Replies

I do not see the article as "schlock" because I believe it raises important questions, the same ones that I posed to you, which are again as follows:

Do you have evidence that anti-psychotic drugs are effective in the long-term for treatment of psychosis, as compared to a no-treatment group? Do you have evidence that schizophrenia, per DSM-IV diagnosis, is a reliable and valid categorical description? Do you have evidence that this diagnostic category can be reliably and consistently linked to underlying brain abnormalities that cannot be explained by the effects of psychiatric medication? I don't think you can produce it, nor do I think you are capable of mounting a rational, empirically-based argument to defend any of these claims.

I do not expect you to answer them, and you certainly need not do so. The article's concerns with regard to these issues are, I believe, factually correct in that they raise questions about the lack of evidence on the underlying neurological basis for psychosis, the validity of the diagnosis, and, even just by implication of the last two points, the general shot in the dark that most pharmacology of psychosis amounts to -- most of which is based on garbage science and driven by the socio-economics of the pharmaceutical industry.

I believe physicians are well-intentioned in most cases, but often ill-informed and lacking the resources to combat the constant bombardment of propaganda by Big Pharma. There is such a bombardment, and the tactics are so effective, that reasonable questions, such as those above, sound to people like you as if they are "schlock," when in fact they are basic questions any intelligent person would ask, when faced with the current state of psychiatry, in my humble opinion.

Hope you enjoyed the Super Bowl. Steelers delivered. I'm happy.