Thursday news

Your daily reading material awaits:

• Top psychiatrist calls for ethics cleanup around ‘Big Pharma’ — USA Today — American psychiatrists need to break away from a “culture of influence” created by their financial dealings with the drug industry, the head of the National Institute of Mental Health said in a leading medical journal. — Dr. Thomas Insel stops short of calling researchers corrupt or asking them to stop taking money from drug companies. But he highlights a “bias in prescribing practices” that favors brand names drugs over cheaper generics and non-drug treatments. And he says the situation must change with new standards for transparency and full disclosure of psychiatry’s collaborations with industry.
  

• Daniel Carlat sheds some light on the above psychiatrist and the statement he makes on his blog. Dr. Tom Insel, NIMH Chief, Scolds Psychiatry

• Meditation may protect your brain – WildMind Buddhism — For thousands of years, Buddhist meditators have claimed that the simple act of sitting down and following their breath while letting go of intrusive thoughts can free one from the entanglements of neurotic suffering. — Now, scientists are using cutting-edge scanning technology to watch the meditating mind at work. They are finding that regular meditation has a measurable effect on a variety of brain structures related to attention — an example of what is known as neuroplasticity, where the brain physically changes in response to an intentional exercise.

• Calling Mom? Take Drugs. Spit, Bristle and Fury — commentary on an article I posted a day or two ago. Good stuff.