a new study has added more warnings about the life-threatening risks of benzodiazepines and closely-related sleep aids. The article in BMJ’s Open Access Journal studied the effects of hypnotics on mortality and also specifically on the risk of cancer. The epidemiological study looked at more than 10,000 U.S. patients taking sleeping aids and compared them to a larger number of controls.

Often when I think about how much I love my wife, Ginger, I wish I could sing to her. But I cannot sing. Instead, I imagine Whitney Houston singing to Ginger in her incredible soaring voice. Whitney became the voice expressing how much I love my wife. That is how much Whitney came to mean to so many of us who knew her only through her music. She became the music about love we carry in our hearts.

When I was a freshman in college leading the Harvard Mental Hospital Volunteer Program, I found myself with free access to the state mental hospital in which we volunteered, and I got to see shock treatment. Electroshock patients were brought into the shock room led by burly aids and strapped down on the shock table.

The most vulnerable among us are the littlest victims. Young children, torn from their birth families through various, often unspeakable tragedies. These children end up in state supervised foster care and too often are passed from hand to hand, house to house. There were approximately 662,000 children in foster care in the United States in 2010.

Shortly after Prozac became the best-selling drug in the world in the early 1990s, I proposed that there was little or no evidence for efficacy, but considerable evidence that the drug would worsen depression and cause severe behavioral abnormalities. I attributed much of the problem to “compensatory changes” in neurotransmitters as the brain resists the drug effect. Since then, in a series of books and articles, I’ve documented antidepressant-induced clinical worsening and some of its underlying physical causes. Now the idea has gained ground in the broader research community and has recently been named “tardive dysphoria.”

Final sentencing for the teenager who inexplicably murdered his friend while on Prozac occurred November 4, 2011. The case involved a Winnipeg, Canada teenage high school student with no prior history of violence who, while chatting in his home with two friends, abruptly stabbed one of them to death with a single wound to the chest.

The diagnosing of millions of children with ADHD in order to medicate them with stimulants and other psychoactive chemicals is an American tragedy, growing into a worldwide catastrophe. Never before in history has a society attempted to deal with its children by drugging a significant portion of them into conformity while failing to meet their needs in the home, school and society. The ethical scientist or physician, the concerned parent or teacher, must feel stricken with grief and dumbfounded that we have allowed the interests of powerful advocacy groups to completely override the interests of our children.

My October 3, 2011 blog on The Huffington Post described a recent precedent-setting criminal case in which a Winnipeg, Manitoba judge confirmed my written opinion and courtroom testimony that Prozac adverse drug effects drove a 16-year-old boy to stab a friend to death. I have now made the judge’s opinion available online and also as a part of my more extensive report on the case on my website.

The headline from the Winnipeg Free Press in Canada tells the story: “Judge Says Prozac Factor in Teen Murder.” Provincial court judge Robert Heinrichs listened to my testimony as a psychiatric expert on behalf of the defense and weighed it against that of a Canadian psychiatrist brought in by the prosecution.

A headline in Britain’s Guardian puts it this way: “Research into brain disorders under threat as drug firms pull out.” The subhead explains, “Scientists warn of big financial and social impact while fear of litigation and expenses is linked to move.” Apparently, two British-based companies, GlaxoSmithKline and Astra Zeneca have announced that they no longer intend to research, develop or market any new antidepressants.