Psychiatry on the Edge

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Science News reviews the history of pharmaceutical research in “No New Meds:
With Drug Firms in Retreat, the Pipeline for New Psychiatric Medications Dries Up”, which includes the analysis of many leading scientists that “we’ve got to change. This isn’t working.” The article concludes that more brain research is necessary.

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6 COMMENTS

  1. Just wanted to let people know their was an interesting discussion on “Morning Joe’ about the recent NYT article regarding Adderal Abuse. Our concerns are going mainstream and we are not alone in our concerns. We may have differences in how we see psychiatry but the days of the ten minute interview and med script I think may be coming to a blessed end.

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  2. “This field is going to have to get past the idea that there will be a perfect pill for these disorders,” Insel says. What’s needed is a deeper understanding of the brain — the genes, the molecules, the circuits that go awry in some diseases, he writes October 10 in Science Translational Medicine. It’s much harder to fix something if you don’t know what’s going wrong.”

    Oh boy.

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    • Oh boy indeed…why does there never seem to be even an inkling of the idea that none of this may be about “the brain – the genes, the molecules, the circuits…”

      Because just maybe, there’s no “disease” in the true sense to begin with…

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        • Your blog is a fine example of what I see happening daily in the state hospital where I work. People are never asked about what happened to them so that they ended up in the hospital. They’re just given the drugs and told that they’d better take the drugs or they won’t be let out of the hospital. They get the old “you’ve got a broken brain and need the drugs like insulin for diabetes” routine. And no one at the hospital can explain why we have a revolving door in Admissions! This isn’t rocket science!

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  3. The first comment by mcoma is appropriately first. When I read it I thought: “Wishful thinking!” It is going to take more than an article in the NYT and a discussion on Morning Joe. There have been BTW many front page articles in NYT that make psychiatry look bad. We are dealing with a multi-billion dollar industry. It is not so vulnerable to criticism. The second letter by Steve Morgan indicate how the industry is planning to handle criticism, threats to its prosperity.(I have not yet read the article–but I’ve read enough elsewhere to have known this.)The propaganda is becoming more complex, more convoluted. Steve quotes Insel. Note the word “circuits.” That is common now–talk about failure of “communication” between brain circuits. There is never any talk of communication between human beings or problem of communication between people (as the third letter indicates)–just between circuits.It’s as if human beings are not even involved at all–except as customers of the psych-pharm industry. The ten minute interview and the med script is not coming to an end. David Healy has a review here on MIA on the new movie Side Effects. It could be construed as an effort to neutralize critics of bio-psychiatry. All of this is not to deny that there is an increasing awareness of how crooked and harmful the bio-psych industry is–which is of course a good thing. But don’t ever underestimate the enemy.
    Seth Farber, Ph.D.

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