Don't solve the problem.  More drugs.  Easier  Cheaper

So sad!

IT

Russ

The poor dears are having such a hard time keeping up with us marvelously spiritual humans.

(it's hard enough dealing with the puritans among us who don't trust us to fiddle around with our own consciousness and pollute our purity -- thank goodness fiddling is mainstream now)

I dind't have any drugs when I went to school

No fair!!!

 Some of it is over prescribing.  Some is people being more accepting of mental illness and being open to take medication that they need.  Sometimes off-label use is a huge relief for those who can't tolerate the drugs typically prescribed for their problem.

I wouldn't be surprised if off-label prescriptions are up for many medications, not just antipsychotics because people do tend to get more involved in discussing medications with their doctors.

I was prescribed an anti-psychotic for insomnia last year.  I never took it because it just didn't seem right to me to take something that could potentially affect so much of my brain simply because it had sleep as a side effect.

Off-label prescribing can be great or absolutely terrible. People need to be their own advocates and do their homework. There are new uses for old drugs. There also may be no evidence they work. The side effects or risk may outweigh the benefits. The use in children may never have been recommended...... Be your own best friend. Be informed.

 This is interesting, I think: a column from CNN -- and I recommend the book...

--------------------

By Dr H. Gilbert Welch, M.P.H., professor of medicine at the Dartmouth Institute of Health Policy & Clinical Practice and the author of "Overdiagnosed: Making People Sick in the Pursuit of Health" (Beacon Press 2011).

(CNN) -- A simple blood test. It's able to detect minute quantities of cancer cells that might be circulating in your bloodstream.

It's reported to be able to detect a single cell. It's intended to allow cancer patients to start treatment much earlier.

It's supposed to save lives. It's a cancer breakthrough.

But it's not that simple. The test could just as easily start a cancer epidemic.

We've seen it before. Twenty years ago another simple blood test was introduced. Twenty years later over 1 million Americans had been treated for a cancer that was never going to bother them.

The test was the PSA. It is able to detect minute quantities of prostate specific antigen -- minute as in one-billionth of gram. Turned out a lot of men had "abnormal" PSAs. Many were found to have microscopic cancers, far more than would ever suffer from prostate cancer.

They were overdiagnosed.

Does it matter? Absolutely. Most were treated with either radical surgery or radiation. Roughly a third suffered side-effects of treatment -- generally related to bowel, bladder or sexual function. And a few have died from it.

Things are rarely simple in modern medicine. And while most think about complexities related to treatment, some of the most challenging relate to diagnosis.

The conventional wisdom is people either have a disease or they do not. But, in fact, there are a lot of people somewhere in between. As we doctors can see more on X-ray images -- like shadows as small as the head of a pin -- and can measure things that were previously unmeasureable -- like a single cancer cell in the blood -- we diagnose more of these in-between people as being sick.

You might think we doctors would want to find all the in-between people with any evidence of cancer. That's probably because you think of cancer as a disease that invariably leads to death if not treated. That's what we were taught in medical school.

But our understanding of cancer is changing. As doctors increasingly try to find cancer early, before it causes symptoms, it has become clear the word "cancer" encompasses a broad array of cellular abnormalities: Some grow extremely rapidly, others do so more slowly, others stop growing completely and some even regress.

It also has become clear that an increasing number of our early cancer diagnoses -- particularly those involving the breast, prostate, thyroid, kidney and skin -- are made in people who are not destined to ever have symptoms or die from their cancer.

They are overdiagnosed.

The problem goes well beyond cancer. The conventional wisdom is that the more diagnoses doctors make, the more healthy we will all be. Not surprisingly, Americans get more diagnoses today than we did in the past. In fact, we are in the midst of an epidemic of diagnosis.

Most assume there are no downsides to looking for things to be wrong. But the truth is that early diagnosis is a double-edged sword. While it has the potential to help some, it always has a hidden side-effect: overdiagnosis, the detection of abnormalities that are not destined to ever bother people in their lifetime.

Becoming a patient unnecessarily has real human costs. There's the anxiety of being told you are somehow not healthy. There's the problem that getting a diagnosis may affect your ability to get health insurance. There are the headaches of renewing prescriptions, scheduling appointments and keeping them. Finally, there are the physical harms of treatments that cannot help (because there is nothing to fix): drug side-effects, surgical complications and even death. Not to mention it can bankrupt you.

Americans don't need more diagnoses, they need the right diagnoses.

I don't know whether this test will help some patients. It might, but it will take years to figure that out.

But I do know that the test will lead more people to be told they have cancer (or that their cancer has returned). That will lead more people to receive cancer treatment. Because these new patients are bound to be less severely ill (if they are ill at all), they will appear to do better. Many will assume that their doing better is because of the new test and early treatment. So the test will be performed more often. And a lot of money will be made along the way.

