Friday, February 04, 2005

Women With Borderline Disorder Show Less Anger on Anticonvulsants  Psychiatric News story - "Use of the anticonvulsant topiramate significantly reduced four out of five measures of anger and resulted in a modest loss of weight among women with borderline personality disorder. Women with borderline personality disorder who took the anticonvulsant topiramate displayed less anger compared with those on placebo, said German researchers. They also lost weight, an important consideration for a class of drugs that often provokes weight gain. The research extends evidence of the use of anticonvulsant medications like valproate and carbamazepine in the treatment of pathologic aggression..."  
  

HMOs May Lose Ability To Limit Medication Choice (California) Psychiatric News story - "Proposed regulations in California would give patients and physicians legal tools to ensure access to prescription drugs. Health care advocates are cautiously optimistic about proposed new regulations that would require California HMOs to cover medically necessary prescription drugs. Last month the California Department of Managed Health Care (CDMHC) issued the proposed regulations, which stipulate that prescription drug benefits be designed by 'qualified medical and pharmacy professionals.' If the regulations are finalized, the HMOs must establish and document a process for 'ongoing review by qualified medical and pharmacy professionals of the safety, efficacy, and utilization of outpatient prescription drugs.' "  
  

Suicide Rate Down in the Era of Prozac Los Angeles Times story - "The U.S. suicide rate has fallen steadily since Prozac and related antidepressants came into use in the late 1980s, according to an analysis by researchers worried that evidence linking the drugs to suicide in children could reduce their use. The suicide rate, which reached a peak in 1988 of nearly 13 deaths per 100,000 people, fell steadily to about 10.5 in 2002. Most suicides are the result of untreated depression, not adverse reactions to antidepressants, wrote Dr. Julio Licinio and Dr. Ma-Li Wong, psychiatrists at UCLA, in an opinion piece released Wednesday by the journal Nature Reviews: Drug Discovery."  
  

Cautious response greets antidepressant warning Chicago Tribune story - "Doctors reacted with caution Thursday to a new study suggesting that pregnant women who take common antidepressants might cause their newborn babies to have seizures or other withdrawal symptoms. The study, published in the British journal The Lancet, provides a useful reminder that any drugs taken during pregnancy could harm the unborn child, experts said. But they quickly added that not treating serious cases of depression also carries risks, for both the patient and her baby."