The United States has one of the highest rates in the world of prescription drug use, especially for the psychiatric and anti-anxiety drug classes:
- 1 in 6 Americans takes a psychiatric drug
- Over a 130,000 U.S. toddlers, children between zero and five years of age, are prescribed addictive anti-anxiety drugs including the wildly-addictive and difficult to stop using benzodiazepines
- A very high proportion of the school shootings in the U.S. were committed by young adults on such drugs.
The benefits of these drugs are marketed to us daily, but what about the downsides? What about the side effects? More importantly, do they even work? What does the data tell us?
To answer these questions, we talk this week with Robert Whitaker, an American Journalist and author who has won numerous awards as a journalist covering medicine and science. In 1998 he co-wrote a series on psychiatric research for the Boston Globe that was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for public service. His first book, Mad in America, was named by Discover Magazine as one of the best science books of 2002 and his book Anatomy of an Epidemic won the 2010 investigative reporters and editor’s book award for best investigative journalism. He's also the publisher of MadinAmerica.com.
4 comments:
It's ridiculous that prescription medication is advertised on TV in the USA. Brilliant move by the pharmaceutical industry. They want us to self-diagnose and turn to a pill for any problem so they can rake in the $$$. Healthcare will always be for profit when citizens are seen as cash cows.
Why do we always get compared to other countries that are the size of NYC
We should do with prescription drugs what we did with tobacco products...ban TV advertising! They make people think they have the symptoms...they can't buy over the counter, and the doctor gets a kick-back for every script written!
It is a vile and evil industry full of Satanist Board Members.
Seriously - do some reading about this industry!
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