I don't agree with everything RFK Jr says but I think the mainstream media owe him an apology on this account. I have had many patients say that they found coming off antidepressants harder than coming off heroin. And now there is large-scale data to back up those anecdotes. This of course is distinct from addiction. The pre-requisite for withdrawal is physical dependence which is a predictable physiological response that is the consequence of adaptation to a drug. Physical dependence does not involve compulsion, craving, etc. Opioids cause addiction because of their reinforcing euphoria which antidepressants do not do. But they are both cause physical dependence and evidently comparable levels of withdrawal for the higher risk antidepressants.

Crazy, unexpected science news today: the brain is actually 2 colocated but independent organs that develop from 2 totally separate progenitor cells in early development. Big implications for some research areas (eg ALS) & for creating ethical brainless clones for transplant.

Feeling a bit “off.” Think I’ll chat with a bookish schoolmarm to obtain pills that change my brain in ways that can’t be observed or fully understood, leaving me with side effects that will be misinterpreted as underlying illness and years of labyrinthian psychological agony, where previously-straightforward emotions become looming and kaleidoscopic. After that I will get Jersey Mike’s.

When It Comes to SSRIs, Are Our Only Choices “Safe & Effective” or “More Dangerous Than Heroin”? My New York Times op-ed and bonus content psychiatrymargins.com/p/when…

"Bedard: You mentioned the MAHA report. So that was, for folks who may not know, earlier this year. There was a report that came out about the use, the potential overuse, of psychiatric medications, and then specifically around the challenges around deprescribing and concerns about prolonged withdrawal that actually ends up making people feel worse than whatever their initial reasons for going on the meds were. In response to that, I think for the first time, the American Psychiatric Association got together and put out a statement, I think, about deprescribing. One criticism I’ve heard that strikes me as somewhat legitimate is that that report was overdue, that thinking seriously, in public, about the challenges around deprescribing is something that we should have done before — we, in medicine, should have done before MAHA came out with its attack first. Rostain: I agree 100 percent. I mean, we had not spent enough time asking the question: Why are we giving so many meds to some of our patients? Especially in psychiatry. And one of the first things I’ve always done when people come to see me is if they’re on four or five different medications, the first thing I ask is, “What can we take you off of?” But it’s great. Even if the prompt was kind of a smack in the head, it is time to ask what medications we are prescribing. How are they working for our patients?

The War On Antidepressants Has Officially Arrived menshealth.com/health/a73586…

This vial contains a new drug called PAC-3310. It was designed by ChatGPT, and I synthesized it in a chemistry lab I built in my garage. PAC-3310 is a new selective M4 muscarinic receptor agonist for treating schizophrenia - similar to the recent breakthrough drug Cobenfry, but improved. (1/7)