A careful and important blog post about a new research initiative at the National Institute of Mental Health has become,...
Category: bipolar disorder
A careful and important blog post about a new research initiative at the National Institute of Mental Health has become, in the hands of New Scientist, a "bombshell" that "denounced" the forthcoming update of the psychiatric diagnostic manual.
This histrionic description seems out of character for New Scientist, which is ordinarily a very good science magazine. Here's the lede:
The world's biggest mental health research institute is abandoning the new version of psychiatry's "bible" – the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, questioning its validity and stating that "patients with mental disorders deserve better." This bombshell comes just weeks before the...
I've commented several times here on the surprising run of psychology and health stories in The New York Times Magazine, which has clearly made these a regular feature of the magazine now. But the...
I've commented several times here on the surprising run of psychology and health stories in The New York Times Magazine, which has clearly made these a regular feature of the magazine now. But the Times topped that yesterday, with a special issue on health, featuring stories on breast cancer awareness, bipolar disorder, and a case of fraudulent psychological research.
Interestingly, this has not been matched by a rise in science stories. We're not seeing a similar increase in stories on exoplanets, the Higgs boson, climate change, software, or habitat loss. The Times is observing what has long been the rift between what we would call medical stories (including psychology) and science stories. We might take this opportunity to alert the magazine's editors to the gripping stories they...
On his director's blog, Thomas R. Insel, the director of the National Institute of Mental Health, has listed what, in his view, were the top 10 advances in mental health and neuroscience in 2012. It's an interesting list not only because of what it includes, but because Insel shares...
On his director's blog, Thomas R. Insel, the director of the National Institute of Mental Health, has listed what, in his view, were the top 10 advances in mental health and neuroscience in 2012. It's an interesting list not only because of what it includes, but because Insel shares his interpretations and some brief ruminations on the findings, along with his suggestions of what is likely to continue to be important in the coming years.
Manipulating the epigenome to treat brain disorders is one intriguing development that I missed. I also liked his description of 2012 as "the year of genomic weirdness," which apparently is some sort of technical term. Under "weird," he includes the notion that "cancer might be a useful model for understanding autism or schizophrenia," that women can carry their offspring's cells in their brains, and that "microDNA segments could be transmitted independently of chromosomes...
The authors of an article on the website of Scientific American Mind are entitled to their opinion on whether or not children can get bipolar disorder. They are not entitled to dress up their...
The authors of an article on the website of Scientific American Mind are entitled to their opinion on whether or not children can get bipolar disorder. They are not entitled to dress up their opinion as reporting.
The article, by Scott O. Lilienfeld and Hal Arkowitz, is headlined "Do Kids Get Bipolar Disorder?" That promises a broad examination of the topic. But that's not what we get.
The authors begin their story with a boy with behavior problems. But he's a fabrication. The story begins: "Imagine an eight-year old boy whom we will call Eric..." Imagination is a beautiful thing, but we should be wary of imagining characters in nonfiction. (Although it's a lot easier than finding real kids.)
They then recite statistics showing that the diagnosis of bipolar disorder in children has risen sharply in...
From Michael Specter, in the May 30th issue of The New Yorker:
In the early eighteen-seventies, a smallpox pandemic that accompanied the Franco-Prussian War killed more than half a million Europeans. Smallpox claimed the lives of tens of thousands of French...
From Michael Specter, in the May 30th issue of The New Yorker:
In the early eighteen-seventies, a smallpox pandemic that accompanied the Franco-Prussian War killed more than half a million Europeans. Smallpox claimed the lives of tens of thousands of French soldiers, yet the Prussians lost fewer than five hundred men. That was because Prussia vaccinated its entire Army against the virus, and France did not. There has never been a more dramatic demonstration of a vaccine’s power to alter the course of history.
Specter uses his review of Pox: An American History, by the Brandeis historian Michael Willrich, as an opportunity to look at the complex ethics of mandating medical care. Smallpox has now been eliminated from the Earth, with the exception of samples held in vaults in the United States...
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In the wake of the Jan. 8 shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, I noted that some science and medical writers had succumbed to the temptation to let sources diagnose Jared Loughner based solely on the bald, smirking picture of Loughner that became the iconic image of the shooting.
Such diagnostic claims are not only...
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