High Doses of Antidepressants Appear to Increase Risk of Self-Harm in Young Adults

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Photo Credit: Steve Snodgrass / Creative Commons

Photo Credit: Steve Snodgrass / Creative Commons

Children and young adults who start antidepressant therapy at high doses, rather than the “modal” [average or typical] prescribed doses, appear to be at greater risk for suicidal behavior during the first 90 days of treatment.

A previous meta-analysis by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) of antidepressant trials suggested that children who received antidepressants had twice the rate of suicidal ideation and behavior than children who were given a placebo. The authors of the current study sought to examine suicidal behavior and antidepressant dose, and whether risk depended on a patient’s age.

The study used data from 162,625 people (between the ages of 10 to 64 years) with depression who started antidepressant treatment with a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor at modal (the most prescribed doses on average) or at higher than modal doses from 1998 through 2010.

The rate of suicidal behavior (deliberate self-harm or DSH) among children and adults (24 years or younger) who started antidepressant therapy at high doses was about twice as high compared with a matched group of patients who received generally prescribed doses. The authors suggest this corresponds to about one additional event of DSH for every 150 patients treated with high-dose therapy. For adults 25 to 64 years old, the difference in risk for suicidal behavior was null. The study does not address why higher doses might lead to higher suicide risk.

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Driver Kills Teen Bicyclist Then Eighteen Months Later Sues For ‘Emotional Distress’

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Photo Credit: Facebook

Photo Credit: Facebook

Sharlene Simon drove into three bicyclists on a country road in October of 2012, about 55 miles north of Toronto, killing Brandon Majewski. Now she’s suing for over one million dollars, saying that the accident caused her “pain and suffering.” She asserts that the three were not riding in a “prudent manner,” were “improperly lighted,” and were “incompetent cyclists.”

Brandon’s father, Derek Majewski told the Toronto Sun:

I feel like someone kicked me in the stomach — I’m over the edge. Sometimes, it makes my blood boil.

This has ripped our family apart. And now this woman has the gall to try to profit from our dead child she killed? Profit from another boy who was almost crippled?

Read more from this story HERE.

Michelle Obama Wreaks Havoc Across Topeka with Last-Minute Decision to Speak at Graduation

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Photo Credit: Getty Images / Win McNamee

Photo Credit: Getty Images / Win McNamee

Michelle Obama is rested, ready and screwing up a bunch of ordinary people’s lives again.

Fresh off a luxurious vacation to China (which was fresh off a long vacation at Oprah’s Maui home), the first lady has threatened hassle and hardship upon hundreds of students and their families in Topeka, Kan. with a last-minute announcement of her intention to speak at a combined graduation ceremony for the city’s five public high schools.

School district officials deserve just as much blame for the developing fiasco—possibly more. They invited Obama to speak at the May 17 graduation back in December, reports The Topeka Capital-Journal.

The reason for the invitation is the commemoration of the 60th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, the landmark U.S. Supreme Court case that declared separate-but-equal public education unconstitutional.

“It really is a historical day,” Topeka school superintendent Julie Ford said when she announced the exciting news on Thursday. “We couldn’t be more happy.”

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This Mom Obliterates Bizarre Common Core Math Question

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Photo Credit: Eagnews

Photo Credit: Eagnews

The litany of bizarre Common Core-aligned math worksheets never ends. In recent weeks, though, kids and parents have begun to fight back in creative ways.

In the most recent instance, New York parent Deanne Knight addressed a confusing Common Core-aligned math question, EAGnews.org reports.

Knight and her daughter, who is in first grade, encountered the question when it appeared on a worksheet from the New York Department of Education’s EngageNY lesson plan website.

The worksheet contains the words “NY’s Common Core Mathematics Curriculum.”

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‘God’ is Banned from Disney Films, Say Frozen Songwriters

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Photo Credit: Mgortz/AP

Photo Credit: Mgortz/AP

By Andrew Pulver.

The Oscar-winning songwriters behind Let It Go, the hit song from the blockbusting Disney cartoon Frozen, have revealed that the word “God” is banned from Disney movies.

Speaking to Terry Gross on the National Public Radio (NPR) show Fresh Air, Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez explained that Disney was not a “sanitized” corporate environment but that “one of the only places you have to draw the line at Disney is with religious things, the word God”. Lopez went on to say: “You can say it in Disney but you can’t put it in the movie.”

