Robert Whitaker: America's Prescription Drug Epidemic

News & Current Events Public News & Current Events
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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.

The irony is this. Before you go on an antidepressant, you have no known serotonergic deficiency with that system. But, once you go on and you have this drug that perturbs normal activity, it actually drives the brain into the very sub-serotonergic state hypothesized to cause depression in the first place.

This problem is called 'oppositional tolerance' within research circles. It means that basically what every psychiatric drug ultimately does is drive your brain in the opposite direction of what the drug is trying to do.

For example, anti-psychotics block dopamine function, but they do that by blocking the receptors in the post-synaptic neurons. Which made researchers hypothesize that maybe schizophrenia and psychosis is due to too much dopamine. While they didn’t find that in a matter of course in those disorders, once you’re on this drug, it will actually increase the density of your dopamine receptors.

So, conceptually, here’s the thing. We’re told these drugs fix known chemical imbalances in the brain. What science tells us is that we don’t know the biology of these disorders, the drugs perturb normal activity, and at the end of the compensatory process the drugs have induced the very abnormalities hypothesized to cause these disorders in the first place. That’s the scientific story(...)

The drugs may have efficacy in clinical trials over the short term (meaning they beat placebo in those studies ), but the evidence is overwhelming that over the long term the medications of *whatever* class of drugs does is increase the risk that a person will become chronically ill, functionally impaired, and end up on disability (...)

When we talk about drugs that worsen outcomes over the long term we are saying in the aggregate. In other words, you look at the spectrum of outcomes in the medicated group and you compare that the spectrum of outcomes in the unmedicated group in every study you can find the spectrum of outcomes are better in the unmedicated group.

Humans have a resilience within them and psychiatric disorders so often can be episodic in nature. I mean, that’s the natural course for most depressive episodes and including the majority of the first psychotic episodes and obviously with anxiety and these sort of things. So, one of the reasons you see that drugs have worsening outcomes in the aggregate because actually there’s such good natural recovery rates. That’s what lost from this conversation is what the capacity is to recovery from a depressive episode and anxiety episode and even psychotic episodes without drugs and with other support

Click the play button below to listen to Chris' interview with Robert Whitaker (45m:06s).

This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://peakprosperity.com/robert-whitaker-americas-prescription-drug-epidemic/

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I also highly recommend the Eugene-based activist organization, MindFreedom International, founded by David Oaks.
http://www.mindfreedom.org/truth/mfi-truth-200907.pdf

Quote:
Does Your Mental Health Care Need A TRUTH Injection? Your local mental health system may have a serious problem. Your mental health provider is supposed to provide clients with accurate mental health information.
Instead, many mental health professionals routinely provide clients, their families, the media and even elected officials with misinformation that can increase reliance on prescribed psychiatric drugs. These myths discourage people from believing they can learn to help themselves overcome problems. These myths increase passivity, hopelessness and the risk of suicide.
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A few years ago during a doctors visit, I had the nurse doing the interview asking me all kinds of leading questions to try and get me to take antidepressants. Such as: do you want to hurt yourself, do you want to hurt others, do you want to kill yourself, do you want to kill others? My response to them was an emphatic NO, and I furthered that by saying, it’s normal to feel down/blue sometimes. It’s actually normal because you snap out of it and then you feel happy. It’s all part of the normal human cycle.
I’m no Doctor, but just as we have seasons, 4 times a year, I have no doubt that humans have body clock seasons. You naturally feel up, then down then back up again all by itself without any medications. People should not be happy 100% of the time like they’re on “Puppy Uppers”.

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Thank you for this discussion with Robert Whitaker. I have been following his work since 2011 since I ran across a review of Anatomy of an Epidemic in The New York Review of Books.
https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2011/06/23/epidemic-mental-illness-why/
Also reviewed in the same article was The Emperor’s New Drugs: Exploding the Antidepressant Myth and Unhinged: The Trouble With Psychiatry—A Doctor’s Revelations About a Profession in Crisis. The review is well worth a read.
Ian Welsh captures where we are so well in his short essay, The Culture of Meanness.
http://www.ianwelsh.net/the-culture-of-meanness/
No wonder we think we need antidepressants.

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Quote:
because you snap out of it
The essence of being ill is that you -can't- snap out of it. That said, I agree with you that mental illness is often diagnosed too facilely. Sometimes, the insanity resides in the situation, a lot more than the individual.
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I must preface my comments by stating I am a internal medicine physician with a slant towards having an interest in psychiatric care. I have mixed emotions about this discussion. The discussion was all over the place: depression, schizophrenia, bipolar d/o, ADHD, etc. At the beginning it felt as though Mr. Whitaker and Chris were talking well beyond their knowledge base…which they were. These type of discussions should be talked about in a very cautious fashion as they can be easily misinterpreted by uninformed readers. Mental illness is a very complicated topic, and can have very serious consequences if not addressed appropriately.

Taking a step back it is very clear Mr. Whitaker appears to have very sincere intentions and is trying to advance psychiatric care in the United States. I admire him for this as he is a rarity. Mental illness oftentimes is treated as the little dirty secret that no one wants to talk about, and most people want to sweep under the carpet and pretend that it’s not much of a problem.

