LinkBlog
The Johns Hopkins Guide to Antidepressants (Note: requires registration of a valid email address)
Not Depressed, Just British!
'Managing Holiday Stress' a LifeCare® guide (PDF)
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
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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
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.
Selective reporting of antidepressant trials exaggerated the drugs' effectiveness
Selective publication in reporting results of antidepressant trials exaggerates the effectiveness of the drugs, according to a study in the New England Journal of Medicine. The report's primary author is Erick Turner, M.D., assistant professor of psychiatry, physiology and pharmacology at Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU) and Medical Director of the Portland Veterans Affairs Medical Center's Mood Disorders Program.
Turner and his colleagues examined reviews from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for trials of 12 widely prescribed antidepressant drugs approved between 1981 and 2004, involving 12,564 patients. They also conducted a systematic literature search to identify whether results of these studies had been published in medical journals. For trials that had been published, they compared the published version of the results with the FDA version of the results.
Whether and how the studies were published depended on how they turned out, Turner's team found. According to the published literature, nearly all studies conducted (94 percent) had positive treatment results, but FDA data showed that in fact only about half (51 percent) of the studies were positive. Positive studies, with one exception, were all published. Most studies (33 out of 36) that were not positive either were not published or were published as if they were positive, in conflict with the FDA conclusions. These 33 studies involved 5,212 patients.
"Selective publication can lead doctors and patients to believe drugs are more effective than they really are, which can influence prescribing decisions," said Turner. He also cautioned that the surprisingly large number of negative studies does not mean that antidepressants are ineffective. His team found that each drug, when all its studies were combined using a statistical technique called meta-analysis, was superior to treatment with a placebo. On the other hand, this analysis also showed that each drug, based on the FDA data, was less effective than it would appear from the published literature.
Turner also said that he and his colleagues don't know whether the bias resulted from a failure of authors and sponsors to submit manuscripts, from decisions by journal editors and reviewers not to publish, or both. "Regardless, doctors and patients must have access to evidence that is complete and unbiased when they are weighing the risks and benefits of treatment," he emphasized.
Turner EH, Matthews AM, Linardatos E, et al. Selective Publication of Antidepressant Trials and Its Influence on Apparent Efficacy N Engl J Med. 2008 Jan 17;358:252-260 [Abstract]
Mental Health America's response:
Mental Health America, one of the nation's leading mental health advocacy groups, views the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's study of antidepressant trials published in the New England Journal Medicine as a diligent measure, but cautions that this easily misinterpreted study not discourage people with depression from seeking appropriate care and evidence-based treatments that work for them."Selective Publication of Antidepressant Trials and Its Influence on Apparent Efficacy," which appears in today's issue of the NEJM, surveys the results of both published and unpublished antidepressant FDA studies.
"This is a very important paper, and we applaud the FDA for moving toward greater transparency," said David Shern, Ph.D., president and CEO of Mental Health America. "It is critical, however, that people understand that antidepressants do work and continue to help millions of Americans recover from depression and other mental health conditions."
"Historically, papers that get published have been those with positive results. This study highlights what is known as the "waste basket" problem in which studies with positive outcomes are more likely to be published than those with neutral or negative outcomes," added Shern. "This study is a diligent follow-up detailing estimated effects and perhaps the oversimplification of the effects of antidepressants."
The fact remains, antidepressants do work and help millions of Americans to recover.