Dr. David Healy

Psychiatrist. Psychopharmacologist. Scientist. Author.

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Royal College of Psychiatrists’ Suicide Note

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RCPsych President responds to newspaper coverage on antidepressants 24 April 2023  Dr Adrian James, President of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, has written to national newspapers responding to recent articles erroneously linking antidepressants to suicide. Here is the full text of the letter. “I was disappointed to read your article, which has potential to … [Read more...] about Royal College of Psychiatrists’ Suicide Note

Will Medical Insurers Stop Killing People

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The Daily Telegraph in the UK as well as The Daily Mail carried articles this week on a paper in the journal Ethical Human Psychology and Psychiatry by John Read and colleagues that was based on the work of AntidepAware. For over a decade, AntidepAware has been cataloguing inquests in Britain where it appears likely the person was taking an antidepressant. The site gave John … [Read more...] about Will Medical Insurers Stop Killing People

Twenty Six Words and the Internet

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Artificial Intelligence, which the Internet of course facilitates, has been one of the main news items lately.  We are beginning to panic about the future. A RxISK post We Will Get Fooled Again picks up some of the mounting concern. The last sentence in the text above introducing Imagining the Internet Centre perhaps unintentionally catches the worries - A better tomorrow … [Read more...] about Twenty Six Words and the Internet

Jen and the Genestalk

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Mystery in the Moonlight © Nina Otulakowski March 2023 As she was about to leave the house, Jen’s mother asked her if she was on her way to get vaccinated. Mother, she said, that’s like asking me to take the cow to the market.  It’s a bit twentieth century, maybe even nineteenth. You get vaccinia virus from cows. I’m heading off to meet Bri and Suzanna for the latest gene … [Read more...] about Jen and the Genestalk

Dos Centavos – Veinte Euros

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  Five years ago, in a riff on the theme of rape, Dos Centavos tackled drug induced harms and the inability of doctors to see, hear or believe the people they put on a poison who end up poisoned. Dos Centavos was not the only post on this unfolding disaster.  Many other posts, like A Call to H*Arms, cover this central element of modern politics, science, and … [Read more...] about Dos Centavos – Veinte Euros

Here We Stand, We Can Do No Other

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In 1517, Martin Luther nailed a defiant proclamation to the door of Wittenberg Cathedral.  (See RxISK Reformation Day). The issuing of indulgences, offering easier entries to Heaven, in return for money is popularly represented as being at the heart of the storm that followed. A significant part of the storm came from Luther’s stubbornness – his Here I Stand I Can Do No … [Read more...] about Here We Stand, We Can Do No Other

Are Women Better at Everything?

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I was born in a generation where it was thought women couldn’t drive cars, write fiction, compose music, compete at sports, or should be let work after marriage. Women were emotional, intuitive, erratic but not really capable of full rationality. Ireland in the 1950s may have been a few years behind other parts of Europe on these issues, but it has a prior history of women … [Read more...] about Are Women Better at Everything?

The History of a Medical Psychosis

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This is a third talk in a series that began with Relationship Based Medicine , continued with Beware of Doctors Bearing Gifts and concludes with this talk, which could called History of a Medical Psychosis, Medical Neoliberalism, Evident versus Evidence Based Medicine, A Lutheran Moment, or Does Objectivity Come from using Chance to Control Bias or Bias to Control Chance? It … [Read more...] about The History of a Medical Psychosis