Comments: Surviving America's Depression Epidemic
From the article: "The HRSD is heavily loaded with items that are most affected by psychotropic drugs, and thus it is not surprising that pharmaceutical-company-sponsored researchers use the HRSD in their antidepressant studies. And it is therefore especially damning for antidepressants that even with such measurement dice loading, these drugs routinely fail to outperform placebos."
AND
"Why did this unhappiness taboo take hold so strongly in the United States? One possibility is a societal distortion of the right to "the pursuit of happiness," which has come to mean the expectation of being in a good mood all the time. The irony here is that the signers of the Declaration of Independence signed their death warrant had the American Revolution failed, and it is difficult to imagine Thomas Jefferson telling them, "Don't worry, be happy." It was once accepted that experiencing uncomfortable feelings was often necessary to achieve an ideal."
AND
"In a culture of consumerism, people are forever trying to buy happiness, and sellers are expected to appear happy so as to inspire confidence in what they are offering."
SO the pharmaceutical industry appears to get this about Americans wanting short cuts to happiness, I'm not trying to generalize major depression---but medicating life situational unhappiness is also the industry goal, and that's the problem.
But in fact it is the consumer who has a choice in that. This is why re packaging antipsychotics for depression as antidepressants is gonna get really wild. People will think Abilify is the newest antidepressant [for example] and not have a clue they are being medicated with a med designed for schizophrenia. But then again, consumers are the ones who want quick fixes in life, so live and learn.
Posted by Stephany at November 27, 2007 06:50 AM