The Factories of Post-Modernism

May, 7, 2012 | 7 Comments

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  1. Two quotes from Sir William Osler:

    One of the first duties of the physician is to educate the masses not to take medicine.

    Sir William Osler, Aphorisms from his Bedside Teachings (1961) p. 105

    The desire to take medicine is perhaps the greatest feature which distinguishes man from animals.

    Sir William Osler, In H. Cushing, Life of Sir William Osler (1925)

  2. This comes on the heels of the Zyprexa scandal,

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/abbott-laboratories-agrees-to-16-billion-settlement-over-marketing-of-depakote/2012/05/07/gIQAh5098T_story.html

    “Global pharmaceutical giant Abbott Laboratories has agreed to pay federal and state governments $1.6 billion in criminal and civil fines for illegally promoting unapproved uses of its drug Depakote, including to sedate elderly patients in nursing homes, officials announced Monday.”

    Another psychiatric drug scam exposed, a zillion to go!!!!!

  3. When I speak to young physicians these days, they appear stunned into disbelief when I describe the ways in which we used to treat common problems in the older patient. I speak of about 25 years ago. When we had admissions of older “confused” residents from nursing homes into the ER, the first thing we did was take them off all medications except any that were absolutely essential for life, of which there were very few. We had an astonishing “cure” rate after a washout of drugs and rehydration. The therapeutic effects of simple tap water are still not appreciated for all – young and old. We used topical yoghurt for some infections, refined sugar for hiccups and other old remedies that were effective and cheap. When medications were required, we used those we knew worked and had been around for years.
    Then it started to fall apart and we were told that hospitals were to be run as businesses, the “products” being discharged patients, regardless of the fact that many would be back through the ER within a week providing a new set of potential “products” who now have new disorders for new “treatments”.
    The toxins that are being poured into infants and children are terrifying to contemplate. Parents, who for the most part are products of a society that has become accustomed to the “wonder drug” phenomenon, are often all too willing to try anything suggested for an afflicted child. Who is to tell them otherwise?
    When I was first treating patients, the common question, stated or implied was “Doctor, can you cure me?” Now it’s “Doctor, I want a pill that will cure me and how quickly will it work?” I fear that we are dealing with an ingrained belief system that, by definition, contains confidence without proof. That may be all very well for our various and varying religious convictions, or lack thereof, but has no place in medical science. As we know, however, the most difficult thing to change is belief.

  4. That’s the word, Irene. Belief.

    Having been nearly dead from Seroxat, my psychiatrist said, believe your beliefs. He wanted nothing to do with it, it was far too difficult for his brain to comprehend. Equally, the gp, you did very well to get off that drug, she said.
    What, me almost hanging from the rafters. Yeh, I did very well, indeed.

    I will never, in a million years, understand how psychiatrists brains work. These people know nothing, they do not want to know anything, they sit in their boxes and profess such rubbish about pharmaceutical drugs that defies BELIEF!
    Anger, doesn’t even come close. Self-control, I got bucket loads now because it’s all over.
    Ten years, I have been living with suicide all over my forehead.
    Well, time to change the record.

  5. Let’s look at that word, beliefs.

    My psychiatrist said that I should listen to my own beliefs.

    Despite him putting me on Seroxat, for mild anxiety.

    He didn’t give a damn that I was in a near death situation. He was so in his little box of tricks, he could not comprehend that his exciting new drug nearly killed me.

    How do psychiatrist think? Well, the answer is, they do not think.

    My gp said, I did very well to get off that drug. What, in a garage facing a noose, yet, I did great.

    So, how do these people think. They do not think, they do not query, they do not ask the questions. They sit in their box and it is a travesty that they do so.

    Well, the one thing I have learned from ten years of Seroxat withdrawal is the ability to learn to think, out of the box, and I am telling you, it is liberating.

  6. In today’s edition of the New England Journal of Medicine we find the following: Grief, Depression, and the DSM-5 by Richard A. Friedman, M.D.(n engl j med 366;20 nejm.org may 17, 2012)
    The American Psychiatric Association is considering making a significant change in the upcoming 5th edition of the DSM, which would specifically characterize bereavement as a depressive disorder. “On May 9, 2012, the APA announced that although the bereavement exclusion will still be eliminated from the definition of major depression, a footnote will be added indicating that sadness with some mild depressive symptoms in the face of loss should not necessarily be viewed as major depression.” How many read footnotes?
    We have allowed the medicalization of childbirth, menopause and other normal events in life and, despite previous protests, the APA is proposing to medicalize the normal response to significant loss. Be it noted that grief does not only apply to the death of a significant person but to other major losses in life, such as loss of the ability to work, severe injury etc. In the Brave New World, we may all be implanted at birth with ID markers like cats and dogs, and slow release antidepressants to stave off all normal feeling and response to what have become identified as “disorders” as well as contraceptive devices removable only on prescription/licence.
    Good grief, Charlie Brown!

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