Clozapine (trade name, Clozaril) is a drug that none of us would prescribe if all things were equal. With the potentially catastrophic side effect of agranulocytosis, along with a metabolic side effect profile worse even than Zyprexa’s, the only reason to expose living beings to this medication is that it is reputed to be the most effective antipsychotic under the sun. But is it?

We knew it was about to happen. We just didn’t know it would happen all at once. Between July and September of 2004, Seroquel, Geodon, and Abilify sequentially won approval for the treatment of manic episodes in bipolar disorder.

I know what you're thinking, "This is going to be a Cymbalta vs. Effexor article, and Cymbalta will get another TCR drubbing as it did last year." Not quite. In fact, there are two major battles to be reviewed: Effexor vs. Cymbalta, but probably more relevant, Effexor vs. Lexapro.

The notion that passing magnets over people's heads could make them happier has been around for a very, very long time, at least since the 1770s. The Viennese physician Franz Anton Mesmer used the technique in front of large 18th century audiences, and was so successful that Louis XVI funded the establishment of a "Magnetic Institute" in France to work on the technique further.

Very quietly, under our very noses, most of the newer antidepressants have gone generic, the latest being Celexa (citalopram). Before more details, here is a little generics review for those of you who have not been keeping up with this ferociously litigious area of psychopharmacology.

Anybody who watched the recent World Series between the Red Sox and the Cardinals got a pretty good education in Viagrology, Levitrology, and Cialisology. Between footage of men shopping at Victoria's Secret and couples soaking in outdoor tubs, it was a challenge to fit in a few double plays and home runs.

Marlene Dietrich once observed that "in America sex is an obsession, in other parts of the world it is a fact." While that may be true, sex is never terribly easy to discuss, no matter what your longitude and latitude.

If you've seen the new movie “Kinsey,” you already know that the famed sex researcher first made his name writing about the decidedly un-sexy topic of gall wasps. He was fascinated by these creatures because of the marked variability among individuals--a theme that later emerges in his work on human sexuality.

Rarely have we been exposed to a more bewildering array of data and opinions as over the past year on the subject of antidepressants in children. Ever more definitive meta-analyses and databases are published on a weekly basis. Researcher-clinicians of impeccable credentials look at the same data and deliver opposite opinions.

Let's face it. With our most troubled, desperate patients, each visit is an exercise in doing something that may very well be impossible: predicting whether they are going to attempt suicide.