Psychotropic prescribing

Two stories from recent news:

This NPR story reports that antipsychotics are Medicaid's largest drug expense. That's astonishing.

A friend sent this story on the potential for harm when people without severe depression are prescribed antidepressants:

Half of patients do not respond when they are given the medications, which can be powerful tool in helping the depressed to feel better. Instead of raising levels of a "happiness chemical", called serotonin, in their brain, they lower them.

The researchers found with some brain cells "the more antidepressants try to increase serotonin production, the less serotonin (they) actually produce,” said Dr Rene Hen, from Columbia University in New York and a researcher at the New York State Psychiatric Institute, who led the study.