September 30, 2005

I Want Answers (repost)

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.

Posted by Philip Dawdy at September 30, 2005 02:01 AM
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Comments

Do meds have lousy side effects? Yes. Are meds themselves lousy? No, no and more no.

Back before the first antipsychotic medication came out, people with severe mental illness were locked up. For life. Never to return to society. Ever.

The fact of the matter is even though meds do have shity side effects, without them, pretty much all of the 2.3 percent of Americans who have schizophrenia would simply not be able to live an even close to normal life. They just wouldn't. Look at the literature that was written before medication became available: people were rightfully portrayed in a very terrifying even grotesque light, because they simply were terrifying and grotesque. I mean, look at even a children's book, Tintin, which was written in the 30s -- people were called mad, they were locked up, they were considered to be the worst, the worst of people, barbaric, scary, and terribly inhumane. And to an extent that was true -- would you want to be surrounded by individuals who talked to flowers or lunged at you? You'd be frightened, and you'd want to put those people away. Everyone would.

Do you really want to go back to those days?

And forget about people who were sane, let's talk about the people who were insane: they SUFFERED. They were being internally TORTURED. They were living in HELL. Why would you want people to be in that kind of agony with themselves? I know when I was in the grips of schizophrenia, I thought that people I loved were going to die. I saw them getting thrown into vats of boiling oil. I saw them getting their clothes stripped off and being burned at a stake. I saw them being shot and stabbed and strangled. Now, was I having fun at the time? Was I howling with laughter? Of course not.

And how about all the family members of people with mental illness? If your spouse or daughter had schizophrenia -- would you want them to live in an institution for the rest of their lives? Would you want your precious little child to have to be restrained on a gurney, locked in the seclusion room, while receiving shots of tranqualizers every hour? Is that what you'd want?

Cutting to the chase, WE NEED MEDS. Meds are GOOD. Without them, people would be living disasters -- disasters for society, disasters for their loved ones, disasters for themselves.

But of course I concur: medication does have very negative and painful side effects. Look at the note I just posted -- I suffered from medication, and I know I'm not the only one. Medication is terrible at times.

But what is the price you're willing to pay? Would you rather gain an extra 30 pounds but yet live a decent, regular life, or would you rather stay trim, yet live in a state hospital for the rest of your life?

Basically, I think in some respects, you're doing people a disservice. Being such a crybaby about inconsequential side effects such as heavy head or weight gain or any other completely livable inconvience, is just wrong. Encouraging people to rebel or go off their meds is stupid and totally idiotic in every sense of the word.

I think you need to open your eyes and see that there's more to life than having every possible luxury and comfort that the world could ever offer you. Grow up.

Posted by: Gwen Davis at October 6, 2005 04:33 PM

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