DRUG TRIALS
Anyone who hs to take a drug for a mental health problem wants to know that it's been tested to make sure that it's safe and that if trials had shown it wasn't you or your doctor would know about it.Ìý But recently various trials have come to light showing that anti-depressants don’t always work or worse, that they can do harm. Now question marks hang over how open drug companies are being with their results. After the biggest investigation ever held into a drug company – an investigation that involved more than a million pages of data, Glaxo SmithKline were criticisedÌýfor having kept quiet about trial results that revealed an increased suicide risk in children, using the antidepressant Seroxat..Ìý
Dr Tim Kendall, Joint Director, National Collaborating Centre for Mental Health, Deputy Director, Royal College of Psychiatrists', research Unit, Medical Director & Consultant Psychiatrist, Sheffield Care Trust;Ìýand Dr Richard Tiner, the Medical Director of the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry, discuss transparency in drugs trials.
SCHIZOPHRENIA
When ambulance staff are faced with someone with chest pain they know just what to do, but when it comes to mental health emergencies it can be hard to know exactly what kind of illness they’re dealing with. To help staff from the emergency services Janey Antoniou is running training courses on how to understand the situation from the patient’s perspective. Janey Antoniou hears voices constantly in her head, she was diagnosed with schizophrenia and depression 20 years ago and has learned ways of coping with the condition. Now she teaches police and ambulance crews about how to deal with greater sensitivity with people who have this illness. Kathleen Griffin went with Janey to a training course for staff at The Ambulance Training Centre in Bedford.
SMOKERS' BRAINS
When most people look back on a decision they think about how things might have turned out differently and then take that into account when they make the next decision: they learn to avoid bad things and to take advantage of good things.Ìý But extraordinarily, the same doesn’t seem to happenÌýwith people who smoke. Dr Read Montague, who did the research at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, USA, found that smokers' brains acknowledge risk, but they then ignore it. For the first time scientists have realised that the brain recognises the risk Claudia Hammond spoke to ProfessorÌýMontague about his research.
Additonal Information:
- National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence
(ABPI)
, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston Texas
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