Ironically, what this test might actually teach us is that it's not that unusual for healthy people to have an occasional cancer cell in their blood.

 I think this is the sort of thing that's bound to happen where medicine becomes big business and profits are the driving force.

There are good and positive uses for antipsychotics, or any drug. And off-label prescribing is also extremely useful. I take three drugs for problems I don't have, but they fix other problems that prevent serious medical complications. None are antipsychotics, either.

This is just another anti-big pharma/medicine screed.

Its a matter of take it or leave it ... perhaps based on need instead of a desire to get so healthy you no longer notice pain ... and thus won't learn anything.

Could this be connected to recreational drugs and scripture in Exodus 20:19 ... god's people just didn't wish to know ... thus a blanket law we called vegetation ... rheum for all the alkaloids to form conjectures (that's gatherin mental waves .. some positive some negative)?

An old (mythical) healer was said to state that 85-90% (or more) of mankind's illnesses were caused by disruption of the soul. Isn't that just the living end? Then that healer's labell was supposedly A'M'n ... an isolated stretch of the imagination!

Intermendiate psycoactive materials will do that even anti-histamines and steroidal compounds ... mere images of your hormones that are sort of given the UV shaft by people wishing only to make more physical gold. Did you know a thinking mind was known as chimera in myth ... not unlike a draegon though ... you know a follower or disciple to the emotional state! you see it all when it's going ... or so the OBI in theory works. Some know it as fact and othere's ... well they doubt!

It's difficult to cut a mind some light if they are in de nial ... easy mistranslated as Onyx in arche typical symbols of old letters. Yah never know what you'll find in that vast dark pool ...

Myself I don't need drugs, all I have to do is look all about me ... intellect of the immediate surroundings leave one with a reserved sense of satire. I was told not to laugh at stoic things ... but sometimes obeying Law like that is well ... just odd, strange, alien! Did biblical syntax say how we were to treat the alien? Of course that's just WORD eh ... not God without emotions and some thought! Oh, well lets admit it the wee balck things are often exclude in a burst of chi mere ... that's Ur I told yah so ...

Mike Paterson

I haven't been posting much lately ( I'm all talked out)  but I'm still  reading some threads. Your writings  and expressed  opinions are often marvellous. The cancer article is very informative. Thanks!

Diagnosis should be in the hands of the academic institutions not in the hands of the pharmaceutical companies.  This is the status quo as of 2011.

In BC for example, 100 Research seats in the field of medicine belong to pharmaceutical companies whereas the academics hold 10 seats. 

Since the rise of chemotherapy and insulin the pharmaceutical companies have hoodwinked the entire society and medicine included into believing all answers lall of the time lie in pharmaceuticals.  Most M.D.s practicing family medicine are just fancy pharmacists and most psychiatrists can't stay legally operational if they don't work on a pharmaceutical basis. 

Everything will change if we make preventive medicine and naturopathic medicine part of the Health Care System.  In Victoria, there has been a private interest group attempting to do this very thing.  We would  save billions of dollars as well as be a healthier population in control of our own health.   See why Canadian Health Care is such a threat to the right wing pro-business elite?  Really see it. 

That's just horrible. :|

well, from what i know diagonsis is in the hands of a qualified doctor or nurse practitioner... i'm not sure what you are getting at with this 'academic institutions' thing... do you mean the body who licences the doctors, maybe??

well, it is the pharmaceutical companies who are funding the research, correct??

what??  how??

gotta throw the bullshit flag here... i haven't worked with an MD yet who just threw pills at me... in fact, all of them were so about alternatives that sometimes it became exhausting!!

secondly, all of the psychiatrists that i worked with WERE NOT ALLOWED TO PRESCRIBE DRUGS.   all i would get would be a written report, and i would take it to my doctor who would then take their findings and act accordingly.  most of the time, medication wasn't even offered.

first of all, preventative medicine IS a part of the health care system... immunizations??  travel health clinics??  nurse practitioners??  yearly health checkups??  thats all preventative medicine, jlin.

as far as naturopathic medicine, that ain't regulated by anybody, so attempting to portray it as equal to the canadian health care system in any shape or form is laughable.

really.  billions.  i don't see that... where are you getting that information from?? 

and we ARE in control of our own health, jlin... really, thats a laughable statement... if i'm not in control of my own health, WHO IS??  nobody is forcing me to do anything.

this statement has nothing to do with naturopathic medicine, though... yes, medicare is definetly something that pisses off the guys who would love to make a profit on the canadian health care industry. 

naturopathic health care is not covered by medicare, and therefore?!?!? 

like i said, that statement makes no sense in relation to the rest of your post.

