people these medicines would help them manage their alcohol issues, were likely causing| RxISK - Making Medicines Safer for All of Us
Millions of people are trying multiple antidepressant drugs without success, and psychiatry labels them “treatment resistant.”| Mad In America
On March 20th, Senators Tina Smith and Ben Lujan, and Representatives Andrea Salinas and Becca Balint, sent a letter to the Secretary of the US Department of Health and Human Services, Robert F Kennedy, expressing concern about his promotion of disproven and outright false theories about mental health medications. In separate comments, Senator Smith indicated| Dr. David Healy
Exhaustive, data-driven, systematic research topples the conceptual house of cards in which the antidepressant hegemony resides.| Mad In America
I am among those who can be blamed for the disastrous MHRA supported drug label and messaging for antidepressants, along with Guideline recommendations that tell doctors and patients that it can take 6 weeks for antidepressant induced recovery to take place. This idea has been interpreted by MHRA and lots of psychiatrists and family doctors, […] The post Six Weeks to Recover a Grin first appeared on Dr. David Healy.| Dr. David Healy
The studies are of short duration and are riddled with methodological issues like unblinding and failure to assess withdrawal.| Mad In America
Understanding Antidepressant Withdrawal © Coral Smith 2025 This post by Harriet Vogt follows on from her recent Ruptures in Clinical Care post The members of Shane Cooke and Mary Hennessey’s antidepressant withdrawal peer support group decided there was more to explore together after our first meeting. They wanted to dig deeper into their experiences of protracted| RxISK - Making Medicines Safer for All of Us
Researchers: Fetal exposure to vilazodone hampers neurodevelopment and leads to "long-lasting neurodevelopmental impairments."| Mad In America
A large-scale study reveals that antidepressant use is linked to faster cognitive decline in dementia patients, raising concerns about their widespread prescription.| Mad In America
Using genetic analysis, a new study finds that antidepressants—not depression—are responsible for a significant rise in type 2 diabetes risk.| Mad In America
This post follows on from Repairing Ruptures in Clinical Care and the Future of Health App-Ointments. It also links to An Appleby a Day and Tangled up in Bureaucracy. Repairing Ruptures had a lot of comments from Lucy. One of them kicks things off here. Lucy’s Struggle Since waking up to the adverse effects of| RxISK - Making Medicines Safer for All of Us
Several of the many people who write or track RxISK posts, have had input to this one, which dovetails with Harriet Vogt's post last week Repairing Ruptures in Clinical Care and the work of Shane Cooke and Mary Hennessey in getting health systems to listen to the voices of those harmed by treatment. The post,| RxISK - Making Medicines Safer for All of Us
Better Times Will Return © Josie Russell 2017 This post is by our warzone correspondent Harriet Vogt from frontline trenches. A few weeks ago I was invited to join an online discussion with a group of experts on iatrogenesis who have an in-depth knowledge of antidepressant withdrawal and the risks of polypharmacy. These highly informed,| RxISK - Making Medicines Safer for All of Us
The Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitor (SRI) story starts in 1969 with Arvid Carlsson (above) who created Zelmid, the first SRI, after listening to people on antidepressants. He linked an anxiolytic effect some older drugs have to the serotonin system. The SRIs aimed at exploring that effect - Normality and Antidepressant Dysregulation. Fluoxetine (Prozac). sertraline (Zoloft). paroxetine| RxISK - Making Medicines Safer for All of Us
Awais Aftab’s blog about the Sunday Times article on my new book, Chemically Imbalanced, was predictable. Like previous reactions to our serotonin paper, it illustrates how elements of the psychiat…| Joanna Moncrieff
This post is written by Dr Pedro who is watching events unfold from 10,000 miles away - with some extras added at the end. The UK Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP) has been asked by Katy Skerrett, Senior Coroner for Gloucestershire, to respond to her Regulation 28 report to Prevent Future Deaths, after the| Dr. David Healy
Summary: I respond to some of the points in the recent Rolling Stone article and correct the many inaccuracies and distortions. Ignoring is no longer working, so champions of big Pharma and mainstream psychiatry have gone into attack mode. The strategy is to undermine the messenger (me) in order to neutralise the message. In this…| Joanna Moncrieff
Summary TL;DR For decades people have been told that depression is caused by a serotonin deficiency. This was the rationale behind the introduction of the SSRI (Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitor) antidepressants in the 1990s, which were thought to work by boosting low levels of serotonin. Our research shows no evidence of low serotonin in depression,…| Joanna Moncrieff
Apologies to all readers outside of Britain who may never have heard about The Pirates of Penzance, definitely not The Pirates of the Caribbean. PoP though has a famous song - I am the Very Model of a Modern Major General - featuring a dimwit General who knows everything about everything except military strategy. This post| RxISK - Making Medicines Safer for All of Us
This post is about you who read it, and the ten of us or so who have helped write it, having an impact on the system. Modern healthcare is very disempowering. The arrangement that makes some medicines Prescription-Only began life as a police function and unfortunately many of us consulting a doctor can feel knee-high| RxISK - Making Medicines Safer for All of Us
A longstanding problem for people with post-SSRI sexual dysfunction (PSSD) when trying to report their condition to drug regulators has been the absence of a code for PSSD. When regulators receive adverse event reports, they are coded against specific terms in their database which are usually taken from the Medical Dictionary for Regulatory Activities (MedDRA).| RxISK - Making Medicines Safer for All of Us
Because depression often occurs with Huntington's, columnist Carlos Briceño shares his wife's story to remind others that they're not alone.| Huntington's Disease News
Up to 1980, the pharmaceutical industry was small beer. Most of the companies had recently demerged from chemical companies, and were hiring management consultants to help them work out how to do the job. A steady stream of life-saving drugs from the 1940s to 1960s that people and health services were willing to buy at| RxISK - Making Medicines Safer for All of Us
