By Rose King

In 2004, California approved Proposition 63, a historic victory expected to transform the state’s ailing mental health system. Voters made good on a 40-year old promise to fund community services, when their elected officials could not do the job. As a coauthor of the measure, I believed the clear language of the law guaranteed expansion … Read more

Topics: drug trials, FDA, medication, race

ű The basic principles underlying “personalized medicine” require a prescribing physician to take into account not only empirically-based guidelines, but also the individual characteristics of the person needing therapy. In deliberations about whether or not drug therapy is warranted, the selection of drug, dosing, and the benefit to risk must be weighed for each patient. … Read more

Unanswered questions

The American Psychiatric Association (APA) is having a hard time harnessing a controversy brought by muckrakers, its own members, and reported in The Chronicle of Higher Education. Allegations persist that a book published under its imprint was principally ghostwritten. And neither the authors, nor the association, nor the company involved, Scientific Therapeutics Inc. (STI), have … Read more

bill-lichtenstein-sends-this-note-about-an-apology-from-on-the-media-the-npr-program-about-journalism

I’ve been reading that something really odd recently. It’s Bill Lichtenstein, the noted American print and broadcast journalist, and a TV show called “on the media”. It appears that they accused Bill of some shenanigans. They basically accused him live on air of knowing about speaking fees when he claimed he didn’t. However, they just … Read more

Topics advocacy dsm v patient rights stigma

How we can try to be more inclusive with our language in the mental health field? How can we show those who have been marginalized by psychiatric labels that we are listening and welcoming? ”The term “mentally ill” is very much a medical model. If you want to use that term about yourself that is … Read more

Man Behind The Myth For The Next Twelve Months

the Ronald Reagan image machine will be turning out countless vignettes of the nation’s 40th president, the man neighbors called “Dutch.” He will be described as no-nonsense yet kindly, remote but avuncular, a movies-star-turned-politician, and remembered as a local lifeguard rescuing people in troubled waters. With dashing good looks, a sonorous tone that became the … Read more