I Want Answers

It must suck being a pharma executive these days. Last year, Paxil and some other anti-depressants got slapped with the FDA's black box warning label. Last week, out came the CATIE study--a landmark in my opinion--which established that atypical antipsychotics don't live up to the drug companies' hype. And, then, this week comes goes a warning that pregnant women might want to steer clear of Paxil. Lastly, today, it's announced that Strattera, used for attention deficit disorder, merits its own black box warning. Both Strattera and Paxil cause some suicidality in youngsters. That's why they merit the warnings.

You'd think all of this would be an opening for some honesty from Big Pharma about just how well their meds work and an open accounting of what the side effects of these meds truly are. Silence. You'd think that maybe a skeptical reporter would call Eli Lilly and Astra-Zeneca and all the rest and ask them if they are going to cut prices on atypicals--a typical dose can easily amount to $400 a month--since they only work about as well as older "conventional" anti-psychotics, which cost maybe $40 a month. Silence. You'd think that mental health advocacy groups would be pressing the drug companies to explain the yawning gap between their marketing rhetoric and the reality--very mixed--of how their meds work in the real world. Silence.

Silence is criminal.

My guess is that I am not the only one who wants some answers and, perhaps, some honesty. After all, I've been treating my bipolar disorder with meds for over 16 years now. I've seen the good and bad effects of meds on me and many others with mental illnesses. I've realized that I have little choice but to take them in order to live well with the monkey on my back and spent tens of thousands of dollars in pursuit of the kind of stability our country seems to demand of its citizens if they wish to not wind up living in a drain pipe somewhere. I've bought into the medicate-me-I'll-be-better-soon paradigm as hard as any patient.

So, I'm at the point where I'd just like to see the pharma companies actually honestly address the shortcomings of psych meds. Anyone else feel that way? Email me. Add a comment.

NOTE: I'll provide links to relevant articles on these meds just as soon as I figure out how to do that.