A distinguished colleague (C1) introduced last year's word of the year - AI Slop - into last week's The Prozac Liberation Front post. As an unaccountable editor, I took the liberty to suggest that many of us seemed to figure - or would pretty soon get round to figuring - that AI was all too likely to go the way of the Internet as a potentially democratising force in … [Read more...] about AI versus the Deep State
The Prozac Liberation Front
Chatting, recently, to two different friends of his separately, mentioning the possible role of SSRIs or other meds in the Tumbler Ridge shooting, a colleague (C1 - the first of 3 colleagues in this post) got blown away by both of them. Conspiracy theories, they told him. Misinformation - you're being ridiculous. One of them - a decent scientist - sent him a ChatGPT read … [Read more...] about The Prozac Liberation Front
Can We Avoid Being Eaten
Carney at Davos Like or loathe his politics, unless I am missing something, Mark Carney, Canada’s Prime Minister and Liberal party leader, seems a decent man. As the Canadian standing up to Donald Trump, whether you are pro- or anti-Trump, you are likely interested to see how this contact sport plays out. (Even Curling is close to being a contact sport these days). On … [Read more...] about Can We Avoid Being Eaten
Gaslighting, Milgram and Madness
This image is from Wikipedia Gaslighting which gives the credit details. The word Gaslighting comes from the 1944 movie Gaslight about a husband's attempts to get his wife to doubt her sanity. It caught on slowly but as this graph shows in the last decade its use has taken off. The greatest relative rise in its use may be in healthcare. Until recently it was inconceivable … [Read more...] about Gaslighting, Milgram and Madness
Gaslighting in Healthcare
This post features Letters from Peter Scott-Gordon to Lade Smith - the originals are in the link. Readers outside Britain should assume that the gaslighting here applies to regulators and medical bodies in their country also and should not be fooled by this apparently polite correspondence. 4 February 2026 Dear Dr Lade Smith, PATIENT SAFETY I wanted to write to you … [Read more...] about Gaslighting in Healthcare
Health a Privilege of Wealth
This post was written 5 years ago. It is a sequel to a lecture posted last week on RxISK with its comments - Are Healthcare and Science Compatible? The comments brought out how we now have a system that gaslights both patients and doctors leading to tensions on all sides as this post illustrates. It also links to RxISK's - Guilty Until Proven Innocent - Prime Facie - this … [Read more...] about Health a Privilege of Wealth
The Once and Future Pharmacopsychology
Emil Kraepelin’s famous Textbook created modern psychiatry a hundred and thirty years ago. After the World Wars, Freud’s influence grew and his thinking dominated the US mental health scene after World War II. Nearly 90 years after Kraepelin established his framework, US psychiatry dramatically swept Freud away under the influence of a group of psychiatrists branded as … [Read more...] about The Once and Future Pharmacopsychology
I Come to Praise SSRIs not to Bury Them
This talk was given in Maastricht at the invitation of David Linden, Scientific Director of the Mental Health and Neuroscience Research Institute on November 27 and again to a group of Primary Care Doctors in Sweden at the invitation of André Marx on Nov 28. There were some great questions afterwards. This post gives the text of the talk along with the slides and links to … [Read more...] about I Come to Praise SSRIs not to Bury Them
Authenticity Inc meets Grok
Two weeks ago, RxISK ran Authenticity Inc., a post by Johanna Ryan, which tackled a growing story – the exponentially escalating use of SSRIs among Tik-Toxing and Instagramming Gen Zs, more women than men. A generation for whom these drugs were never approved and for whom SSRIs come with Black Box warnings for suicide. In this post Tik-Tox meets AI following on … [Read more...] about Authenticity Inc meets Grok
Artificial Intelligence Triggers a Tsunami
This post follows on from Miracles of Artificial Intelligence and Artificial I. The trigger was an intervention by Chris Dubey, who earlier this year wrote an article on ECT (electroconvulsive therapy - Shock Treatment) for the International Journal of Risk and Safety in Medicine, which was sent to me for review. Most people, whether familiar or not with ECT, would figure … [Read more...] about Artificial Intelligence Triggers a Tsunami