Posted by Utopia on January 1, 2004, at 17:51:01
In reply to Re: Two books your M.D. does NOT want you to read! , posted by jms600 on January 1, 2004, at 15:02:43
...at the sensationalists like Glenmullen who, if indeed a Harvard psych., should understand the ramifications of such publicity. A good example would be people who have been recently diagnosed with depression and are still on the fence.When reading such a book they would probably opt not to get treated and eventually become part of the obituaries column.
Even some people who due to brilliant marketing by health companies, waste valuable time (understandibly) trying herbal, homeopathic or just general home remedies.
The companies have nothing to lose as they are innocuous substances (sometimes!) but with a unipolar or bipolar a few weeks could mean suicide or driving wrecklessly at 150 mph and killing yourself, because of the overestimation of oneself.
Most people want to try the "natural way" first. Taking drugs to survive, substance abuse, no longer doing it by yourself etc etc are the thoughts that are in the forefront of their immaginations.
What follows is not an extreme example of cultural/sect bashing. It just highlights pretty well how sometimes good intentions can have dire consequences.
Scientologists are the first to tell you that you must wash all those drugs/toxins out of your system (using their system, of course, which costs an arm and a leg). Have they claimed responsability for any suicides which might have been motivated by one of their slick salespeople selling pseudo-science? I don't think so. Causing a person to give up their meds so as to try a relatively unsupervised wash-out system system is lunacy, and could cause that person to eventually take their life. But then it will be said...it was that individual's choice to make the changes, why must they be held responsable? What a crock.
Anybody who has got caught in a true cycle of refractory depression will know the desperateness of taking something that will work.
It's an extreme irresponsability to interfere with people's lives using sensationalism, but you see... for every suicide/death due to sensationalism, there is 500 people that will swear that it works.
Aaah... all for that green back - life has no value except your own, of course(ironically the very saviours of the ill - the pharmaceutical companies - are driven by the same motivation - the dollar!)
poster:Utopia
thread:295371
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20031231/msgs/295515.html