As most of you know, last week the FDA sent me what it's calling the official definition of pediatric bipolar disorder, at least to the degree that the agency will use the definition to approve drugs for the alleged disorder....
Posted in Furious Seasons on September 22, 2008 12:05 AM
I read the New York Times Sunday Magazine piece on alleged child bipolar disorder over the weekend. It wasn't quite as big a piece of crap as I heard from readers initially, but Jennifer Egan's article was, in my opinion,...
Posted in Furious Seasons on September 15, 2008 12:03 AM
Yesterday, I reported that the FDA's psychiatry products chief, Thomas Laughren, and the FDA itself were refusing to answer questions about pediatric bipolar disorder which the agency had two weeks previously determined unilaterally was a valid diagnosis. The FDA's move...
Posted in Furious Seasons on August 15, 2008 09:16 AM
Two weeks ago, the FDA announced that pediatric bipolar disorder--aka, child bipolar disorder, juvenile bipolar disorder, etc.--was a valid diagnosis, despite the fact that it doesn't exist in the DSM and child psychiatrists cannot even agree amongst themselves whether the...
Posted in Furious Seasons on August 14, 2008 12:03 AM
Yesterday, I posted an item wherein the FDA says it accepts as valid the diagnosis of pediatric bipolar disorder, despite much controversy within psychiatry about the validity of the disorder. I also noted that a Harvard child psychiatrist had written...
Posted in Furious Seasons on July 31, 2008 12:01 AM
Earlier today, I asked the FDA to respond to a statement made by Harvard child psychiatrist Janet Wozniak, wherein the doctor claimed that the FDA accepted the validity of the hotly-debated child bipolar disorder. That was news to me, since...
Posted in Furious Seasons on July 30, 2008 02:07 PM
There was a recent op-ed in the Boston Globe by an emeritus Harvard med school professor criticizing the many financial conflicts of the group of child psychiatrists headed by Joseph Biederman. Among other things, he pounded on the meds given...
Posted in Furious Seasons on July 30, 2008 08:58 AM
Much credit to AHRP and Pharmalot for picking up an interesting bit on one the defenders of Harvard child psychiatrist Joe Biederman who was touted in Sunday's New York Times piece as "a true visionary in recognizing this illness in...
Posted in Furious Seasons on June 10, 2008 07:53 AM
Fascinating piece in yesterday's Boston Globe about how the Commonwealth of Massachusetts is combing records from its state Medicaid program, plucking out all the kids on a certain unnamed antipsychotic (I assume it's Zyprexa) and the kids on more than...
Posted in Furious Seasons on October 8, 2007 12:05 AM
I just finished watching the "60 Minutes" piece on child bipolar disorder. It seemed to me to be about as level and as fair a handling of the controversial diagnosis as you could get out of television news. I still...
Posted in Furious Seasons on October 1, 2007 12:01 AM
As I noted earlier today, a new study of Zyprexa use in teens was just published. I've just reviewed the full paper and will have more thoughts in a bit. Until then, take a look at the disclosure statement for...
Posted in Furious Seasons on September 27, 2007 11:23 AM
Late last night, a study touting the use of Zyprexa in teens aged 13 to 17 years with bipolar disorder hit the web. It's published in the October issue of the American Journal of Psychiatry. The study was lead-authored by...
Posted in Furious Seasons on September 27, 2007 12:33 AM
That's the view of this op-ed from yesterday's Boston Globe, penned by Jerrold Rosenbaum, chief of psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital and Michael Jellinek, chief of child psychiatry at Mass Gen. That would make them Biederman and Wozniak's bosses. In...
Posted in Furious Seasons on June 28, 2007 12:03 AM
Following up on my post of yesterday, here's a link to the Boston Globe's excellent piece on the Harvard bipolar child mafia and the controversy around the diagnosis and treatments. I'm a bit confused why one blogger deems this the...
Posted in Furious Seasons on June 18, 2007 12:05 AM
Today's Boston Globe has an excellent article on the bipolar child controversy and the Harvard bipolar child mafia. One of that group's chief critics is a psychiatrist at the University of Washington right here in Rain City. I'll say more...
Posted in Furious Seasons on June 17, 2007 11:36 AM
When Jerome Groopman authored a somewhat critical assessment of the bipolar child paradigm last month in The New Yorker, you knew it would get interesting responses. Last week, the magazine pritned three letters from psych docs in response to the...
Posted in Furious Seasons on May 8, 2007 12:03 AM
So my back is keeping me off the computer again, but I wanted to pass along the following bit that CBS' "The Early Show" did on kiddos with bipolar disorder. It's in two parts on the web at least. Includes...
Posted in Furious Seasons on May 4, 2007 12:29 AM
I've banged on the AP--an organization I generally hold in high esteem--for its lame coverage of mental health issues. My, my, my how things change when a child is killed under bizarre circumstances. I refer to the Rebecca Riley case,...
Posted in Furious Seasons on March 23, 2007 12:33 PM
WBUR-FM in Boston, the city's main NPR station, today took up the question of bipolar disorder in kids. Appearing on the program was Janet Wozniak, director of the Pediatric Bipolar Program at Massachusetts General Hospital (i.e., Harvard), who defends the...
Posted in Furious Seasons on February 15, 2007 11:43 AM