medications A–Z

37 medications — each page carries the FDA approval journey with label quotes, safety signals with the caveats above the numbers, and who pays for prescriptions (Medicare, Medicaid, and the commercial absence).

supplements & unapproved substances

17 substances people buy without a prescription. Each page leads with the verbatim regulatory paragraph (sold under DSHEA, never reviewed for effectiveness, dose in the capsule unverified, approved for nothing), then the studies, then the risks, then what the research does not cover. Where the honest finding is futility rather than danger, the page says so.

5-HTP — What the trials show, and the serotonergic interactions that make it a pharmacist question
Ashwagandha — The anxiety and stress trials, and the liver-injury reports
Cannabidiol (CBD) — The anxiety evidence, the dose gap, and the liver signal
Cannabis and THC — What the controlled evidence shows, separated from the policy argument
Creatine — The depression syntheses, and why a raised creatinine reading is not kidney damage
Kratom — Opioid pharmacology, dependence, and what the human evidence actually is
L-Theanine — Nine small trials, none in a diagnosed anxiety disorder, and one null pooled estimate
Magnesium — What the trials measured, and what deficiency correction does and does not tell you
Melatonin — The sleep evidence, and how much melatonin is actually in the bottle
Methylene Blue — An MAO-A inhibitor sold as a nootropic, and the serotonin-syndrome record
Microdosing — Where placebo control is enforced, most of the benefit disappears
N-Acetylcysteine (NAC) — The psychiatric trials, by condition, and where the pooled estimates land
Omega-3 — The depression meta-analyses, the EPA/DHA split, and the heterogeneity problem
Phenibut — Dependence and withdrawal, from the case record
SAMe — The depression trials, and the mania and interaction signals
St John’s Wort — The depression trials, and the interaction list that makes it dangerous with other drugs
Valerian — A good safety record and an unconvincing efficacy record

Compared, side by side

33 head-to-head pages for the pairs people actually search — comparing the public record only (usage, payers, warnings, litigation), never ranking.

legal & safety records

The litigation and recall record per drug, stated precisely: settled is never adjudicated, verdicts carry their reductions, and verified negatives state their coverage window.

the system, counted

How the headline numbers of mental health are actually produced — prevalence, trial durations, diagnosis counts — with every method break annotated.

How many adults take psychiatric medication? — Every federal number with its definition attached
How autism got counted — Every method break annotated in CDC’s own words
How childhood ADHD got counted
How long psychiatric drugs were tested — Every study horizon in the library, counted
The longest trial behind each approval — Trial weeks beside patient counts, drug by drug
LGBTQ+ mental health in the data
The DSM: the book, the money, the count
What the DSM is for
The mental health lexicon — Nineteen terms where usage outran evidence
Two numbers nobody measured — Two statistics about psychiatric medication and violence, traced to their sources

follow the money

Who funds the research, the education, the advocacy, and the coverage — from federal filings and the organizations’ own disclosures. Payments are facts, not verdicts; the framing travels with every number.

How your doctor gets paid — Look up any US physician’s industry payments
Who funds psychiatric drug research
Who funds doctors’ education
Who funds mental health advocacy
Who funds the nonprofits
Pharma and the news
How pharma makes and spends money — Revenue, R&D, SG&A and psychiatric drug sales, from the 10-Ks
What is a PBM? — The middlemen between your prescription and its price
Who profits from US health care — Six sectors, ten years, 28 named SEC filers — margins and growth against CPI
Where the money goes — US health spending, prices and named-basket profits as time series, 1960 to today
What changed — A dated record of FDA label revisions to the medications we cover, checked daily
Who funds veisund — The question we ask of everyone else, answered about ourselves

health questions, answered from primaries

The questions people actually search, answered from trials, labels, and regulators — including the ones where the honest answer is “the evidence is thin.”

glossary

34 plain-English definitions — the vocabulary needed to read medication evidence and litigation coverage precisely, each with a worked example from this site’s own record.

tools

Interactive, free, and no email required.

How your doctor gets paid — Open Payments lookup with company pivots
How long were they tested before approval? — The pivotal trials behind all 37 medications — weeks, people, comparator, NDA
Side-effect rates, drug vs placebo — The label’s own adverse-reaction table for all 37 medications
Therapy cost calculator — Per month and per year — in-person, online, insurance, sliding scale
Sliding-scale checker — Household size and income against the 2026 federal poverty guidelines
What do you actually need? — Six questions, no email

the evidence library

Every study behind the pages above, individually summarized and scored for trust — design, funding, venue, sample size, preregistration.

Browse the scored evidence library → — or start from the blog and our experts.

The library