Part 3: "TORN TO SHREDS"--The unheralded epidemic of disease and death wrought by anti-anxiety drugs Part 1: “I’ve lost everything” Part 2: A double whammy Part 3: A nine-billion-dollar-a-year industryAnxiety, fear, and terror are universal human experiences. It is only within the 150 years that they have come to be regarded as “diseases” that can and should be treated by the medical profession. Most anti-anxiety drugs, or anxiolytics, belong to a class of chemical compounds called benzodiazepines, a category which includes alprazolam (Xanax), lorazepam (Ativan), diazepam (Valium), olanzapine (Zyprexa), chlordiazepoxide (Librium), clonazepam (Klonopin, Clozaril, Leponex), and estazolam (Prosom). These drugs...