La Reine Margot: Data access, ghostwriting, suicide and mad reviewers

November, 7, 2012 | 5 Comments

Comments

  1. “All too often prescription only privileges puts doctors in the position of the generals in the Crimea or Great War who sent the troops over the top in a doomed Charge of the Light Brigade. We want generals that we the infantry can trust, generals with a proven track record of keeping their troops safe to fight another day”.

    I like that part. When on medication I never really wanted to bother to get up to “fight another day”. I was quite happy under the duvet cover out of the line of fire and away from the big, bad world. Now that I am off medication I like to get up in the morning. It gets back to your Quality of Life comment, that you made a few months back, in another article. Doctors need to factor that in. And also the weight gain. They don’t seem to care if you cannot fit through the door on your way in to their surgery/room as long as your are “compliant”.

    I now have a number of labels including “non-compliant” and “a’la carte”.

    {Never stop or change medication without consulting a good doctor, due to the dangers of withdrawal}.

  2. Theirs not to make reply,
    Theirs not to reason why,
    Theirs but to do and die.

    What other branch of medicine would claim the right to treat its patients this way? I think you just got to the root of why psychiatry has led the medical pack in its willingness to hide the risks of its treatments. Those with psychotic disorders, at least, are viewed as intrinsically incapable of knowing their own interests – any qualms about taking the latest poison is a symptom, “lack of insight” into their disease.

    And lest anyone treated for depression think they are immune, be aware there is a lot of “mission creep” here. Groups like NAMI already caution journalists against printing stories about the potential side effects of antidepressants, lest they frighten vulnerable patients into not taking them. Any resulting suicides, the reporters are warned, will be blood on your hands. More and more patients are thus deprived of informed consent “for their own good.” Maybe diabetes, heart disease and other “physical” ailments will be next.

    I doubt the author of these emails seriously believed David Healy was campaigning for an end to prescription-only status, with clozapine on the drugstore shelf next to the Alka-Seltzer. The real bogeyman is informed consent for the patronized, dehumanized and practically colonized psychiatric patient. With 50 million of us said to be “living with a mental illness” in the States alone, that could be a pretty rich colony.

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