Mental Health Blogs

Archive for the ‘Furious Seasons’ Category

On Jan. 4, I let you all know about a study just out in the Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry (and it’s still not online) concerning the doubling of antipsychotic use in toddlers aged 2 to 5. Well almost two weeks later the Reuters wire service reports on the study and notes that much of the uptick in toddlers is connected so-called child bipolar disorder.

“‘The psychiatric diagnosis of very young children is anything but an exact science,’ said Harry Tracy, a psychologist and publisher of NeuroInvestment, a monthly publication specializing in central nervous system disorders.

“‘Such disparate causes as ADHD, depression, bipolar disorder, sexual abuse, and family dysfunction can produce very similar symptoms in a toddler.’”

You don’t say. After banging on these sorts of issues in children for over three years, it’s nice to see Reuters casting a skeptical eye on this whole business. In their report, no one is actively defending these diagnoses and medications in toddlers. That tells you something.

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The murder case against the parents of Rebecca Riley–the 4-year-old with alleged child bipolar disorder who died from an overdose of psych meds in December 2006–has become two murder cases because a Massachusetts court has decided to try the parents separately. Carolyn Riley’s case–she’s hte mother of course–will begin on Tuesday. There’s no date set right now for the trial of Rebecca’s father Michael Riley.

I still have a hard time buying murder charges against either parent, but for them to have been jailed pre-trial does tell me a judge thought the evidence against them was compelling. That said, I still don’t see a jury conviction for murder and given the dicey nature of medication use in small children and how imprecise and unresearched such psych med use is, if the jury has any sophistication they won’t get to a murder conviction. Perhaps a lesser-included charge such an involuntary manslaughter.

Stay tuned. My Rebecca Riley back catalog is here.

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There’s been a small wave of studies published in recent months concerning diet and depression. There was one asserting that the Mediterranean diet is protective against depression and another one asserting a link between processed food and depression. Now comes a new study in the American Journal of Psychiatry by Australian researchers asserting that processed foods–or what researchers deemed a “Western” diet–was linked with greater odds of depression (38 percent) and anxiety (9 percent) than was a “traditional” diet (odds ratio .78 and .81) or a “modern” diet (1.08 and .97 odds ratios).

The study looked at the dietary patterns of 1,046 women and, of them, 60 had dysthymia or major depression and 80 had anxiety disorders. So while the statistical power of this study may not be large, it certainly follows the pattern of other recent studies.

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The FDA has issued a warning to Eli Lilly concerning print ads for its anti-depressant Cymbalta. I’ve not been able to find the letter but have seen multiple press accounts. Here’s what the FDA apparently said.

“‘The print ad is false or misleading in that it presents efficacy claims for Cymbalta, but fails to adequately communicate the risks associated with its use,’ the FDA said. ‘The Blue Book Message is false or misleading because it overstates the efficacy of Cymbalta and minimizes the risks associated with the drug.’”

Risks associated with an anti-depressant? A pharma company downplaying risks? I’ve never heard of such a thing!

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It seems like hardly a week passes when I don’t see news of someone getting popped for dealing Seroquel or illegal Seroquel possession. This time out a ninth grader in upstate New York was the alleged dealer:

“The boy was caught with the pills after another student was brought to the nurse’s office Thursday morning for a reported drug overdose, sheriff’s officials said Monday. The student, who left his classroom unable to walk straight or speak clearly, told school staff and the school resource officer that he had bought the pill from the ninth-grader, who was selling pills for $1 each. The boy was taken to Mount St. Mary’s Hospital in Lewiston for treatment.”

The article actually describes Seroquel as an anti-depressant. Sure it is.

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Yes, those Seroquel for bipolar depression ads–bipolar depression can “consume” you, didn’t ya know?–keep airing on TV and are in several major magazines. What’s interesting is that the print ads contain five accompanying pages of warnings and precautions attached to use of the drug. Because apparently there’s a chance Seroquel can consume you. See BNET for a visual of the print ads.

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Over the weekend, I co-authored a proposed initiative repealing the State of Washington’s criminal penalties relating to the adult use, possession and cultivation. Then on Monday I drove to Olympia with co-author Douglas Hiatt and delivered the proposed text to the Secretary of State’s office and paid the $5 filing fee. So that’s why there were no posts on Monday. I can assure you that nothing sucks up all your time like helping to organize such an effort and then hammering out the language and figuring out what sections of state law apply. Needless to say, I am exhausted.

