“Trust me; I’m a Doctor”
Not long ago a friend and I sat among an audience listening to a debate on psychiatry. It was held by three representatives from nearby departments and they were keen to explore more ‘patient oriented’ ways of improving services.
There was a Q & A session afterwards in which my friend made the following indictment: “The really dangerous people are the ones that are paid to think they’re doing good.” I was as intrigued as anyone to know what he meant. So, for Christmas, he bought me a copy of James Davies’ ‘Cracked: Why Psychiatry Is Doing More Harm Than Good’
I was so disturbed by what I discovered in this book that I felt compelled to share some of the findings.
It is a modern dogma that mental disorders are caused by chemical imbalances in the brain. This is nothing more than a theory, however, propagated by psychiatry over the past fifty years. Moreover, under close scrutiny, this theory to which so many of us have subscribed looks more like outright quackery.
Perhaps the most glaring contradiction of this hypothesis is the lack of any compelling scientific evidence to substantiate it. For one thing, there is no method for measuring exact levels of any chemical in the brain. Therefore, when doctors talk of ‘getting the balance right’, in reality they are just making assumptions.
“In virtually all of the psychiatric disorders — including depression, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and anxiety disorders — the shadow of our ignorance overwhelms the few dim lights of our knowledge.” (Daniel Carlat, 2010; ‘Unhinged: The Trouble with Psychiatry — a doctor’s revelations about a profession in crisis.’)
You would be hard-pressed to issue a more damning statement. All the same, millions of antidepressant prescriptions (or, as Davies calls them, ‘happy pills’) are written each year in England alone; and recently the number has risen so alarmingly that ministers have ordered an urgent review.
As to what parliament would make of big pharma’s underhand methods and their tenuous studies, we can only guess. Should any ‘right, honourable members’ happen to be reading this article (?), they ought, at the very least, to be perplexed. And here’s why. Firstly, in the vast majority of cases in which drug trials have been conducted using placebos (sugar pills) for comparisons, the placebo has performed almost as well as the drug. This fact alone has posed a big question mark around the efficacy of happy pills.
(The placebo effect remains as one of the great mysteries which science is at odds to explain. All that can be surmised from this ‘miracle cure’, is the age-old, transforming ‘power of belief’. Thus, a significant number of participants who take a placebo, believing that a) they have taken the drug to be tested, and b) their condition will improve, get better. It is no less an irony that placebos can also have side-effects!)
Secondly, though just as important, is the fact that both the Food and Drugs Administration (FDA) in the United States, and the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) in Britain, require from a company no more than two clinical studies which show (even marginally) that their drug is more effective than a placebo. This requirement stands, even in the light of negative outcomes which the regulatory agencies simply ignore.
The following excerpt from Davies’ book comes from Dr Tim Kendall, who had this to say:
“From our point of view, whenever you’re doing a trial or a meta-analysis, it is all about probabilities — about the probability that one thing works better than another, and that probability depends upon the evidence. Now, if someone conceals some of the evidence, it simple skews the result. So the idea that regulatory bodies like the FDA will continue approving drugs of only two positive trials, and are not bothered by all the other negatives, strikes me as wholly indefensible.”
In case the previous exposure wasn’t alarming enough, let’s widen the lens. Firstly, though, we need to take a glance at the legendary Diagnostic Statistical Manual (DSM). This is the primary reference guide used by medical practitioners the world over to diagnose clinical conditions. In the domain of psychiatry, it is the equivalent of a bible and it has attained epic proportions.
One of the most interesting aspects of this manual is the ever-increasing size it assumes as more symptoms and diagnoses are systematically added to it. In its infancy in 1952 it classified 106 mental disorders; the figure has since risen to around 370 today. And all this gets decided not (as you might reasonably suppose) by the results of quality research and solid scientific evidence, but by sporadic board meetings comprising some of the most senior executives in the profession.
It’s very enterprising, because new diseases/disorders mean that old drugs can be re-marketed which potentially translates to larger corporate profits. And in an industry where reputations and enormous amounts of money are to be made, shenanigans (corruption, even) are hardly surprising.
Case in point: In the early 2000’s women were increasingly being diagnosed with so-called ‘premenstrual dysphoric disorder’ (PMDD). Not only was this an exaggerated form of premenstrual tension (PMT), a condition intrinsic to female psychology; PMDD was, according to both the DSM and the aforementioned FDA, a ‘mental disorder’.
Enter Eli Lilly, a giant US pharmaceutical company, who accordingly spent millions of dollars on an advertising campaign to market a new drug, Sarafem, aimed at relieving PMDD symptoms. Lilly’s campaign was also extended to target psychiatrists, gynaecologists and other mental health providers. And it worked.
It later transpired that the drug in question was anything but new; chemically it was identical to Prozac which is prescribed for depression. Thousands of women were thus unknowingly taking Prozac for PMDD, yet another condition invented by psychiatry. In short, as indicated by Davies, doctors were subjecting these women to an experiment without their knowledge or consent.
Whilst Eli Lilly excuse themselves by leaning on the convenience of policy clauses, they are guilty of deception nonetheless. Because to provide information which you know to be false is, by any standards, fraud. So, how in the world can this be? And, should such practices remain unabated, what are the consequences for us?
Before taking leave of my senses, may I remind you of those other ‘clinical disorders’ (Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder, etc.) that have suddenly appeared on our collective radar (mass media) in recent years?
Personally, I am not convinced. Because unless we are to believe that it is only due to the unstinting efforts of psychiatry that we now have concrete knowledge of these ‘disorders’, what we actually have before us is nothing but a bunch of fishy, academic rumours which nobody can confirm. Why, we could even say that it sounds like ‘a load of cod’!
Granted, not everyone in the profession of psychiatry is in it for status or financial reward. Indeed, there exist some diligent seekers after understanding. But, as a whole, the institution has become an incredibly intrusive system that is exploiting our vulnerabilities and profiting from our suffering. It is, furthermore, not in psychiatry’s best interests for us all to be well; because, as my friend also said, “If we all have mental health, we have no need for psychiatry.”
Thanks for reading.
