“It is simply no longer possible to believe much of the clinical research that is published, or to rely on the judgment of trusted physicians or authoritative medical guidelines. I take no pleasure in this conclusion, which I reached slowly and reluctantly over my two decades as an editor of The New England Journal of Medicine” – Marcia Angell from 2009 article “Drug Companies & Doctors: A Story of Corruption“, published in The New York Review of Books — Marcia Angell is an MD and author. She was the first woman to serve as editor-in-chief of The New England Journal of Medicine – it is considered one of the most prestigious peer-reviewed medical journals in the world.
This is now an old quote and yet it didn’t make a dent in the often dangerous sorts of standard care being practiced in medicine today. It’s worth thinking about. This statement is not just about psychiatry. Reconsider everything you call medicine.
More by Marcia Angell: The Illusions of Psychiatry — also an article from The New York Review of Books. Her Amazon author page is here: Marcia Angell
More from Beyond Meds:
- State of mental health care
- Getting healthy
- Medically induced illness: iatrogenic injury — (3rd leading cause of death is medically caused…add to that all the disability we have a major epidemic of harm happening and not just in psychiatry)
- We don’t have a healthcare system in this country. We have a disease management system.
- The Mental Illness System (a collection)
*it is potentially dangerous to come off medications without careful planning. Please be sure to be well educated before undertaking any sort of discontinuation of medications. If your MD agrees to help you do so, do not assume they know how to do it well even if they claim to have experience. They are generally not trained in discontinuation and may not know how to recognize withdrawal issues. A lot of withdrawal issues are misdiagnosed to be psychiatric problems. This is why it’s good to educate oneself and find a doctor who is willing to learn with you as your partner in care. Really all doctors should always be willing to do this as we are all individuals and need to be treated as such. See: Psychiatric drug withdrawal and protracted withdrawal syndrome round-up
It’s become clear to me that whenever it’s possible that it’s helpful for folks who’ve not begun withdrawal and have the time to consider a carefully thought out plan to attempt to bring greater well-being to your body before starting the withdrawal. That means learning how to profoundly nourish your body/mind and spirit prior to beginning a withdrawal. For suggestions on how to go about doing that check the drop-down menus on this blog for ideas. Anything that helps you learn how to live well can be part of your plan. That plan will look different for everyone as we learn to follow our hearts and find our own unique paths in the world. Things to begin considering are diet, exercise and movement, meditation/contemplation etc. Paying attention to all these things as you do them helps too. The body will start letting us know what it needs as we learn to pay attention.
For a multitude of ideas about how to create a life filled with safe alternatives to psychiatric drugs visit the drop-down menus at the top of this page.
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