LinkBlog
[USA] Think Social Networks, Blogs Can’t Hurt You? Health insurers can use your on-line posts to avoid paying for treatment
Debunking the 'Chemical Imbalance' myth (pdf)
The Johns Hopkins Guide to Antidepressants (Note: requires registration of a valid email address)
Not Depressed, Just British!
recommended links
Depression Is Real Coalition
-
ABIL: Agoraphobics Building
Independant Lives -
Agoraphobia and Panic
Disorder Foundation -
Anxiety Disorders Association
of America - Anxiety Network Australia
- Anxiety-Panic.Com
- AnxietyZone
- Army Behavioral Health
- BrainPhysics - OCD
-
Canadian Network for Mood
and Anxiety Treatments - Children of Hoarders
- Choices in Mental Health (UK)
-
Dart Foundation: Gateway to PTSD
information -
David Baldwin's
Trauma Information Pages - e-couch free personal self-help guide
- EMDR Institute, Inc.
- EMDR Network Japan
- Fear of Flying course (free)
- Healthy Minds
- Information for People with Anxiety Disorders
- Internet Guide to REBT, CBT
- Living with a Brain Disorder
- Morita Therapy
- Mayo Clinic : Depression
- Mayo Clinic : GAD
- Mayo Clinic : OCD
- Mayo Clinic : Panic Attacks
- Mayo Clinic : PTSD
- Mayo Clinic : Social Anxiety
-
Medicines.org.uk - Anxiety &
Depression guides - Mind-Your-Mind Canada
- National Center for PTSD
-
National Institute of Mental
Health (NIMH) - No Such Thing As Crazy
- OCD Action, UK
- OCD Ireland
- Obsessive Compulsive Foundation
- Open Minds, Open Doors
- Out of the silence - site for young people with mental illness
- Paniccure.com
- Partners With PTSD
- Prescription Drug Information
- Psychiatric Service Dog Society
- PsychNews
-
Rational Emotive Behavior
Therapy (REBT) - Sane Australia
-
Shyness & Social Anxiety
Service of Australia -
Social Phobia/Social Anxiety
Association - Social Anxiety Support board
-
South African Depression &
Anxiety Group - Suicide Prevention Help
-
tAPir - the Anxiety Panic
internet resource -
The Panic Center (Free
CBT based programs) - The School of OCD
- UN-WHO Drug Trials Database
- U.S. Army Behavioral Health - PTSD
we support
"just don't smoke"
Yul Brynner
- Menthol cigarettes harder to quit
- Secondhand smoke in cars serious threat to kid's health
- Starting smoking young increases addiction risk
-
Smoking doesn't slim girls;
stunts boys' growth - 40 reasons why you should quit smoking
- Pregnant smokers 'prime' their kids to smoke
- Smoking related coronary artery disease quickly reversed if young smokers quit
- Not ready to quit? Try cutting back
- Half smoking again within year of lung cancer surgery
- Cutting back 'compensation' increases toxin load per cigarette
- Tobacco companies upped nicotine level 11% since 1998
- Workplace passive smoke increases lung cancer risk
- Hooked by genes: The DNA sequences cigarette companies love
- Smoking causes long lasting changes to brain's bio chemistry
- Nicotine receptor stimulant trebles the odds of stopping smoking
- Bupropion, nortriptyline double chances of quitting
- Nicotine's powerful role in reinforcing smoking
- Pregnant smokers raise child's risk of stroke, heart attack
- Smoking linked to pancreatic cancer
- Neurobiology of Smokers' Cravings
- 'Low cancer risk' cigarettes as deadly as regular kind
- Quitting reduces lung cancer death risk by 70%
- Fetal nicotine exposure linked to teen attention problems
- Outdoor second-hand smoke exposure can harm
- Response to day's first cigarette predicts ease of quitting
- 'Healthy' children of smoking parents aren't really so healthy
- Children of smokers have up to five times higher levels of a nicotine toxin
- Smoking increases risk of dementia
- Smoking kills even after quitting
- Antenatal second hand smoke exposure increases child's psychological problems
- Smoking could kill 1 billion this century: WHO
- Just 1 cigarette can lead to nicotine addiction
- Smokers less likely to survive early stage lung cancer
- Smokeless tobacco delivers carcinogens more efficiently than cigarettes!
