Psychiatry Roundup: Diagnosing From Afar and Other Stories

Lithium Should Be More Widely Used for Bipolar Disorder, Researchers Say
The first study comparing the adverse effects of 4 mood-stabilizing drugs says forget stigma. Lithium works.
Guardian, August 14

Deconstructing and Reconstructing the “Goldwater Rule”
The ethical core of the Goldwater Rule is sound, but the rule needs clearer and more nuanced language.

Clinton Rolls Out Plan to Improve Mental Health Care.
"The proposal calls for expanding early intervention in mental illness; a national initiative to prevent suicide, which kills more than 40,000 Americans a year; increasing training for police who are called to the scene of a mental health crisis; providing mental health care for non-violent offenders to help them avoid going to jail for minor offenses; & investing in brain and behavioral research to develop better treatments."
USA Today, August 30

Overselling ADHD: A New Book Exposes Big Pharma’s Role
A review of Alan Schwartz’s book, ADHD Nation: Children, Doctors, Big Pharma, and the Making of an American Epidemic, claims it “should be required reading for those who seek to understand how a field that once aimed to ameliorate the behavioral problems of children in a broad therapeutic context abdicated its mission to the stockholders of corporations like Shire and Lilly. Schwarz is sounding an alarm for a fire that looks nowhere near abating.”
The New York Times, August 22, 2016

Correcting Metabolic Deficiencies May Improve Depression Symptoms
Identifying and treating metabolic deficiencies in patients with treatment-resistant depression can improve symptoms and even lead to remission, as reported by Pan and colleagues in the American Journal of Psychiatry.

How Artificial Intelligence Could Help Diagnose Mental Disorders
“Machine learning could train software to spot verbal tics associated with schizophrenia, depression, and bipolar disorder.”
The Atlantic, August 23