The makers of prozac aggressively denied that prozac caused patients to feel suicidal in cases. However when prozac's patent was nearing its expiration date, the company tinkered with the molecular formula and patented its new and improved drug: prozac-R. Of course though, to patent the improvement of a drug, one must put forward the new drug's improvements. So what did Prozac-R do better? Well in their patent application, the makers cited that Prozac-R did away with the side effects of suicidal feelings, exactly the side-effect the company denied ever existed in the original prozac.
Why am I telling you this? Because it highlights the fact that providing care has fallen far behind the agenda's of profit-driven pharmaceutical corporations.
Today, 1 in 10 Americans adults and 1-27 American children aged 12-17 are taking anti-depressants. This figures are a testament to our societies completely skewed view of medicine.
Modern medicine is a wonder at treating acute problems. You get in a car accident. You'll be taken care of better today than any other time in human history. Unfortunately this isn't true with chronic conditions. Chronic conditions are the bodies way of saying that it is missing something it needs. Instead of figuring out what the deficiency is however, we sweep the whole problem under the rug with the help of a doctor's prescription.
This epidemic of overprescribing medication really hits a nerve with my because I was prescribed anti-depressants my freshman year of high school. They work for a time, but the side-effects but after a year I started to built up a tolerance, and when I stopped taking them, I was right back to where I was before I started taking the SSRI.
I never stopped to consider that maybe the food I was eating and the things I were doing could have any effect on my mood. I saw food as the stuff that I put in my mouth to survive, not as something that could have any therapeutic effects.
Long story short, I changed my whole life around. I began eating raw organic foods, took up meditation and channelled all my extra energy into my sport. I've never looked back.
When it comes to medicine, I don't think there have ever been truer words than Hipprocrates' "let thy food be thy medicine and thy medicine be thy food."
For anyone interested, I've attached a link to an AMAZING documentary about the science of nutrition and natural healing. It's called Food Matters, and it will change the way you think about your body.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=IFRw3mOatok
Sources:
http://blogs.psychcentral.com/relationships/2012/02/depression-anxiety-why-take-a-pill-when-itsyour-nature-to-heal/
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2 comments:
I completely agree that there is an “epidemic of overprescribing medication,” and I think there are several ethical reasons why this is a problem beyond those you brought up. For example, the relative ineffectiveness of these drugs are definitely not publicized enough, and it is true that alternative treatment is often just as effective and can be even more effective. While a change of diet and lifestyle may not work for everyone – talk therapy may help some, or just opening up to those close to you – the root of the problem is that we still don’t really know what exactly causes depression. Indeed, beyond localizing the modules that control various functions, we know very little about how our brains truly work. All antidepressant drugs alter the “chemistry” of our brains, but we only know of the effects of these alterations through statistical analysis of clinical trials – we don’t actually know the direct effect this chemistry has on our behavior and emotions, and we can’t directly measure the serotonin levels in our brain itself (serotonin being one of the chemicals, or neurotransmitters, often targeted by antidepressants).
I find this lack of fundamental understanding of why these drugs work to be very ethically problematic, as we are approving treatments that, while clinically “safe” and potentially beneficial, are altering our minds in ways we can’t really predict. Because our brains are so complex and unique, and depression so dependent on everything from past experiences to the season, it seems silly to think any one drug can be widely used with effective results for a majority of people – and morally wrong to market this myth.
This brings me back to your original point, that there is too much money in the market for antidepressants and other mind-altering drugs. There is a lot of evidence that much of the spike in mental illness – from autism to depression – has to do with a change in the atmosphere of diagnosis and prescription. Drug companies have a lot of influence over hospitals and the health care system encourages as much care to be administered as possible, which contributes to our tendency to medicalize everything. While this may be appropriate in some cases, the prescription of antidepressants when other methods work just as well is definitely wrong.
References:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/10/magazine/10psyche-t.html?pagewanted=all
http://helpguide.org/mental/medications_depression.htm
Love the topic and the use of a personal anecdote. Would like you get more in depth with the ethics of children taking these.
And excellent reply
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