- Smoking permanently turns on genes that increase lung cancer susceptibility
- Secondhand smoke a health hazard for pets too
- Hypnosis for smoking cessation sees strong results
- Smoking doesn't burn fat
- Smoking linked to sagging breasts
- No evidence waterpipes decrease smoking harm
- Tobacco smoke + alcohol damage hearts more than either alone
anti torture campaign
- Torture experts write APA policy
- [APA] still rocked by torture debate
- Petition for psychologists
- AMA president says APA "did not accurately represent our ethical guidelines"
- Psychologists Aiding Torturers
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Annual conference endorses
APA's torture policy :( - Physicians for Human Rights call on Congress to vote No on Military Commissions Bill
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Torture is a Form of Trauma;
Trauma Causes PTSD - Psychoanalysts' association condemns torture use
- Humiliating, inhumane or degrading treatment IS torture
- Two American psychologists accused of war crimes. U.S. DoD investigating.
- DoD report proves psychologists central to POW/detainee abuse (pdf)
- 40 psychologists demand APA change policy on torture (pdf)
- Did the American Psychological Association turn a blind eye to torture for medicine precribing rights?
- Will psychologists still abet torture?
- Psychologist, Author Mary Pipher Returns APA Award Over Interrogation Policy
- Guantanamo Medical Role Likened to South Africa Under Apartheid
- The ethics of interrogation and the American Psychological Association
- A bait and switch trick on torture and psychologists?
Deputy Army Chief of Staff for Intelligence, Lt. General John (Jeff) Kimmons, has stated that no actionable intelligence had been obtained through abusive interrogation methods in the last 5 years.
monument, Monmouth County
New Jersey.
Evidence doesn't support CYP450 gene testing to guide antidepressant selection
Cytochrome P450 (CYP450) gene testing is currently not recommended to guide treatment with selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) drugs for patients with depression, concludes an expert panel report in the December issue of Genetics in Medicine.
"In the absence of supporting evidence, and with consideration of other contextual issues, EGAPP discourages use of CYP450 testing for patients beginning SSRI treatment until further clinical trials are completed," according to the statement by the independent Evaluation of Genomic Applications in Practice and Prevention (EGAPP) Working Group. The underlying EGAPP initiative was developed by the National Office of Public Health Genomics at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, with the goal of supporting evaluation of genetic tests and other genomic applications that are in transition from research to clinical and public health practice.
The SSRI antidepressants, such as fluoxetine (Prozac®) and sertraline (Zoloft®), are the mainstay of treatment for depression. However, treatment is not always effective. Patients and doctors sometimes must try several different drugs and doses. Recent studies have found that variations in certain CYP450 genes (coding for enzymes that metabolize SSRIs) can lead to differences in enzyme function that may affect the response to SSRIs.
Potentially, testing for CYP450 gene variations could provide benefit by guiding the initial choice or dose of SSRI for patients with depression. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration recently approved a CYP450 test that may help individualize drug treatment for a wide variety of commonly prescribed drugs, including SSRIs. Specific applications of this test, however, require validation.
The EGAPP Working Group based their recommendation on a commissioned systematic review of the research evidence on CYP450 gene testing by the U.S. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. Other factors considered included the quality of the evidence, gaps in current knowledge, and contextual issues related to the introduction of testing into clinical practice. Technical studies showed that the test was highly accurate in detecting common CYP450 gene variations, although less data was available for uncommon variations.
Further analysis focused on how well the test performed in predicting key clinical outcomes. The available data showed no consistent association between the results of CYP450 gene testing and the clinical response to SSRIs that is, their effect on symptoms of depression. There was also no evidence that CYP450 testing predicted the risk of side effects, or that the results guided doctors' selection of SSRI drug or dosage.
In the absence of data that testing influences treatment or outcomes, there is a risk that the CYP450 test could increase costs without helping patients. There is also a possibility of harmful effects, such as less effective treatment or inappropriate use of genetic information.
The Working Group's findings don't mean that CYP450 testing is not potentially useful. Rather, there is currently "insufficient evidence" either for or against the use of CYP450 testing in patients beginning SSRI treatment for depression. The report includes some suggestions for future studies that might help to fill gaps in knowledge regarding the use of CYP450 testing for antidepressant treatment.
The recommendation is the first to be issued by the EGAPP initiative. "This first release from EGAPP has helped us understand some of the challenges we face in evaluating genomic innovations, such as the quality of research designs, dealing with data that are proprietary, scant evidence on benefits and harms, and the lack of comparisons with current practice, of testing in typical populations, and of information about cost and cost-effectiveness," said EGAPP Chair Alfred Berg, MD, MPH, of the University of Washington.
EGAPP Working Group Recommendations from the EGAPP Working Group: testing for cytochrome P450 polymorphisms in adults with nonpsychotic depression treated with selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors.[Abstract | Full text]