Quote:
|
In a recent article in The New York Review of Books, physician Marcia Angell looks to three recent books to answer these questions: "The Emperor's New Drugs: Exploding the Antidepressant Myth," "Anatomy of an Epidemic: Magic Bullets, Psychiatric Drugs, and the Astonishing Rise of Mental Illness in America" and "Unhinged: The Trouble with Psychiatry -- A Doctor's Revelations About a Profession in Crisis." The authors of all three books are in agreement on a rather startling view. Based on many years of researching the burgeoning epidemic of depressive, anxiety and psychotic disorders, all three authors argue that it is pharmaceutical companies rather than unbiased medical research that decide what constitutes mental illness and how each illness should be treated. I recently made a similar argument specifically for children's mental health problems in my book "Suffer the Children: The Case Against Labeling and Medicating and an Effective Alternative."
|
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/marily...b_876788.html?
In my unprofessional view, the unethical relationship between Big Pharma, the Food and Drug Administration, lobbyists, Congress, the Administration and the quest for power and money is the source of the dilemma the United States finds itself in regarding the unsatisfactory status of the health of the nation.
Big Pharma calls the shots. They get taxpayer dollars to conduct studies. They selectively report the results. They have such huge profits they can afford to pay hundreds of millions in fines for violating FDA rules and regulations. They have our representatives in their hip pocket with their campaign contributions. They have many professionals in their other hip pocket using various ploys to get funds to doctors to use their products. They pay other pharmaceuticals not to market generics to maintain their market share at the expense of users who could use a price break. They use direct advertising to consumers as propaganda to promote the idea of the instant fix with the appropriate medication.
Worst of all, few are pushing back. I have sent many letters to my Congressional Delegation about what I see as corruption only to get the usual slick response that never leads to action. For me, the solution entails a consumer response of massive proportions in an effort to force necessary changes. Letters to the editors and to Congressmen are perhaps a starting point to organizing citizens who are tired of being bamboozled, hornswoggled and hoodwinked.