Trusting the Government? hah. I so believe the FDA is there for "us". Riiight. A corrupt Pharmaceutical industry is in charge of this stuff, hands down.

Of course, this just brings up a larger issue vis a vis psychiatry, drugs and "difficult patients": being an informed consumer almost always means being labeled "difficult".

Ever since the extreme medicalization of most psych conditions, over the previous (perhaps extreme) undermedicalization of some psych conditions, it's become a lot easier and more convenient to apply drugs over labels (neither are very comforting, I would think, to the general populace, save, perhaps, for the hypochondriac or the chronically unbelieved, among a few other subgroups).

I seriously and sincerely hope another swing occurs, perhaps more towards a center point (some psychoanalysis, some prescribing, but all of it more INFORMED). But I kind of doubt that's going to happen.

It'd be very easy to blame a lot of this on insurance companies, big pharma and HMOs, but I think some of the blame also belongs on the shoulders of the doctors who are choosing to pursue psychiatry without a solid *psychology* (or even neurology or cognitive science) education.

I've always felt that it was a mistake to make consumer advertisements for prescription drugs (or to bribe doctors to prescribe drugs by giving the docs gifts, too, for that matter - most companies forbid receiving "gifts" that could "sway" purchases; why should medicine, of all things, be held to any different standards? Oh yeah, money. the results of this study only adds fuel to the fire of confirming this fact by providing some solid data.

I do acknowledge that drug development costs a lot of money, and that we as Americans subsidize a lot of that development cost for other nations who have lower prescription costs. I even understand the high costs of medications. What bothers me is that most people think that medications can cure everything, when at best they should only be an ADJUNCT to making healthier decisions and pursuing parallel courses to achieve better results.

When you can take a drug to lower your cholesterol, for example, most people don't want to change their eating habits -- many think, hey, a pill! I can do exactly what led me to this point still and just take a pill and it will solve the problems.

But it won't.

And thus lies the crux of the dilemma. You can't exactly forbid a whole class of people to take a drug that could help them based solely on the fact that they don't want to change the unhealthy habits associated with the symptoms and diseases they get because of those lifestyle choices.

Let's face it. We live in a consumer, convenience-oriented culture. It's one reason why our society is breaking down (one of many). And one result of that convenience culture is that more people will find more things to complain about when it comes to prescription drugs because they *expect more*. To an extent, I think it is consumer expectations that has changed far more than the actual number of incidences.

I still haven't decided if that's a good thing.

I just wanted everyone to be aware that adverse events are notoriously under-reported. In fact, as long ago as 2004, it was estimated that drug related accidental deaths were estimated to be around 100K which is a lot higher than the number in this report. Some "experts" put actual reports at only ten percent of the total. And of course suicides and homicides are not really acknowledged as adverse events so they're not in these totals either. This is just the tip of the iceberg.