An unprecedented 1 in 66 Americans is a diagnosed psychotic

[ensho]

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/07/20/an-unprecedented-1-in-66-americans-is-a-diagnosed-psychotic/


Outselling even common drugs to treat high blood pressure and acid reflux, antipsychotic medications are the single top-selling prescription drug in the United States.

-snip-

Focusing on psychiatrists because they rely on subjective diagnoses, the drug reps have been so successful that they've changed the criteria for mental illness and disability payments. Ridgeway quotes former New England Journal of Medicine editor Marcia Angell.


"he tally of those who are so disabled by mental disorders that they qualify for Supplemental Security Income (SSI) or Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) increased nearly two and a half times between 1987 and 2007 - from one in 184 Americans to one in seventy-six. For children, the rise is even more startling - a thirty-five-fold increase in the same two decades. Mental illness is now the leading cause of disability in children." Under the tutelage of Big Pharma, we are "simply expanding the criteria for mental illness so that nearly everyone has one." Fugh-Berman agrees: In the age of aggressive drug marketing, she says, "Psychiatric diagnoses have expanded to include many perfectly normal people."

-snip-

For kids: the number diagnosed with bi-polar disorder rose 40-fold between 1994 and 2003 and one in five comes away from a psychiatrist with a prescription for an antipsychotic.

Dosing the elderly at nursing homes has become so common that sales reps have coined the term "five at five" -- meaning 5 milligrams of Zyprexa at 5 pm to sedate difficult residents.
-snip-
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the pharma Barons giggle with money lust: in 2009 Lilly sold $1.8 billion of Zyprexa alone.

we americans are so easy to sucker

[Poll_Blind]

1. Good lord.

PB

[Drale]

2. Well they don't seem to be getting to the right people because

the tea party is still around and people still vote republican.

[marew]

3. So true, so true! LOL! n/t

[GreenPartyVoter]

4. The change in bipolar diagnoses have gone up because they have

gone from a strict criteria set of, "Has this person ever been hospitalized for mania?" to a spectrum graph of manic and depressive cycles, where in some cases the depressive episodes outweigh the manic episodes by far. http://psycheducation.org/ And it's a bloody good thing too because after being told by a psychiatrist in the early 90s (before the change) that there was no way I could be bipolar, I finally got the help I needed in 2006 when a psychiatrist said it was very clear that I'm bipolar 2.

I do believe that big pharma jacks up prices and and is trying to create new clientele where there probably shouldn't be any, and that better oversight of med usage is needed, but there are times when the meds are worth it. I wish they cost less, but they are lifesavers for me nonetheless.

As for the upswing of mental illnesses in kids, I have two thoughts. We've changed how we parent and punish them. Has that made a change in how kids behave, and are we therefore labeling them as ill because this is not how kids behaved in the past? Also, god only knows what the various pollutants do to developing fetuses and children. I have two "special" kids. One is Aspergerish and the other one is ADHD and likely to have inherited my bipolar issues. The older one doesn't need meds, just therapy to teach him coping methods, but I think the younger one might need them if the bipolar kicks in. I'm not excited about him being on meds, but having lived through the hell of life without them it would be the better of two frustrating choices.

[Warpy]

5. They're diagnosing the wrong ones, too

With so many people getting conflicting messages from god, it seems there is a huge outbreak of serious schizophrenia among the far right. Alas, these people will never get diagnosed and treated now that the state mental health systems have been destroyed by deinstitutionalization.

You see, I worked in one of them in the 60s and the biggest predictor of landing yourself in a state nuthouse was claiming you were getting direct messages from god. Well, unless you were a tent preacher because everybody in mental health knew they were conmen.

Now it's a predictor of having the Republican Party run you for high office.