Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Anti-Depressants, Anti-Psychotics, Ritalin - Are They Helpful?

Below is an excerpt to an article on psychiatric drugs (anti-depressants, anti-psychotics, and the primary drug for ADHD - Ritalin), announcing a groundbreaking new book by Robert Whitaker. In short, the drugs, while they have the appearance of being helpful, have long-term outcomes which are much worse than no drugs at all.

Excerpt from Salon.com article:
In the past few months, the perennial controversy over psychiatric drug use has been growing considerably more heated. A January study showed a negligible difference between anti-depressants and placebos in treating all but the severest cases of depression. The study became the subjects of a Newsweek cover story, and the value of psychiatric drugs has recently been debated in the pages of the New Yorker, the New York Times and Salon. Many doctors and patients fiercely defend psychiatric drugs and their ability to improve lives. But others claim their popularity is a warning sign of a dangerously over-medicated culture.

The timing of Robert Whitaker's "Anatomy of an Epidemic," a comprehensive and highly readable histroy of psychiatry in the United States, couldn't be better. An acclaimed mental health journalist and winner of a George Polk Award for his reporting on the psychiatric field, Whitaker draws on 50 years of literature and in-person interviews with patients to answer a simple question: If "wonder drugs" like Prozac are really helping people, why has the number of Americans on government disability due to mental illness skyrocketed from 1.25 million in 1987 to over 4 million today?

Adhering to studies published in prominent medical journals, Robert Whitaker argues that, over time, patients with schizophrenia do better off medication than on it. Children who take stimulants for ADHD, he writes, are more likely to suffer from mania and bipolar disorder than those who go unmedicated. source


The above article opens peoples eyes to the dangers of certain drugs. Is there an alternative?

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