- Psychotropic medications can cause birth defects — ScienceDaily —Ah, sweet memories of my psychiatrist insisting I should have babies while I emphatically told him I thought I was a stupid idea. I was on at least five meds. Two of them the classes spoken about here. The two researchers found that 42 percent of adverse reactions were reported for psychostimulants, such as Ritalin, which treats attention deficit disorder (ADD), followed by 31 percent for antidepressants, such as Prozac, and 24 percent for antipsychotics, such as Haldol.
- You Can’t Heal What You Don’t Feel — GoodTherapy — This is nice little article with helpful suggestions for healing emotional distress. It leaves out the fact that psych drugs can numb people up real good just like the illicit drug use they refer too. Oh, well.
- Morphine and Other Pain Relief Drugs Used in Cancer Surgery May Spur Return of Malignancy: — Scientific American — Morphine is often a cancer patient’s best and final friend. So it came as a shock when researchers at the University of Minnesota published a study showing that doses of morphine similar to those used to ease pain actually spurred the growth of human breast cancer cells grafted into mice. “These results indicate that clinical use of morphine could potentially be harmful” in some cancer patients, the scientists wrote in 2002 in Cancer Research.
- Ban on drug industry gifts could be lifted – The Boston Globe — Efforts to repeal the ban will probably draw opposition in the Legislature, where lawmakers had boasted of new overtures to transparency and accountability in trumpeting its passage two years ago.