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Archive for the 'politics' Category

themes…

( politics )

Dr. Roy Poses has a theme that plays in and out of his blog, Healthcare Renewal called the anechoic effect. Here’s how I understood it on my first pass: He talks frequently about something called "the anechoic effect." It just means that when something gets exposed, it doesn’t echo – the story gets lost, forgotten, […]

least-squares-mean patients…

( politics )

Drug-company data vaults to be opened European agency will publish firms’ clinical-trial results Nature | News by Daniel Cressey 27 March 2013 International calls for the pharmaceutical industry to share the results of clinical trials have grown ever more intense amid revelations that high-profile companies have hidden crucial data on safety and efficacy. Now Europe […]

there, it’s solved…

( politics )

I had already thought about doing this, but reading David Healy‘s most recent post means that I’ll probably go through with it. The "it" is to read Ben Goldacre‘s Bad Pharma and David Healy‘s Pharmageddon in tandem, one right after the other. I like both of them, but their takes on this topic are not […]

Viibryd® – coming to a hamlet near you…

( politics )

per·sev·er·ate (pr-sv-rt)   [verb]   Repeat or prolong an action, thought, or utterance after the stimulus that prompted it has ceased. I hate to perseverate, because it’s a sign of dementia and at my age, you can’t be too careful. But I think Nancy and Alto have happened onto something. Knowing that I think Dr. […]

all there is to say…

( politics )

One of the invariable things that comes up about psychoanalysis in any discussion is the "n=1" topic, "How can you say anything about human psychology if you only look at one case at a time? There’s no control group. No experimental group." And you’ll be pleased to learn that I’ve exceeded my lifetime tolerance for […]

the article…

( politics )

This is the article mentioned in the last post [an outrageous waste…]. I had missed the chemical imbalance theory [in red] so I post it here for the full effect. I’d love to know how this made it to a  Health and Wellness page in Appalachia… The Exponent Telegraph The Independent Voice of North Central […]

an outrageous waste…

( politics )

Some things about this tawdry era of academic psychiatry just don’t make sense. I don’t understand the why of these graphs – why they would go to the trouble to publish this many papers, particularly on a study that was a $35 M bust. The only thing I can come up with is that the […]

Rx[CO$T$]…

( politics )

Bitter Pill: Why Medical Bills Are Killing Us 21 graphs that show America’s health-care prices are ludicrous No. Just keeping up with psychiatry is all I have time for, but it’s hard not to notice the cost of medicine in America. Managed Care came to Medicine not long after I did, and from my perspective, […]

the rabbit hole…

( politics )

There’s a thread here that deserves to be tied together. The topic is the Bereavement Exclusion that the DSM-5 Task Force removed from the diagnosis of Major Depressive Disorder [DSM-IV]: E. The symptoms are not better accounted for by Bereavement, i.e., after the loss of a loved one, the symptoms persist for longer than 2 […]

a tautology that serves no useful purpose…

( politics )

Somatic Symptom Disorder is running a close second to the DSM-5 removal of the Bereavement Exclusion [in the range of a mandate…] as a revision that’s a nidus for divisiveness and controversy: The new somatic symptom disorder in DSM-5 risks mislabeling many people as mentally ill by Allen Frances British Medical Journal 2013. 346:f1580 The […]