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Editorial Note: This is a second post in the Change in Chicago Series looking at the Dolin trial and its verdict.  There will be two more in the series.  Being cross-examined in a legal case involving Pharma is rarely fun.  The lawyers will have done their homework in spades.  As one of them put it to me once: Dr Healy, I have read everything you have ever written. Looking … [Read more...] about Change in Chicago: Playing Go

Editorial: This series of posts on Stewart Dolin's death interrupts a series on how to bring about change . This is not inappropriate as law suits are one of the few ways to bring about change. This post in the series is by a Chicagoan - Johanna Ryan who has been tracking the case since it was filed first.  How a Chicago jury got it right On April 20, a federal jury in … [Read more...] about Change in Chicago: The Dolin Verdict

Editorial Note: This is the third part of a talk giving to the BNPA on February 22.  It follows on from Tweeting While Psychiatry Burns and Tweeting While Medicine Burns.  The final group of slides are HERE.  The talk you have just heard was first given in Toronto on Thursday November 30 2000 to mark the 75 anniversary of the University Dept and 150 anniversary of the Queen … [Read more...] about Burn Baby Burn

Editorial Note: This is part 2 of a 3 part lecture given on February 22 that began with Tweeting while Psychiatry Burns.  The text and slides continue from last week. The slides for this part are Here. The numbering continues from last week.  When his office was ransacked, Delay's world was turned upside down but psychiatry and doctors are still here - so we won, didn't … [Read more...] about Tweeting while Medicine Burns

Editorial Note:  This is part 1 of a lecture given at a British Neuropsychiatric Association meeting in London on February 22 under the heading of Psychopharmacology: 1952 - 2017.   The lecture will feature here in 3 posts of which this is the first.  Slides 1 -11 can be found HERE. The Birth This picture is taken from a newspaper in 1952.  It features Jean Delay wearing navy … [Read more...] about Tweeting While Psychiatry Burns

Editorial Note: I was asked to review Peter Kramer's Ordinarily Well: The Case for Antidepressants for ISIS.  The in print review is HERE.  There is a sister post on RxISK - with a better cartoon and where the word Venomagnosia s explained - Come Back When you Have a Medical Degree. This book was very difficult to review. In Ordinarily Well: The Case for Antidepressants, Dr. … [Read more...] about Venomagnosia

Editorial: This is a final post in the current vaccine series. In 1798 Edward Jenner in Britain demonstrated that vaccination with cowpox was a safer way to confer immunity to smallpox than variolation with smallpox. It quickly spread. In Britain, variolation was banned in favor of vaccination in 1840. In 1853, vaccinations were made compulsory with fines for refusal. … [Read more...] about The First Vaccine Wars

Stopping the spread of Japan’s antivaccine panic Following the post last week on MedWatcher Japan's efforts to bring the issue of HPV vaccines to light, my attention was drawn to a recent Wall Street Journal article which stated: “Japanese women’s health is increasingly at risk as public-health policy is driven by conspiracy theories, misguided political interference and … [Read more...] about Post-Truth Rumorology?

Editorial Note: This anonymous comment featured toward the end of the Murder or Accident post. It seemed worth transforming into a post in its own right. In the week of the US vote, a key question facing voters is where does all the pain come from. A colleague and I gave a talk to family docs this year and we discussed the opioid epidemic, including the 1% risk of addiction … [Read more...] about Go Figure: Where Does All the Pain Come From?

Harold Shipman was a doctor in Britain, who was arrested for murder in 1998. He turned out to be a true Angel of Death, the most prolific known serial killer, who killed it is thought between two and three hundred of his patients by prescribing opioids in large doses. After his trial and conviction and jailing, he committed suicide in jail with no-one any the wiser as to why … [Read more...] about Go Figure: Murder or Accident?