Sunday, September 08, 2013

The "Science" behind Psychiatric Drugs

I just came across this fascinating article about The Psychiatric Drug Crisis in the pharmaceutical industry.

The article covers not only that crisis, but also the history behind many psychiatric drugs and the complete lack of science behind them.

For example, the use of the drug lithium for people who experienced mania came about because it sedated guinea pigs that had been injected with the urine of manic patients. Honest, I kid you not. If you don't believe me, read the article (see the link above).

Here is a quote from the article:
By 1960, the major classes of psychiatric drugs—among them, mood stabilizers, antipsychotics, antidepressants, and anti-anxiety drugs, known as anxiolytics—had been discovered and were on their way to becoming a seventy-billion-dollar market. Having been discovered by accident, however, they lacked one important element: a theory that accounted for why they worked (or, in many cases, did not). That didn’t stop drug makers and doctors from claiming that they knew.
The article also exposes the truth about the myth of the "chemical imbalance," which even its long time proponents no longer espouse.

It's nice to have someone in the actual industry completely validate everything you've been saying for the past twenty plus years.