Monday, March 24, 2008

Anti Depressants, Unsubstantiated Claims

[These three video clips are from psychmedz1 on YouTube. You can see some interesting comments below each clip there.] Kathy Fountain on Tampa Bay, FL Fox News with Jeffrey R. Lacasse, MSW, PhD. candidate and lecturer at Florida State University's College of Social Work, and Jonathan Leo, PhD. Professor of Neuroanatomy at Lincoln Memorial University in Tennessee, (studied at (?) Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine), discuss unsubstantiated claims of the drug industry regarding depression and anti depressants. They discuss their research (Published in the journal "Society") regarding the myth and metaphor of a chemical imbalance of the brain. See more at
http://www.fsu.com/pages/2008/03/03/depression.html
(The "Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders," which almost all psychiatrists use to diagnose and treat their patients, clearly states that the cause of depression and anxiety is unknown, according to Lacasse and Leo.)
This is part 2 of the discussion which includes the distinction between science and the metaphor of "chemical imbalance." Fountain says that US patients buy one-third of all drugs purchased in the world perhaps as a result of media advertising, which is prohibited in other countries.
Part 3 reveals that the American Psychological Association reports in 2002 that the drug companies have $250 billion (that's a B) in world wide sales. They note that stopping taking these drugs can be dangerous. Why start if stopping is dangerous? The FDA placed a black box warning that these drugs can cause an increase in suicidal thoughts. 47 studies submitted to the FDA regarding these drugs show that 10 percent of people are helped by these drugs, while 60 percent have adverse effects.

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