Posted on 05/07/2002 8:48:34 AM PDT by liberallarry
Edited on 09/03/2002 4:50:26 AM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
After thousands of studies, hundreds of millions of prescriptions and tens of billions of dollars in sales, two things are certain about pills that treat depression: Antidepressants like Prozac, Paxil and Zoloft work. And so do sugar pills.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
1. We really don't know what we're doing with these drugs. Science in sometimes obscured by piles of money or "experts" with a career to protect. There's far less hard science in this field than anyone, professionals or patients, would like to admit.
2. They're being abused by being overprescribed. People like your son, who shows signs of a real illness, with a family history, are in a different category from the folks who pop pills for a bad hair day.
3. The drugs are touted as if they're a cure, and the science behind them is solid. The truth is that treatment is most often trial and error - hardly a scientific approach.
Not at all. Drugs can undoubtedly work for both. My argument is not that the brain cannot be treated, but that we don't know what we're doing yet, and attempt to treat it anyway - and that with drugs whose efficacy is questionable.
Anyone who questions the wisdom of such a course is attacked as unlearned, backwards, controlling, unfeeling, and probably a Scientologist.
Those who resort to such tactics demonstrate the weakness of their argument.
You'll note that I never said that anyone could overcome depression by sheer force of will, or through any other method, for that matter. I never addressed the issue of the sufferer at all, except to say that he is being taken advantage of by drug companies who know the truth about their drugs. And let's be realistic here, it's not out of their heartfelt compassion for those suffering with depression. You don't sell questionable drugs at high prices to suffering people out of compassion.
Everything I've said on this thread has be targetted at the peddlers of questionable drugs. I have not smeared the patients, unless you consider my opinion that they're being vicimized to be a smear.
Yes, I do consider that to be a smear. You are insinuating both in this post and in your previous reference to us drug-taking "suckers" that we are too stupid to know whether these drugs are or are not working for us.
Oh, there's just so, so many responses I could make to that. :- ) Unfortunately most of them would get me banned. If I'm going to get banned, I'd much rather it be for someone else -- more specifically, for someone saying something important.
I'm concerned with the treatment (remember Thalidomide, fen-phen, and diethylstilbestrol) being worse than the condition. If diethylstilbestrol (DES) can cause cancer in the granddaughters of those who took it, what will we see in the offspring of the Ritalin and Prozac kids?
The closest I've come to that situation was a severely arthritic ankle. I went to the best doctors who wanted to fuse the joint after braces they gave me didn't work. I tried alternative medicine. Worthless. Finally I looked at the X-Rays, put my foot in the position I thought brought the bones of the joint into the best alignment, and designed a crude boot wedge. It worked. So I had an orthotist design a good one. 3 years later and I'm still satisfied.
If drugs make you feel better, I have no objection to that. Heck, I feel much better when I use caffeine of have couple of beers. Having said that, I would never call these drugs "medicines" unless I had firm scientific basis for the view that they were treating an illness just like any other. It is cases like these which make me doubt the much-touted "science" behind drugs for mental illness.
For what it is worth, I have two friends who were diagnosed with manic depression. One had multiple personalities while the other sat for hours in her apartment totally unable to do anything. Both were told by their doctors (one of them a leading researcher at the NIH) that "science" revealed that they need to be on psychotropic drugs for the rest of their lives. Both, however, after a long period on drugs decided to kick their habits. It has been over a decade now and both are doing fine and drug free.
My step-mother has a neurological disease, NO DRUGS HAVE HELPED.
I am not saying that there are not drugs that CAN help people afflicted with neurological conditions but isnt it funny that things that CAN NOT be influenced by moods or external experience like Dementia are seldom affected by medication?
Now, Mr. Sulla... I find it insulting that anyone that does not agree with your point of view is advancing the agenda of the Scientologists. Oh hell, its not even worth debating as your point is completely absurd.
The point is that these drugs ARE OVER PRESCRIBED. If you doubt this then you all are fooling yourselves.
Every little trial in life has become an ordeal and everyone needs thier little pill. It is sad. Now before you all make that gigantic leap of logic that I am against drugs for any mental condition(As some of you have, and you seemed so condescending about it! LOL!) that is not my point.
My point is that some things in life suck and no matter how many pills you pop in your mouth, some things will still suck. Its called reality!
I'm not Mr. Sulla and I've never argued that anyone who doubts the efficacy of brain medications is a Scientologist!
You're correct in saying that brain medications are not a cure-all, but then neither is aspirin. Just because aspirin doesn't relieve the pain from a broken leg doesn't mean that we should toss aspirin out the door, or even that it's overprescribed. Those who need medications should take them; those who don't, shouldn't.
Sorry for the confusion! :D
My reality is that there is a member of my family who has made over a dozen suicide attempts, most by poison, and some of them resulting in hospitalization for removing the poison from their systems for periods up to half a month. In addition this person has spent a total of well over six months in mental institutions, sometimes under restrainsts to prevent self-injury. This person has had great difficulty in trying to reach any sort of equilibrium in a life of severe bi-polar depression. I have been informed that the chances are at least 25% that this person will commit suicide.
For those of you who consider that this illness is a matter of a lack of willpower on the part of the sick person, or a matter of having the blues, I wish you a lifetime in my shoes. That is about the most severe punishment that I can think of for anyone, and I look forward to welcoming you to the club. Since I am professionally trained in the analysis of clinical data, I can recognize the B.S. that is being passed around on this thread easily enough.
It is well known that Scientology is an organization that was founded as a means of obtaining money through fraud. The founder of this death cult, a science fiction writer, announced in advance that he was going to invent a fake religion as a way of getting rich. And he succeeded. It is also known that they use stealth techniques and hidden bribes to buy the support they desire in their design of defeating psychiatric drugs. Their purpose in this is to increase the amount of untreated insanity, and to eliminate their legitimate, medical 'competitors'. In this way they will increase the amount of money that they can cheat and defraud those who are psychologically damaged, for their profit.
There has never been a scientifically valid study attacking prozac per se, and every anecdotal study released has turned out to be financed by this criminal enterprise. I regard those who are attacking the validity of psychiatric medication as fools or quacks, or vicious criminal profiteers, who are endangering the life of my family member. I will do whatever it takes to protect my loved one.
Would you care to elaborate?
What a crock. Tell that to world-renowned psychopharmacologists like Martin Teicher, Jonathan Cole, Tony Rothschild, Robert King, Mark Riddle, David Healy, Theodore van Putten, Margaret Hamilton, Lewis Opler and others -- all who have published studies critical of Prozac and who work at places like Harvard, Yale, Columbia and UCLA. I guess to you they're all just nutcase Scientologists.
Is it possible that the diagnosis of depression has become softer over the last 15 years? I think it has, certainly when it comes to family Dr's prescribing meds. But does that also effect the groups admitted to the study?
Are you suggesting that mental illness didn't exist until meds came along?
Have people flocked to these meds? Sure they have, just like valium in the 50's/60's. It that a good thing? No. I'd like to think we don't need to be medicated for every broken heart or lost job. But that doesn't negate the fact that some people are ill and need the medication.
The question on this thread is not especially about the quality of Prozac, and clearly no medication is beyond criticism. But are you attempting to claim that no psychiatric medication is more effective than a placebo, and that these individuals proclaim such an idea? I will simply not trust your word on this, please provide links to their positions on this matter.
For a lot of people the "here and now" is much more imperative than "somewhere down the line". That's why smokers exist. :)
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