Just to make matters straight:

• Psychiatrists are medical doctors with qualifications to write prescriptions to treat the brain.
• Psychologists are people trained in the delving into the imaginary state ... the mind ... no drug treatments allowed although drugs  in the brain may have an alchemical side effect as relational. networking occurs between the real and the anon state! It's an unknown sort of equivaalent to god but indeterminate. Generally unknown by mortal thought ... severely limited except in QUIess principle--- Heiseinberg! you never know until it is tested ... I Thess 5:21. Such statements usually make the stonewalled boil like a confined cal'd ron ... a hole in space for confinement of emotions. It is a different kettel of fish from intelligence ... isolated outside the confinement ... free to think?

Many cannot relate to this cognizance of differential ... they don't wish to know this gravid stuff! Is this odd behaviour? Perhaps it is due to the alien nature of th mind ... its outa here ... makes the dais Mons chimerä ... in silence for you don't wish them to know of the one-up-man's hip! Bump as's in the nuit!

One has to step out a bit to know the intellect; metaphor of the un revered solas is ...

Some people complain that they don't know what I'm talking about. That's good for if they knew what I was thinking they'd find fault, for in a Roman sort of empire ... thinking people are dangerous ... so it's better if you don't know what I'm thinking and then its not my flaw ... but yours to deal with ... like Gideon's Jared ... a containment mentioned almost 300 times in the old script-hearse dead linguistics?

 Is it what you know that'll kill yah or what you don't know? Good satire will result in you dieing in fit of laughter ... but fdon't let the stoics know what you're talking about ... keep em in the dark in good faith! Its something they can believe in ...

Like an abstract or aesthetic, word of writ is black and well ... indicative of the absence of light, an odd source of intellect as foundation stone for the solis ... a quieted mind. Neurologists say that literacy assists a persons understanding which is catagorical in many sources to bring peace ... some fall all over words and thus it comes to be know as stimbling block .. about which some writers can't get around as they don't understand what they wished to say ... no end to wit' ... it is really, truly odd ... wards of rheumination ... sometimes called a atti-Ka with variations that isolated people cannot accept as designated in the good word (I Corinthians 11:19) although Paul found fault with Corinthians. Then nothing is perfect for creation built things with varients ... to see how they'd work ... prototypical heh ... green in the velding!

Just call it subliminal etics ... odd reciprocal thing like canan or ekos ... and Ego set free?

North America is a very comfortable continent. Comfort leads to complacency leads to apathy leads to worse.

Until the end of time, profit is going to be corrupt and people are going to turn to easy means of temporary happiness such as but not limited to over the counter meds, material wealth, etc. I suppose I shouldn't limit that suggestion to wealthy countries.

I dont really know what I'm saying. I guess I'm just acknowledging that just as often as not, the man behind the pill bottle process is not always doing the right thing. Just as with any other big profit industry.

The Western World is comfortable ... if you deny the bottom 85-95% of the affluency span ... the real de void ...

Step across phoqah, have a vue from the other side ... that's like OBI!

Is my brother, my sybling an object of my reverence? In the negative what are the consequences? Cos Moe logical joke on the absence of rationale?

A link to an essay on the potentialities of using mood enhancers to make better moral choices.

A Talk aboot the possibilities of using Drugs for Cognitive Fiddling

Hi there,

I think that we all need to take personal responsibility and be advocates for our own health care. Part of the problem is that many people go to the doctor or pharmacist looking for a "magic pill" to cure all of their ills. We need to be educated and informed about what we are putting in our bodies.

An anti-psychotic drug was literally a life saver for me. I live with Bipolar Disorder, and was prescribed an anti-psychotic as part of my prescription medication for mood stabilization. It doesn't work for everybody, and I see a psychiatrist and a GP regularly to monitor my dosages and progress. This particular drug has a heavy amount of side effects, but for me, it was a case of the benefits far outweighing the risks. However, I still had to educate myself about what the side effects are and be watchful of them, and I did extensive research on all of the drugs I take before I made the decision to take them.  I was also on medication prior that didn't agree with me, and was able to advocate with my doctors to be able to change them.

The key is that we have to be active participants with our health care team.

I tend to think there are massive problems on a societal level, with our economics such that so many people are working too much and other people are unemployed. There is too much inequality and nervousness and stress and questions of self worth because of that. Then there's problems with our schools, and a lack of resources. There's challenges for people to get enough nutritious food. And just... so many problems on a societal level, and I think that the problems end up showing up on the individual level in the forms of mental illness. Yet individuals can't solve those social problems, so... what are they supposed to do? If the drugs help them, then I'm glad for them.