Dr.Daniel Carlat has an opinion about the antidepressant story as well, for interest sake:

http://carlatpsychiatry.blogspot.com/2010/01/antidepressants-ineffective-dont.html

Antidepressants Ineffective? Don't Believe It! (Part 1)

A recent study in JAMA.......

I understand Dr. Efsa's doing some work, too. Check out lasqueti.ca if you dare.

I think the autism cluster article is interesting: it pegs "well educated" parents as reason for the area pocket of autistic kids, being that the parents have apparently more resources and education to ask questions, and get a diagnoses.

Rather than look at an environmental cause (what's in the water, soil, or air)they looked at a demographic cause for the study.

Interesting, maybe there was a bad batch of vaccines in the area, maybe there are too many people being dx autism spectrum instead of being considered "normal and a bit quirky". None the less, I wonder how many of these kids are now being drugged via the behavior chemical restraints that are so popular in this collective group.

Many questions, and few answers.

I thought this looked interesting for this round up:

http://autisminnb.blogspot.com/2010/01/neurodiversity-ideologues-strange.html

"Neurodiversity bloggers seldom fail to comment on any autism or Aspergers related news event. Invariably they put the Neurodiversity spin on autism disorders as they play out in the real world. It is strange that with news of the conviction of a 25 year old man with Aspergers Disorder,Christopher Monk, not a word has been splashed on the internet by the ND bloggers."

that article includes a link to the news story.

all: fyi: fascinating article in today's NYT
about psychiatry, culture, and the ontologic
status of what is called "mental illness".
[Phil: might make a good blog post]

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/10/magazine/10psyche-t.html
The Americanization of Mental Illness
By ETHAN WATTERS
Published: January 8, 2010
AMERICANS, particularly if they are of a certain leftward-leaning, college-educated type, worry about our country’s blunders into other cultures. In some circles, it is easy to make friends with a rousing rant about the McDonald’s near Tiananmen Square, the Nike factory in Malaysia or the latest blowback from our political or military interventions abroad. For all our self-recrimination, however, we may have yet to face one of the most remarkable effects of American-led globalization. We have for many years been busily engaged in a grand project of Americanizing the world’s understanding of mental health and illness. We may indeed be far along in homogenizing the way the world goes mad.
SNIP

FDA has announced as of today that they are having a webinar for bloggers as part of their transparency initiative.

It's scheduled for tomorrow at 4 PM.

See http://www.fda.gov/NewsEvents/ucm196493.htm