Fundamentalist Consumerism and an Insane Society
At a giant Ikea store in Saudi Arabia in 2004, three people were killed by a stampede of shoppers fighting for one of a limited number of $150 credit vouchers. Similarly, in November 2008, a worker at a New York Wal-Mart was trampled to death by shoppers intent on buying one of a limited number of 50-inch plasma HDTVs.
What’s It Going to Take to Lock Up Drug Company Execs?
A recent article in the New England Journal of Medicine reveals the shocking extent of how corrupt drug companies are.
“Laws are like cobwebs, which may catch small flies, but let wasps and hornets break through.” – Jonathan Swift
After reading “The Neurontin Legacy — Marketing through Misinformation and Manipulation” in the January 8, 2009 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, one may conclude that (1) America’s prisons would be put to better use incarcerating drug company executives instead of pot smokers, and (2) society may need a return of public scorn via the pillory for those doctors who are essentially drug-company shills.
Psycho-Pharmaceutical Industrial Complex
Profiting from drugging women and children
Postpartum depression among women in the United States occurs at a rate of between 10 to 20 percent, but it is rare in several cultures where new mothers routinely receive structured social support following childbirth. Yet, currently Congress is legislating increased medical treatment for postpartum depression rather than confronting its societal roots.
Has American Society Gone Insane?
America’s mental health problems may be more than a matter of some “unadjusted” individuals. The entire culture might well need adjusting.
For many Americans who gain their information solely from television, all critics of psychiatry are Scientologists, exemplified by Tom Cruise spewing at Matt Lauer, “You don’t know the history of psychiatry. … Matt, you’re so glib.” The mass media has been highly successful in convincing Americans to associate criticism of psychiatry with anti-drug zealots from the Church of Scientology, the lucrative invention of science fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard.
Has Big Pharma Corruption Suppressed Effective Treatment Options?
Establishment psychiatry is under attack in Congress. Investigators are recognizing that not all mental health treatments come in a pill.
American psychiatry has been rocked by Congress. Congressional investigators first exposed the financial relationships between high-profile psychiatrists and drug companies. “But now the profession itself is under attack in Congress,” reported the New York Times on July 12, 2008.
The Science of Happiness: Is It All Bullshit?
Just because a Harvard academic says something is so, doesn’t mean it is.
A “Daily Show” interview that hit a chord for me was Jon Stewart’s conversation with Tal Ben-Shahar, who teaches “positive psychology” at Harvard and has written a self-help book. Early in the interview, a suspicious Stewart declares, “I am a psychology major, so I know a lot of it is bullshit.”
Exposed: Harvard Shrink Gets Rich Labeling Kids Bipolar
Meet the man who got rich by popularizing bipolar disorder for children. Congressional investigators and the NY Times expose the scandal.
What Dick Cheney is to the U.S. invasion of Iraq, psychiatrist Joseph Biederman is to the explosion of psychiatric medications in American children. Recently, Biederman was nailed by congressional investigators and the New York Times for overestimating just how greedy an elite shrink is entitled to be. Beyond a peek into the corruption of psychiatry at its highest levels, the scandal is an opportunity to reconsider the Big Pharma financed view of why kids become disruptive and destructive.
Are Antidepressants Faith-Based Treatment?
Bias in drug studies may mask the mind’s role in overcoming depression.
While millions of people swear by Prozac, Zoloft, and other antidepressants, do they work any better than a placebo or no treatment at all?
How Teenage Rebellion Has Become a Mental Illness
Big pharma has some new customers. Not complying with authority is now, in many cases, labeled a disease.
For a generation now, disruptive young Americans who rebel against authority figures have been increasingly diagnosed with mental illnesses and medicated with psychiatric (psychotropic) drugs.
America’s Love-Hate Relationship With Drugs
Many prescription drugs have effects similar to those of illegal drugs. But we still view some users as criminals – the others as patients.
While Americans are inundated with coverage of the Democrats’ quibbling over Barack Obama’s use of marijuana and cocaine as a teenager, a truly important drug story continues to be neglected: The hypocrisy of Big Pharma, psychiatry officialdom, and justice institutions regarding mood-altering (psychotropic) drugs – specifically the denial of the similarity between illegal and psychiatric drugs.
