Posted by joe schmoe on July 12, 2011, at 22:35:55
In reply to Re: Peter Kramer - mixed feelings » mtdewcmu, posted by floatingbridge on July 12, 2011, at 21:42:40
I read a lot of bad logic in those articles, but this statement takes the cake:
"I believe doctors should be prohibited from prescribing psychoactive drugs off-label, just as companies are prohibited from marketing them off-label."
As if any company is going to spend hundreds of millions to get an already approved drug, approved for something else, just in time for it to go off-patent (or worse, if it is already out of patent). Such a ridiculous rule would keep effective drugs forever out of the reach of patients, if the (extremely expensive and time consuming) initial studies for a particular use did not cover something the drug was later found to effectively treat. What rubbish.
I wish I could inflict my pre-treatment brain chemistry on some of these authors and then watch them try to get through life without drug treatment.
Imagine if this paragraph was about the invention of penicillin, not prozac:
"The shift from talk therapy to drugs as the dominant mode of treatment coincides with the emergence over the past four decades of the theory that mental illness is caused primarily by chemical imbalances in the brain that can be corrected by specific drugs. That theory became broadly accepted, by the media and the public as well as by the medical profession, after Prozac came to market in 1987 and was intensively promoted as a corrective for a deficiency of serotonin in the brain. The number of people treated for depression tripled in the following ten years, and about 10 percent of Americans over age six now take antidepressants. "
It would read something like
"The shift from 'supportive therapy' such as keeping the patient warm, hydrated, quarantined, etc. to drugs as the dominant mode of treatment coincides with the emergence over the past four decades of the theory that physical illness is caused primarily by infection with microscopic life forms called 'bacteria' that can be combated by specific drugs. That theory became broadly accepted, by the media and the public as well as by the medical profession, after Penicillin came to market in 1945 and was intensively promoted as a corrective for infections by unspecified, unseen 'bacteria' supposedly causing a broad variety of illnesses from wound infection to pneumonia. The number of people treated for 'infection' tripled in the following ten years, and about 10 percent of Americans over age six now take antibiotics at least once a year."
poster:joe schmoe
thread:990777
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20110630/msgs/990878.html