Read more from this story HERE.

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

Rev. Graham: ‘Christians Are Being Attacked’ by Hollywood & Some ‘News Media’

By Michael W. Chapman.

Anti-Christian actions are occurring in America and much of it is “coming out of the entertainment industry” and some segments of the “news media,” said Rev. Franklin Graham, who added that “Christians are being attacked” and this is on the rise globally, along with increasing incidents of anti-Semitism.

Franklin Graham, who heads the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association and the international Christian aid group Samaritan’s Purse, is the son of the world-renowned Christian preacher Billy Graham.

In an interview on Newsmax TV’s “America’s Forum” on Good Friday, April 18, Franklin Graham was asked, “Are we at a point now, that maybe is unparalleled in history, about the amount of anti-Christian behavior and activity and anti-Semitism rising around the globe?”

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Teen Killed by Jilted Teen after She Refused to Go to Junior Prom with Him

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Photo Credit: MICHELLE MCLOUGHLIN / REUTERS

Photo Credit: MICHELLE MCLOUGHLIN / REUTERS

A jilted teen killed a 16-year-old girl in a Connecticut high school on Friday after she refused to go to prom with him, friends and witnesses said.

The violence erupted after Chris Plaskon, also 16, shoved Maren Sanchez, down the stairs and tried to choke her inside Jonathan Law High School in Milford about 7:15 a.m., friends told the Daily News.

The boy – using a kitchen knife he brought from home – then stabbed Sanchez in the neck, witnesses and cops said.

“She was screaming,” one friend, who was inside the building at the time of the attack, told The News. “There were students in the hallway when it happened. The kids who saw it are all a wreck.”

Emergency workers found the bleeding teen, a junior, in the stairwell and rushed her to Bridgeport Hospital, where she was pronounced dead.

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Texas Second-Grader Says Teacher Took Away Bible During Reading Time

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Photo Credit: Mario Tama / Getty Images

Photo Credit: Mario Tama / Getty Images

The family of a second-grade student at a Texas elementary school says their daughter’s teacher took her Bible away during a “read to myself” session.

The Liberty Institute, a nonprofit legal group specializing in religious liberty cases, says the family reached out for assistance after a teacher at Hamilton Elementary in Cypress allegedly told the girl not to bring the Bible back to school again.

The teacher reportedly said the Bible is inappropriate reading material.

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Mandatory Common Core Tests in New York Just Happen to Be Full of Corporate Brand Names

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Photo Credit: YouTube

Photo Credit: YouTube

Across the state of New York, this year’s Common Core English tests have reportedly featured a slew of brand-name products including iPod, Barbie, Mug Root Beer and Life Savers. For Nike, the tests even conveniently included the shoe company’s ubiquitous slogan: “Just Do It.”

The brands – and apparently even some of their familiar trademark symbols – appeared in tests questions for students ranging from third to eighth grades, reports The Post-Standard of Syracuse.

Over one million students were required to take the tests.

Parents, teachers and school administrators have speculated that the kid-friendly brand names are a new form of product placement.

Education materials behemoth Pearson, which has a $32 million five-year contract to develop New York’s Common Core-related tests, has barred teachers and school officials from disclosing the contents of the tests.

Read more from this story HERE.

Michelle Obama: ‘Splurging is the Key to Life’

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Photo Credit: AP / Susan Walsh

Photo Credit: AP / Susan Walsh

Michelle Obama said “splurging is the key to life” if you regularly eat right and stay active. Her biggest guilty pleasure: French fries.

“How would you appreciate vegetables if you never had chocolate?” she asked. “You couldn’t live without a little chocolate, a little French fries.”

The first lady took questions from children reporters Monday after appearing at the White House Easter Egg Roll. She told the children that if they eat right the majority of the time, then a splurge or snack is not going to hurt them.

“I still splurge when I can, but that’s why I try to exercise almost every day,” she said.

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Teen Suspended for Asking Miss America to Prom

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Photo Credit: Nick Lisi / AP

Photo Credit: Nick Lisi / AP

A Pennsylvania high school student is in hot water for asking Miss America to prom during a question and answer session at school.

Eighteen-year-old Patrick Farves said he received three days of in-school suspension Thursday because he asked Nina Davuluri to prom.

The senior at Central York High School stood up and popped the prom question, then walked to the stage with a plastic flower. Davuluri just laughed and the students cheered.

Read more from this story HERE.