Daniel's rambling, unfocused, Friday, inciteful expose, or, DrUFix (if you use your imagination)

The other day we went to see a cute little love story/Zombie movie, but we must have walked into the wrong theatre because we ended up seeing a Szasz-ian dystopic in which all the doctors were murdered at the end.

Doctors are often complicit in these crimes, as kickbacks and other forms of corruption were common; they were induced to use expensive drugs and paid to lend their names to ghostwritten articles purporting to show that a drug works for unapproved conditions.

It was surprising to hear Prozac outright besmirched by name – perhaps because it is off-patent it wouldn’t be worth pursuing a libel suit, or, perhaps they presume we’re all too distracted to notice.

The consequences of these crimes are huge, including the unnecessary deaths of thousands of people and many billions in losses for our national economies every year. As doctors have access only to selected and manipulated information, they believe drugs are far more effective and safe than they really are. Thus, both legal and illegal marketing leads to massive overtreatment of the population. In the US, the most sold class of drugs in 2009 [in US dollars] was antipsychotics.

It was mentioned during a segment where the humans were scavenging for the medications that the remaining, uninfected humans needed to survive:  After the Zombies attacked them, a backpack was shown, filled with boxes of “fluoxetine.”  Ouch.

 Antidepressants came fourth, after lipid lowering drugs and proton pump inhibitors. It is hard to imagine that so many Americans can be so mentally disturbed that these sales reflect genuine needs.

I am certainly sympathetic to the ideas that are considered, being no fan of the five at 5, and especially not the chemical incapacitation of children, but, as with the Mars Project, I’m uncomfortable with, here, the demonization of pharmacologic interventions, and with MP, the strong emphasis on our limited knowledge of the biological aspects of mental illness.  (Because I don’t think it matters – because the brain is complicated and there are likely numerous complicit factors that no single chemical introduction will fully ameliorate.  Viewing medication as palliative is far more palatable, for me.)

{Also, in fairness to JB, he does explore many different perspectives, including Conspiracy’s mother and brother, and the other psychiatrist is far more balanced...  Heh.   It just felt like the one, can’t-make-a –real-diagnoses-because-we-don’t-know-the-biological-underpinnings guy, predominated the conversation at the end of the film.}

I am glad that more perspectives are being heard and seem to be getting shared more widely, but sometimes it fells as if I’ve gone to protest SOPA and discovered I’m at a Ron Paul rally.