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Shankar Vedantam

Reporter
The Washington Post
Washington, D.C., USA

Topic: Multiple articles, including a look at attention deficit disorder in children and what scientists have learned about the causes of schizophrenia

Published Work:

When Hurricane Katrina struck in 2005, one victim was political scientist Daniel Aldrich. He had just moved to New Orleans. Late one August night, there was a knock on the door.

The idea for The Hidden Brain grew out of a Sunday magazine cover story Shankar Vedantam wrote for the Washington Post called See No Bias. That story focused on the effects of unconscious prejudice.

Nearly two-thirds of Latinos in the United States think they are being discriminated against, and a plurality views the backlash over illegal immigration as the central driver of such bias, according to a poll by the Pew Hispanic Center.

From the time he was in grade school in his native Jamaica, Andrae Bent was the target of taunts and attacks.

Gail Nichols has suffered from depression for years. When 49-year-old resident of St. Marys, Kan., cannot sleep, she falls back on a form of entertainment that is gaining increasing credibility as a medical intervention: video games.

Children taking stimulant drugs such as Ritalin to treat attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder are several times as likely to suffer sudden, unexplained death as children who are not taking such drugs, according to a study published yesterday that was funded by the Food and Drug Administration and the National Institute of Mental Health.

Three antipsychotic drugs that have long been prescribed to adolescents even though they were not approved for such use by the Food and Drug Administration deserve to have the regulatory agency's imprimatur, an FDA advisory committee said yesterday.

Soon after her sister committed suicide, Caroline Downing started doing poorly at school. During math tests, she would freeze up, and she found her mind wandering constantly. Officials at St. Andrew's Episcopal School in Potomac gently suggested that the high school sophomore get a mental health screening.

For many years, scientists have explored how parental conflicts and other marital problems can affect the well-being of children. Far less attention has been paid to the opposite question: How do children, especially difficult children, influence the quality of married life?

William Neilson is mad at all the people who bought homes they could not afford and the bankers who enabled them in order to turn a fast buck. He is mad because he has always paid his mortgage on time and had the common sense not to borrow four times the value of his house. He is mad because, now that the economy is in a tailspin, the president wants honest taxpayers like him who did everything right to lend a hand to help out those who did everything wrong.

Scientists have long clashed over whether violent video games have an adverse effect on young people. Indeed, the conclusions of different groups of researchers are so contradictory they could give a tennis umpire whiplash.

The nation's high unemployment rate is straining many marriages, a new survey finds. At the same time, many unhappy couples say they feel trapped, unable to afford a breakup. Experts say that's a dangerous combination that can increase the risk of domestic violence.

The Food and Drug Administration has warned people about the many dangers of buying medications from foreign pharmacies over the Internet. While some sites might offer high-quality medicines, there are plenty that sell bogus and potentially dangerous products.