I think the findings and intent of the proposed initiative are covered fairly nicely in language I am about 50 percent responsible for and it should give you all a decent idea of why I am doing what I am doing:

“1. Whereas the State of Washington wastes tens of millions of dollars a year in taxpayer funds senselessly prosecuting responsible citizens of Washington State for use, possession and cultivation of marijuana, a benign therapeutic substance, and whereas citizens of the state face arrest, prosecution and loss of rights including property, employment and education for use of marijuana; and,

“2. Whereas the State of Washington’s medical marijuana law, enacted by the People in 1998, has proven ineffective at protecting the rights of citizens of Washington State; and,

“3. Whereas Washington State farmers and landowners are prohibited from growing industrial hemp on their land, denying them the ability to grow a valuable, environmentally friendly crop; and,

“4. Whereas the State Legislature has proven ineffective at offering appropriate legal remedies to the citizens of the State of Washington:

“The People of the State of Washington hereby repeal any and all criminal penalties for the adult use, possession, possession with intent to deliver, delivery and manufacture/cultivation of marijuana.”

We await language and code changes from the Secretary of State’s office and then proposed ballot title and ballot question language from the Washington State Attorney General, all of which should take a month or so. Then we’ll be approved to circulate petitions for voter signature and need 241,000 valid ones to get on the statewide ballot for this November.

The Associated Press has a good article on our effort. In it, I was encouraged to see some support from one county’s Prosecuting Attorney for getting the laws around marijuana in this state clarified. But I was deeply disappointed to read the comments of the ACLU of Washington’s Alison Holcomb, who hadn’t read our initiative yet felt compelled to trash it…probably because her group is pushing the Legislature to adopt one of its bills in its current session. She sure doesn’t come off looking either classy or accurate in her assessment of our proposed initiative and what it would do since it is clearly designed to let the State Legislature come back next year–if our initiative passes–and draft appropriate time, place and manner kinds of restrictions on adult marijuana use, possession and cultivation…something the Leg seems incapable of achieving on its own.

So anyway that’s what I’ve been up to the past few days.

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It’s raining like crazy in Seattle and I know it’s snowing like crazy on the East Coast. So bundle up and stay dry everyone and pour through this roundup of interesting items.

The FDA has failed to make publicly available, as required by law, the approval packages for at least nine of the 25 most popular drugs in this country. I had hoped this kind of thing would improve with Obama appointees running the FDA, but no.

AstraZeneca succeeds in getting two more Seroquel lawsuits tossed out of court. The company is eight for eight on that front now.

Talk about conflicts of interest: an MIT economist was under an almost $300,000 contract with HHS to evaluate health care reform proposals while publicly attacking critics of health care reform, but he never disclosed that conflict. Embarrassing at a minimum.

Veterinary Practice News identifies anti-depressants, benzos and ADHD drugs as among the top 10 classes of drugs causing pets seriously problems when they accidentally ingest them. “Pets, especially cats, seem to enjoy the taste of Effexor and often eat the entire pill,” notes the article. “One pill can cause serious poisoning.” Yikes.

News of an autism cluster in Silicon Valley.

A federal judge will now oversee monitoring of conditions and the treatment of patients at the psych unit of the notorious Kings County Hospital in Brooklyn.

CL Psych has its usual irreverent take on this week’s JAMA study on anti-depressants.

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My personal life crashed right into my writing life last evening in a way I couldn’t avoid. As a result, I had no time to write a couple of new posts for this morning. I’ll rectify that later today.

Have a good day.

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Hi readers. I’m reposting this–something I’ve never done before–because this post originally went up during the dead week between Christmas and New Year’s and, given its assertions, it’s worth posting again since few people saw it last week. Or at least that’s the opinion of some journalist friends of mine who’ve read the piece. Oddly enough, Sen. Stabenow’s office has still not answered question I put to them about this situation almost two weeks ago.

There’s been a lot of coverage of amendments to the recently-passed Senate health care reform bill over the last 10 days, especially the Medicare giveaways for the State of Nebraska reportedly employed to capture the support of Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Nebraska) as well as giveaways to other Democratic senators. But one provision of the amendments, which were introduced on December 19, has escaped notice of the mainstream media and the political blogosphere alike. That would be $1.25 billion included in the amendments, apparently to secure the vote of Michigan Senator Debbie Stabenow. Sen. Stabenow, a Democrat, was a passionate advocate for the so-called public option who voted to support a bill without a public option in exchange for inclusion of $1.25 billion in new federal spending to support “centers of excellence” in depression treatment. (A list of so-called cash for cloture is here.)

In October, Stabenow introduced the so-called ENHANCED Act of 2009 on the Senate floor. But the Act was not included in the original Senate health care reform bill. Instead, it showed up virtually unnoticed in the manager’s amendment (as the Senate amendments are known) on December 19. Was this inclusion in exchange for Sen. Stabenow’s vote? What would these depression centers do (the relevant text begins on page 277)? Are they really needed? Depression is, after all, a well-researched and understood phenomenon and has been for decades and billions of dollars federal, state and pharma have been focused upon it. Why does the Senator believe that depression and bipolar disorder exist at twice the rate as does NIH? Is she engaging in scare tactics? How would these centers improve access to health insurance coverage for uninsured Americans, which is what I thought health care reform was supposed to be about?

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