Hope you’re having a nice weekend.
- PharmaGossip: Evidence-based medicine or marketing-based medicine? — The tactics used by the pharma industry to entrench its influence – whether with politicians, health groups or prescribers – have been hitting the headlines lately.
- Pervasive Weight Discrimination a Serious Health Risk — Authors Rebecca M. Puhl, Ph.D. and Chelsea A. Heuer, M.P.H. argue that despite decades of studies documenting weight stigma and discrimination toward obese people, these attitudes remain pervasive and their public health implications are still largely ignored. The authors write that “because weight stigma remains a socially acceptable form of bias, negative attitudes and stereotypes toward obese persons have been frequently reported by employers, coworkers, teachers, physicians, nurses, medical students, dietitians, psychologists, peers, friends, family members, and even among children as young as 3 years.”
- From madhouse to medication: MindHacks — If you’re based in the UK you can watch it on the BBC’s streaming service but I also notice that it has appeared on various public torrent servers. *cough* — It’s definitely a dissenters look at history as the professional commentators, such as psychiatrist Joanne Moncrieff and psychologist Rachel Perkins, hail from the most critical end of mental health.
- NIMH · Effectiveness of Long-term Use of Antipsychotic Medication to Treat Childhood Schizophrenia is Limited — according to the report here is would be more appropriate to say that the long-term use of antipsychotics is virtually useless at best and quite harmful and dangerous otherwise. Robert Findling, M.D., of Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, and the TEOSS team reported that the participants’ treatment response tended to plateau during the follow-up, maintenance therapy period, such that most of the children did not improve beyond what they had already achieved during the initial eight weeks of treatment. In addition, most discontinued treatment during the maintenance phase, most commonly due to side effects such as weight gain, anxiety, increases in cholesterol levels, and other metabolic changes, regardless of which treatment they were receiving. None of the three medications appeared to be more effective than the others.
- An Addiction Expert Reveals a Drug Habit – Well Blog – NYTimes.com — All addicts rationalize their drug use. I go as far as to say it crosses over into legally prescribed drugs too. We live in a drug culture whether they are legal or illicit often seems pretty insignificant from where I stand. Clinton B. McCracken of Baltimore is a biomedical scientist who built a career exploring the neuroscience of addiction. He writes that his experience serves as a cautionary tale for highly educated professionals, particularly health care workers, who may “intellectualize their drug use.” As he explains, their own intelligence and expertise about addiction leads them to overestimate their ability to stay in control of a drug habit.
Everything matters 