ADHD and Polypharmacy. American Conditions?
September 27, 2022 | 7 Comments

This post tackles two RxISK themes – ADHD and Polypharmacy. While working through Pfizer’s Serious Adverse Event narrative file, see The Fog of a Special Medical Operation, the term ADHD – attention deficit hyperactive cropped up quite often. There was one predictable feature to this – all cases came from the United States with none […]

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Calling All ADHD Influencers
June 13, 2022 | 11 Comments

Obedience Pills has put Patrick Hahn, Bill James and myself in a bit of a spot.  We’ve had feedback that we might be contributing to the stigma against ADHD. Our contact gave us a Video to orient us. At the same time, the Guardian in the UK – Tik-Tok and the Rise of ADHD – […]

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Obedience Pills
May 9, 2022 | 9 Comments

Samizdat has just published Patrick Hahn’s Obedience Pills, a book that reviews the ADHD scene from its origins in the US to its current bloated stimulants-in-the-drinking-water state and the extension of the ADHD franchise to other countries. Like Patrick’s Prescription for Sorrow, Obedience Pills makes no excuses for grabbing people by the throat, pinning them […]

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A Public Service or A Lethal Scam?
July 8, 2021 | 19 Comments

RxISK was emailed about a post on SSRI Stories recently.  Julie Wood runs SSRI stories, which features newspaper or related public domain material about suicides, homicides or other events linked to SSRI or other psychotropic drug intake. The email read as follows: Your using an article about my family members suicide as a propaganda piece and […]

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Clinical Trial Fraud
June 28, 2021 | 13 Comments

This is part two of Johanna Ryan’s posts on Ghosts in the Clinical Trial Machine or Clinical Trial Fraud.  Last weeks post reported on how doctors in three states have been convicted of handing in fake clinical-trial results from fake patients.  This week we’ll examine how small-time crooks like these ended up doing world-class medical […]

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Ghosts in the Clinical Trial Machine
June 21, 2021 | 18 Comments

This is the first part of a two part series on clinical trial fraud from Johanna Ryan, with part 2 next week.  Jo is RxISK’s clinical trial and shoddy clinical practice sleuth – see The Maintenance Man.   Recently the U.S. Department of Justice called attention to a small but worrisome crime wave.  Health care fraud […]

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Antidepressants: Education and Disability Certificates
March 22, 2021 | 38 Comments

This post covers difficulties primarily on antidepressants that medicines can cause to people in schools or universities who end up unable to study or do course-work, as well as the difficulties people can have trying to get off medicines, a process that can be pretty disabling. The materials linked to this post are being put […]

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Ketamine: What’s God got to do with it?
March 11, 2019 | 28 Comments

The fuss about ketamine has generated interest in where it has come from. There were probably multiple beginnings. One was with Stan Grof, who moved from Prague to Baltimore in 1967.  His interest in therapy led him to a focus on early life experience. This stemmed from work with LSD and psilocybin in the 1950s […]

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Could your Stimulant or Antidepressant cause Dementia?
February 26, 2019 | 34 Comments

Quixotic Challenge A few years ago, a friend, Alan Baumeister, embarked on an interesting journey.  Alan had been Head of Psychology in Louisiana State University. He has been actively involved in the history of the mental health field and psychological inputs to it for a  long time. Louisiana is the state that hosted Robert Heath […]

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Is there such a thing as Adult ADHD?
February 18, 2019 | 13 Comments

After a variety of incarnations – Minimal Brain Damage – Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) came on the radar in the 1970s in the US and exploded with its codification in DSM-III in 1980. The general sense in most of the world in the 1980s – aside from a developing ADHD-mania in the US – […]

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Stop suicide
Akathisia, Depression & Suicide: The List
September 27, 2018 | 36 Comments

This post closes our series on akathisia. Along with posts on davidhealy.org, the other posts were: Akathisia Anthem 500+ Drugs that Cause Depression and Suicide – AKA Akathisia Akathisia Challenge Even Politicians get killed by Akathisia In 500 drugs that cause depression and suicide, we mentioned building a new list of drugs that can cause […]

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Akathisia Challenge
September 11, 2018 | 13 Comments

