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According to an ex-chief of the FDA, Johnson & Johnson knew long before it started warning people that Risperdal could cause boys to grow breasts.

Greater cumulative doses of drugs that are anticholinergic or block the neurotransmitter acetylcholine are associated with significant increases in dementia and Alzheimer's.

Three independent studies in two journals reported strong links between antipsychotics and falls and fractures.

A popular Alzheimer's and dementia drug has been linked to two potentially fatal conditions.

Food and Drug Administration-approved information and public advertisements are misleading the public about the actual neurodegenerative risks from second-generation antipsychotics.

In order for you to understand where I am coming from, you probably need to know a bit about how I got here. Throughout my psychiatric training I had always, in the back of mind, this question: What is the difference between my suffering and those of my patients? How come they get all this treatment and I got none? Why do they have a ‘brain disease’ (there was a time when I tentatively believed in this sort of thing), whilst I, who was at times symptomatically severe enough to warrant medication, have no brain disease? The answer seems plain to me now. I had suffered exactly in the same way as many of the people I see every day do, but I had been lucky enough to avoid labeling and drugging.

People who have taken a psychedelic drug at least once have less suicidal thinking than the general population.

Researchers believe they have found "the smoking gun" that links common contaminants leaching from plastics to "adverse brain development and hyperactivity."

A study into prejudice, hatred and violence directed against people with mental health issues is seeking public input.

The European Medicines Agency has called for the suspension of sales of many commonly used generic drugs, including at least four widely used psychiatric medications.

The more that patients feel that they have a high-quality relationship with their prescribing physician, the more likely that they will regard their own responses to antidepressants as positive.

A scientific review says we need to know much more about the risks of nursing mothers taking SSRIs.

The Pfizer drug has also been linked to more than 1,300 incidents of suicide attempts or thoughts, depression, and aggression/anger across the country in the past seven years.

Teaching psychiatrists the appropriate prescribing guidelines for patients with schizophrenia did not reduce the incidence of inappropriate prescribing.

Depressed elderly people are more likely to suffer heart disease not because of their depression, but apparently due to antidepressant drugs.

First generation antipsychotics seem to cause general brain volume loss, while second generation antipsychotics seem to both increase and decrease the thickness of different parts of the brain.

Too many studies of atypical antipsychotic medications are still not meeting even the minimum scientific standards of the internationally agreed-upon CONSORT guidelines for drug trials.

The French non-profit organization Prescrire has produced a special report about the impacts of SSRI antidepressants on male fertility.

Systematic reviews of the medical literature may not be as reliable or helpful as often believed.

Elderly people in Sweden are five times more likely to be taking antipsychotics if they have a diagnosis of dementia, according to research published in Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica. And among those people with dementia, the lower their education the higher the likelihood they’re taking antipsychotics.

More than half of the prescriptions for antipsychotic drugs in the UK are being issued "off-label" to treat conditions other than those for which the drugs are approved, according to a large study published in the British Medical Journal Open. Researchers also found significantly higher levels of prescribing of the medications to poorer people.

Early in December, HealthNewsReview.org announced receipt of a $1.3 million grant from the Laura and John Arnold Foundation to re-start and significantly expand its operations. And in late December Retraction Watch announced that it had received $400,000 from the MacArthur Foundation. Both websites specialize in monitoring and reporting on poor practices in science, medicine and psychiatry.

Describing the prevalence and management of adverse effects from antipsychotics as "a neglected area" of study, a team of researchers from the UK has published a systematic review in the Journal of Psychopharmacology. They aimed to identify the prevalence of, and management strategies for nine categories of adverse effects, including sedation, weight gain, metabolic syndrome, sexual dysfunction and cardiovascular effects.

Despite the well-known risks of the drugs, especially for the elderly, prescription use of addictive benzodiazepine sedatives in the United States increases steadily with age, according to a large-scale study published in JAMA Psychiatry. Overall, as of 2008, 5.2% of American adults were taking the drugs. The study also showed that women were twice as likely to be taking benzodiazepines as men. National Institute of Mental Health director Thomas Insel called the findings "worrisome."

About 9% fewer Americans are using prescription opioids than were five years ago, but those people are taking more of the drugs for longer periods of time, according to a study by pharmacy benefits manager Express Scripts reported in FiercePharma. And nearly one-third are being put in serious risk of overdose death by taking the opioids alongside prescriptions for benzodiazepine sedatives, stated the New York Times.