This is supposed to be satire...in this instance it's pretty much straight up the truth...I actually have a hard time laughing at this stuff, but I did enjoy it. He's darn witty even if it didn't make me laugh. Too close to home is all. … [click on title for the rest of the post]
This is not the first time psych drugs have been linked to dementia, but it's certainly not something we hear about often enough. With an aging generation of people who've been on psych meds for their entire adult lives it's an issue that needs to be faced. It's yet another serious adverse effect that psychiatric drugs can cause. In this current NBC piece they are speaking only about benzodiazepines. All psych drugs have been associated with various sorts of mental decline, however. … [click on title to read and view more]
Robert Whitaker has argued for years that millions of the people who are prescribed those drugs derive no benefit from them. And in fact, the drugs may make their illness worse. Mr. Whitaker's criticisms were controversial when he published his research in a 2010 book calledAnatomy of an Epidemic: Magic Bullets, Psychiatric Drugs and the Astonishing Rise of Mental Illness in America. That book, though, won the 2010 Investigative Reporters and Editors Book Award, and since its publication, an increasing number of psychiatric researchers have come to agree with his conclusions. … [click on title for the rest of the post]
Facebook apparently used to allow pharma pages to not allow comments from the masses. That has changed and now people can comment about pharma's drugs on their pages. What is happening as a result of that? Pharma is abandoning facebook. It's too dangerous to let their consumers speak freely on their pages because, well, the truth might come out!
What does the critically thinking individual do with any doctor’s recommendation? RESEARCH. Does this professional know what he’s talking about? What have the experiences of other patients been? What kind of scientific data is available on the recommended course of treatment? And of course the first (and perhaps only) source of information most folks turn... Continue Reading →
It is so important to admit when you're wrong. So here goes... When I wrote that Astra-Zeneca paid the biggest corporate fine in American history ($520 million) for the off-label marketing of Seroquel, an atypical antipsychotic [I wrote that here]; I was wrong. (NOTE: off-label marketing is the promotion of a drug - whether amongst patients, doctors, or other... Continue Reading →
The Short Answer: YES. At the very least, a definite "maybe"… Let me explain. The Long Answer: What I’m referring to is the World Medical Association’s Declaration of Helsinki, a list of ethical guidelines for medical human subjects research, itself not international law, but the international ethical standard. The declaration has been codified into national law in... Continue Reading →
(WARNING: this isn’t going to be pretty…) In the 1940s, the US Government deliberately infected mentally ill and incarcerated Guatemalans with syphilis – almost 700 people in total. The study design included arranging sexual encounters between prostitutes known to be infected and the male participants [you just can’t make stuff like this up]. After 2... Continue Reading →
Another piece from War in Context that bears viewing: Mental health in the United States of Alienation -- War in Context (there is an)... assumption that it is easier and cheaper to physically or chemically restrain this society’s most troubled members than it would be to create the conditions in which their minds might heal....... Continue Reading →
Commentary and the video looks at many issues of corruption in pharma.
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