A post on May 31st on davidhealy.org, The Greatest Failure in What Used to be Called Medicine, and the following post on the Spectre of Dissent, triggered two conversations. One was about the appropriateness of the imagery used. The other was a long conversation initiated by Tim and then developed by Heather about what to […]

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500+ Drugs that Cause Depression and Suicide – AKA Akathisia
September 4, 2018 | 14 Comments

Billiam James’ Akathisia Anthem released last week and available HERE is timely.  Since this headline in Newsweek in May 2013, things have got worse.  In America since 2015, life expectancy has been falling and in other developed countries it has stopped rising. Recent American studies have fingered rising suicide rates as one factor in this […]

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RxISK Map: Relationship Based Medicine
November 14, 2017 | 15 Comments

Editorial Note: This is the third in a RxISK Map series of posts – See Reformation Day and Here We Stand. These link closely to the RxISK Prize. There are two aspects to finding a cure for an adverse event. One is understanding the biology. The other is getting it established that the effect happens. […]

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Prescription for Murder ABCD
August 8, 2017 | 42 Comments

  If you look at the adverse events section of the sertraline – Zoloft – label you will see in small print that sertraline has been linked to psychosis, hallucinations and aggressive reactions. Its there in small print.  These links have been there since the mid-1990s. Vanishingly few doctors understand what is going on here.  […]

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What a Surprise: RxISK taking entrepreneurs
June 12, 2017 | 7 Comments

It is worth wading through some slow moving stuff at the start of this post to get to the juicy bits. The Things Drugs Do Drugs do things.  Company marketing divides these things into the one good thing the company wants you to focus on – good for a company bottom-line and the ninety-nine other […]

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Michael Phelps
ADHD Nation
September 12, 2016 | 18 Comments

Editorial Note: This post is a review by Johanna Ryan of Alan Schwarz’s just released ADHD NATION: Children, Doctors, Big Pharma, and the Making of an American Epidemic. Watching the triumphant final chapter of Michael Phelps’ Olympic swimming career last month, you couldn’t help admiring certain strengths that went beyond the merely muscular. The rigorous […]

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Froot Loops
It’s alright Ma, I’m only Punding: Stimulants and Compulsions
February 22, 2016 | 17 Comments

This post by Johanna Ryan touches on the problems of compulsive gambling and other compulsive behaviors that are linked to Abilify, SSRIs and Dopamine Agonists and also to Dopamine Agonist Withdrawal Syndrome (DAWS). It was Lester Grinspoon’s 1975 book The Speed Culture that introduced me to the concept of “punding”: a drug-induced compulsion for repetitive, […]

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United States of Adderall
February 15, 2016 | 13 Comments

Ed Note: This post is by Johanna Ryan who covers most of our stimulant related topics. Dr. Larry Diller is a pediatrician who specializes in children’s behavioral problems, especially Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). He’s by no means anti-medication; he has prescribed stimulants to kids for decades. But twenty years ago he was already concerned […]

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Betting your brains on antidepressants
Dopamine & Addiction: Junkies of the Third Age?
February 9, 2015 | 17 Comments

The last set of posts have brought stimulants and dopamine into the frame. In the 1960s and 1970s while stimulants were becoming controlled drugs it was nevertheless denied that they caused dependence. It is now clear that the closely related dopamine agonists, increasingly the first line treatment for Parkinson’s Disease, cause a host of compulsive […]

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Appetrol
A Blast from the Past: Amphetamines for Weight Loss
February 2, 2015 | 43 Comments

Author: Johanna Ryan The story below, a first-person account of life on (and off) amphetamine “diet pills,” was written over forty years ago. It couldn’t be more relevant. Under the cover of a public-health crusade against obesity, drug companies are bringing back old-fashioned “speed” in brand-new packages. Last week’s post described the newly-approved weight loss pill Contrave, […]

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It ain't over till the fat lady sings
The Show Ain’t Over Till the Fat Lady Sings
January 26, 2015 | One Comment

By Johanna Ryan As 2015 dawns, the specter of Corporate Personhood, sanctified by trade treaties which put patents and profits above the needs of us humans, seems to be drawing ever closer. Our latest wake-up call came from the respected French drug safety journal Prescrire. They’re sounding the alarm about a December 19 vote by […]

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