I have no real information about Ketamine as a treatment for depression, though it does seem beyond peculiar to be writing about a club drug in the context of treating a mental illness. But I’m writing about it for another reason nonetheless – a ethical reason. As common as it has become, I protest peer […]
Below is a collection of references to everything you might want to know about Dr. R. K. Chandra, a Canadian researcher whose 1989 paper, Influence of maternal diet during lactation and use of formula feeds on development of atopic eczema in high risk infants, was retracted by the BMJ yesterday. It was originally published by […]
On has to be awed by blogger Neuroskeptic whose scope far exceeds the rest of us combined. Here, he clears up the dilemma I obsessed about recently. When the results of the RAISE study were published a few days ago, the extensive press coverage proclaimed that the NAVIGATE [NAV] patients received a much lower dose […]
A month ago, I wrote about a woman who had arrived in our clinic on a remarkable regimen if medications [blitzed…]. To repeat: She was brought to the clinic by her aunt who was taking care of her temporarily. She was a woman in her fifties with a cast on her lower leg from a […]
Most of us are aware that a number of the articles in our peer-reviewed journals reporting industry-funded Clinical Trials of CNS drugs have been distorted to a greater or lesser degree. I think it’s important to look at how they’ve been "spun" to play up efficacy and downplay harms. The distortions were no accident, but […]
Long ago and far away in a galaxy called the 1970s, I was in a Psychiatry residency on a Child and Adolescent rotation – one of my favorites. It was a different time, and I learned a term that stayed with me to this day. An attending was explaining a difference between therapy with children […]
Early in October, I had a a touch of paralysis… I had read an article in the American Journal of Psychiatry… Ketamine and Other NMDA Antagonists: Early Clinical Trials and Possible Mechanisms in Depression by D. Jeffrey Newport, Linda L. Carpenter, William M. McDonald, James B. Potash, Mauricio Tohen, and Charles B. Nemeroff, The APA […]
Martin Shkreli may get competition for his pricey drug, after all Pharmalot by Ed Silverman October 22, 2015 Thanks to a compounding pharmacy, Martin Shkreli’s company may no longer have a lock on the market for its pricey anti-infective drug Daraprim. A little-known company called Imprimis Pharmaceuticals announced plans to make a combination medicine that […]
NOTE: I have a Conflict of Interest about this report. It’s from the NIMH funded RAISE Study [Recovery After an Initial Schizophrenia Episode]. My conflict is that I have two interests. First, I’m really interested in this particular study on the impact of psychosocial treatment on these First Episode Patients. But second, I’m exhausted with […]
I wish that what I write about could always be interesting, but I just can’t bring it off. Writing is my way of gathering my thoughts, and sometimes that’s pretty boring, even to me. My daughter who named this blog has apologized for her sarcasm, but to be honest, I’m very appreciative. The injunction to […]