Mood Swings

Whenever I visit Walden Pond, I think of the beautiful eulogy that Ralph Waldo Emerson gave upon the passing of Henry David Thoreau. After much praise, Emerson allowed space for some criticism.... Read More

Another mainstream article makes the press about corrupt doctors taking pharmaceutical industry money. The June 8 New York Times reported on a US Senate investigation into poor disclosure of millions of dollars in income provided by pharmaceutical companies to Harvard child psychiatry researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH). Like Dr. Peter Kramer ("In Practice" blog), I too have carefully followed the work of the MGH research group, both for their research on childhood bipolar disorder (with which I agree in large part) and their research on ADHD in adults (with with I disagree in general). Regarding treatment, my own experience and research has tended to be opposite to theirs: I have found amphetamine stimulants (especially methylphenidate) and antipsychotics to be less effective and more harmful than they have reported. Has their optimism about medications been biased by their profits? Perhaps; perhaps not. There are plenty of profits to go around, and just as much can be made these days bashing medications as marketing them. Read More