By Lucy Johnstone and Sue Cunliffe Electroconvulsive therapy, or ECT, is still given to about 2,100 -2,700 people a year in England, about half of whom have not consented to it. This blog reports on a campaign for an independent review of this highly controversial procedure, and provides links to relevant articles. There will be […]
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Guest blog by Richard P. Bentall: ECT is a classic failure of evidence-based medicine
A commentary on Read, J., Kirsch, I., & McGrath, L. (2020). Electroconvulsive therapy for depression: A review of the quality of ECT versus sham ECT trials and meta-analyses. Ethical Human Psychology and Psychiatry, 21, 64-103. Richard P. Bentall, Professor of Clinical Psychology, University of Sheffield In a discipline to which controversy is no stranger, there are […]
The Daily Telegraph and Mail Online: Dr James Davies says quiz used to diagnose depression is designed by Pfizer
Dr James Davies is interviewed today in The Daily Telegraph about a questionnaire used by doctors to diagnose depression and anxiety in the UK. “These forms have a very low criteria for anxiety and depression’” says Davies. “Millions of people have filled them and in and got medication, but did they know they were developed by […]
Report from the latest meeting of the APPG for Prescribed Drug Dependence
Dr James Davies writes: On Wednesday 11th May, CEP brought into the heart of Westminster some of the leading figures in critical psychiatry to discuss the link between rising mental health disability claims and rising psychiatric prescriptions. Hosted by the All Party Parliamentary Group for Prescribed Drug Dependence, for which CEP provides the secretariat, the event […]
Daily Mail: ‘Psychiatric drugs… third major killer after heart disease and cancer,’ says Prof Peter Gøtzsche
The Daily Mail today publishes two articles describing the devastating and often deadly impact of psychiatric drugs. In the first piece, Cochrane Collaboration co-founder Prof Peter Gøtzsche details the findings of his new book, Deadly Psychiatry and Organised Denial (2105). “More than 80 million prescriptions for psychiatric drugs are written in the UK every year,” says Gøtzsche. […]
The Maudsley Debate: a cause for hope
Dr James Davies writes: For the last 30 years those of us critical of the overprescribing and harms of psychiatric medications have been on the losing side, in the face of a powerful industry-backed medical model that has crowded out alternative voices and visions. The real importance of Wednesday’s Maudsley Debate is that it symbolised […]
Video of Maudsley Debate on psychiatric drug harm
The full debate can now be viewed here:
BMJ article: is the long-term use of psychiatric drugs harmful?
The BMJ today publishes an article by CEP member Professor Peter Gøtzsche, in which he claims that the long-term use of psychiatric medication is causing more harm than good. The article is timed to co-incide with a Maudsley Debate which will be held today on the same topic. More than half a million people aged above […]
The third leading cause of death after heart disease and cancer? Experts debate the harmful effects of psychiatric medications
Following its launch last year and the subsequent criticism of its position by prominent psychiatrists in the The Times and The Lancet Psychiatry, the Council for Evidence-based Psychiatry (CEP) responded by issuing a challenge to its critics to engage in an open, public debate on psychiatric drug harm. Taking up this challenge, the Institute of Psychiatry at Kings College London […]
Latest prescription data shows consumption of psychiatric drugs continues to soar
The latest prescription figures from the Health and Social Care Information Centre show that the UK is in the midst of a psychiatric drug epidemic. Over 57m prescriptions for antidepressants were issued in England in 2014, enough for one for every man, woman and child. This represents a 7.5% increase since 2013, and over 500% […]