I was writing about Harlan Krumholtz’s paper in the BMJ, and took a break to watch The Blacklist episode I missed [on the DVR]. About two-thirds through, I was fast-forwarding through the commercials but I was stopped in my tracks as a logo I recognized flashed by – Rexulti®. So I watched the ad and […]
It’s always good to look back when faced with a contemporary dilemma to see if you’ve been in something similar before. I remembered several thinking about screening: He was a portly New Englander with a gravelly voice [from many allergies] and a sarcastic wit. He was a Corpsman in the Air Force for four years […]
My negative reaction to screening for depression drew a thought-provoking response from EastCoaster: What would you like to see if you had your druthers? I work in an institution that is trying to employ a collaborative-care kind of model. Where PCPs do the prescribing but they consult with a psychiatrist, and they work with a […]
I suppose that with the drought in the PHARMA CNS pipeline, it should have been predictable that thoughts would turn towards the known feel-good drugs [drugs in the street-sense as opposed to medications]. In October, we heard about Special K, a club drug, looking to be reborn as a antidepressant … Ketamine and Other NMDA […]
Screening for Depression in Children and Adolescents: U.S. Preventive Services Task Force Recommendation Statement by Albert L. Siu, MD, MSPH, on behalf of the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force Annals of Internal Medicine. Published online 9 February 2016 [full text on-line] Description: Update of the 2009 U.S. Preventive Services Task Force [USPSTF] recommendation on screening […]
I was sitting in the waiting room Friday morning waiting for an ENT appointment [to check a worrisome non-healing lesion in my nostril]. The big tv was looping through an animated description of some balloon thing they could do to your sinuses and a hearing aid spiel about why getting them from an ENT is […]
When I mentioned the sponsorship of the STAT Morning Rounds page [explanation?…], George Dawson implied in a comment that my radar was perhaps set too low: What would you call it if I gave a lecture for CME, unrelated to prescribing but it was sponsored by Big Pharma – even though I had nothing to […]
I want to linger on the response of the Annals of Internal Medicine to the COMPare letter pointing out an instance of a published paper that reported outcomes differing from those in the a priori Protocol. Here’s the letter from COMPare: Discrepancies Between Prespecified and Reported Outcomes Annals of Internal Medicine by Eirion Slade; Henry […]
The Hidden Harm of Antidepressants An in-depth analysis of clinical trials reveals widespread underreporting of negative side effects, including suicide attempts and aggressive behavior Scientific American By Diana Kwon February 3, 2016 Antidepressants are some of the most commonly prescribed medications out there. More than one out of 10 Americans over age 12 — roughly […]
I signed up for STAT on the Boston Globe because Pharmalot moved there. But the new additions to the morning emails these last several days have given me pause. We could use an explanation… UPDATE: Megan’s response to an email: Hi Mickey, They’re simply sponsors for the newsletter — they’re paid advertisements that come from […]