This post follows a Mad in America Webinar about Antidepressant Dysregulation Syndromes, which was built on the research done by people on these meds. Antidepressant linked Automatism Spectrum Disorders is also built entirely on reports from those who have been taking these medicines. You will hear some extraordinary things few people know about. We need| RxISK - Making Medicines Safer for All of Us
Columnist Carlos Briceño shares how his wife, Jill, who has Huntington's, has developed new strategies to counter her increasing anxiety.| Huntington's Disease News
This post is from an American Veteran who was given Zoloft for PTSD. The trials that brought Zoloft on the market for PTSD were negative for men. It only got a license because there were some marginal benefits in women in the trial. It has always been worrying to see troops returning from war zones| RxISK - Making Medicines Safer for All of Us
Be these juggling fiends no more believed, That palter with us in a double sense; That keep the word of promise to our ear, And break it to our hope. William Shakespeare: Macbeth A storm blew up just over a week ago with a Lancet article on antidepressant dependence and withdrawal. Based on company studies, this article| RxISK - Making Medicines Safer for All of Us
This recently published US strategy on Suicide Prevention epitomizes all that is going wrong in medicine today. It is stuffed full of references to Shared Decision Making, Informed Consent and Lived Experience. Stuffed full of token words, window-dressing, tick-boxing. It will increase rather than reduce suicide rates. It is clear that the people behind this,| RxISK - Making Medicines Safer for All of Us
Thanks to R who helped trigger this important RxISK post and some doctoring. . In July 2023, RxISK ran a post, written by R, giving an account of her Persistent Postural Perceptual Dizziness. PPPD was new to us. R had been in regular contact for a decade because of protracted withdrawal problems. Her problems came| RxISK - Making Medicines Safer for All of Us
The Guardian just ran an article on PSSD - It feels like we've been lobotomized. The following day they surprisingly had two articles on Singulair - Montelukast - hazards Safety fears over asthma drug after young children suffer severe side effect and A healthy kid dies and there has been no change’. For a paper| RxISK - Making Medicines Safer for All of Us
There are plenty of reasons that you might be interested in trying to get antidepressants online. Perhaps you don’t have access to a general practitioner or live in an isolated area. Or, thanks to local restrictions, you may consider it in your best interest to avoid heavily-populated areas. Whatever the case, you will be relieved […] The post How Hard Is It to Get Antidepressants Online? appeared first on Psychologenie.| Psychologenie
You most likely know that antidepressants are notorious for causing side effects – one of which is tinnitus, an annoying ring in the ears. Most people are eager to avoid this symptom, so it’s no wonder that people are curious about antidepressants that do not cause tinnitus. Fortunately, there aren’t too many drugs known to cause the condition. In […] The post What Are the Antidepressants That Do Not Cause Tinnitus? appeared first on Psychologenie.| Psychologenie
When you’re choosing an antidepressant, it’s important to be aware of what you want. If you’re looking to feel some more pep in your step and lose some weight, you should try and find out the best antidepressant for energy and weight loss. Antidepressants can be fickle, though. Some work differently than others. On top of this, everyone’s individual response […] The post What’s the Best Antidepressant for Energy and Weight Loss? appeared first on Psychologenie.| Psychologenie
As you likely know, everything that you put in your body makes its way – albeit in trace amounts – through your breast milk and into your baby. This creates challenges for people who are using prescription medication. This article discusses the preferred antidepressant in breastfeeding. Issues With Using Medication While Breastfeeding Medication may cause issues while […] The post What’s the Preferred Antidepressant in Breastfeeding? appeared first on Psychologenie.| Psychologenie
An online antidepressant prescription can help people who don't have a family doctor or access to nearby medical facilities.| Psychologenie
After the publication of our umbrella review of serotonin last summer, several psychiatrists wrote letters to the journal, Molecular Psychiatry, as usually occurs after the publication of a major f…| Joanna Moncrieff
Our umbrella review that revealed no links between serotonin and depression has caused shock waves among the general public, but been dismissed as old news by psychiatric opinion leaders. This disj…| Joanna Moncrieff
Our new review of serotonin research collated research from six different areas. We looked at research on serotonin levels in body fluids, levels of the main metabolite (breakdown product) of serot…| Joanna Moncrieff
This post runs hand in hand with Women and Children First by Peter Selley. Both posts link to a BMJ Consent Article and Vaccine contre la bronchiolite: Pfizer Essais en zone d'ombre by Ariane Denoyel for Blast, a French investigative journalism unit. Peter Selley first contacted me in April 2020. As I now know Peter| RxISK - Making Medicines Safer for All of Us
This talk was given at the Annual Meeting of the International Society for Ethical Psychology and Psychiatry on October 28. The Video version of HealthCare Gone Mad is linked here. The slides and text are below. There will soon be an official ISEPP link to the talk and a Q and A, which will be| Dr. David Healy
Over the last decade David Healy.org and RxISK.org have both featured a series of posts about SSRIs and alcoholism and about Anne Marie Kelly. There has been Out of my Mind Driven to Drink and related posts, Petra's Story and Every Drink Spiked on DavidHealy as well as Driven to Drink: Antidepressants and Craving for| RxISK - Making Medicines Safer for All of Us
Health Warning I don’t know a great deal about the issues in this post. Experts by Experience and The Marketing of Anticholinergic Maleficence along with Psychotropic Drug Follies will give some feel for the background that makes it difficult to be certain about anything linked to the cholinergic drugs. The Past Present and Future article| RxISK - Making Medicines Safer for All of Us