First, correlation does not equal causation. There are various possibilities of why many of the school shooters are on psychoactive medications. My personal hypothesis is that parents and others around the children clearly recognize that something is screwed up about them…they torment kittens,etc. Thus, the parent brings the child to the doctor. The doctor talks to them them for a few minutes and quickly realizes that the patient is screwed up but lacking a very specific diagnosis other than a deep seated personality disorder. The doctor doesn’t know what to do so he prescribes some sort of sedative. The doctor feels like he has done something which makes him feel good, the parent goes away thinking they have been helped, and the young patient is less apt to do whatever bizzare behavior he had been doing such as torturing cats or whatever while he is sedated. Thus, in the short run it’s a win all the way around. A Band-Aid has been put on a more serious situation and the root of the situation goes completely unaddressed. The probable underlying truth is that there issomething in the parents behavior that has contributed to the maladaptive behavior of the child. There may be some deep seeded unaddressed issue from the early years which have gone address. The bottom line is the real problems oftentimes require lots of intensive work when it only takes 2 minutes to write Prescription. The medical system is so overburdened, especially when it comes to psychiatric illness that all the various modalities of treatment are not possible. Also, most of the time anyone sees a doctor for an ailment & the doctor doesn’t have a prescription or other specific treatment, patients go away very displeased. Have you ever seen an extremely overprotective mom come to the doctor thinking her child needs an antibiotic, but the doctor does not believe one is warranted? It’s not a pretty scene. Many times the toughest thing for a doctor to say is I’m not sure what is going on, but I do not believe medications are the solution.

Simply saying exercise, eating healthy, socializing should be picked for the first go-to options for depression is a bit naive. Yes, if there was an exceptionally motivated patient with depression this would be great advice. Unfortunately, this is would be very rare patient. Most people want a simple pill to help them. It’s like when someone comes for high blood pressure, new diabetes, or obesity most of the time they want a simple pill to “fix” things and go about their lives without much change. If I told them here is a prescription for daily walking for 45+ min/day 5 days a week, and another prescription for eating large salads without unhealthy stuff thrown on top, and no deserts, they would look at me like I was crazy. For depressed patients without jobs I’ve often wanted to write a prescription for “one full job” as I knew that would far exceed the benefits of what any medication could do.

Mental health is very complicated. Prescribing medications is complicated. ALL medications have side effects. Heart medications do great things but for a minority of patients they can have bad side effects. Read the package insert for any medication. They all have nasty side effects. The potential benefits always need to out weigh the risks. The simplest meds have risks. I’m not surprised there are side effects to the antidepressants which lead to suicide or homicide. It’s a risk. If my main coronary arteries are blocked I’m going to pursue bypass surgery because I know my chances are greater having a successful surgery than dying on the OR table.

I would caution those who don’t know much about psychiatric disease from speaking very definitely about it. Manic episodes can literally ruin people’s lives, psychotic people are killed by police on a routine basis (because they “didn’t follow commands” & the police shoot them. The police haven’t gotten the memo that psychotic people are in their own realities & hearing their own voices. One last personal note, a friend of my from high school had post-partum depression after her 4 child. She was the nicest person…homecoming queen, gorgeous, down to earth farm girl, nurse, and all around great person. They decided to not get medical help, and tried to fight this on their own. 4 weeks after delivering her 4th child she was found hanging in the garage. Psychotic depression is nothing to fool around with.

Lastly, way too many psychoactive meds are prescribed to kids these days. There was no ADHD in our family because the discipline was fierce at times, and I’m happy it was. We were taught to pay attention when it was absolutely required. Much the disciplinary mindset of the past few decades has gone to the wayside.

I could go on & on about these broad topics. However, speaking about psychoactive medications in such a conspiratorial fashion in regards to what’s “been held back from the public” is inaccurate & not helpful.

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dryam2000 wrote:
I must preface my comments by stating I am a internal medicine physician with a slant towards having an interest in psychiatric care. I have mixed emotions about this discussion. The discussion was all over the place: depression, schizophrenia, bipolar d/o, ADHD, etc. At the beginning it felt as though Mr. Whitaker and Chris were talking well beyond their knowledge base…which they were. These type of discussions should be talked about in a very cautious fashion as they can be easily misinterpreted by uninformed readers. Mental illness is a very complicated topic, and can have very serious consequences if not addressed appropriately.

(…)

I could go on & on about these broad topics. However, speaking about psychoactive medications in such a conspiratorial fashion in regards to what’s “been held back from the public” is inaccurate & not helpful.

You know, here's the thing I've learned the hard way in my life; never trust authority. I've always done better for myself by getting to know an issue all by myself before I turn to the so-called experts. This goes for lawyers, doctors and especially psychiatric practitioners. It turns out that we're all humans and some of us are smart and diligent and some off us are not, no matter what degrees we hold or how long we've been at something. My go to response is always to go to the data and see what it says. My personal observations from knowing a lot of people who've been on psychiatric drugs is that they are generally not a good long-term solution. And you know what? The data backs that up. Robert Whitaker has spent countless hours diving into the data and that makes him quite believable to me. So why don't we have a data based discussion and see where that gets us? I've no interest in trying to establish whose got more authority based on their chosen profession and/or interests. Yours is internal medicine with an interest in psychiatry, mine is pathology with an interest in mental and physical healing/transformation. We're both trained in the medical sciences, and I assume that we both share the passion for finding out what works best for the person(s) needing and deserving treatment and support. Here's a data-packed slide deck that Robert Whitaker has put together. It's all sourced, and referenced. Anatomy of an Epidemic And here are two slides from it. The first shows the Xanax results used to prove efficacy. It shows that compared to control (placebo) after four weeks of use Xanax reduced the incidence of panic attacks from 6 to 2, while the placebo only reduced them from 6 to 4. Success, right? Not so fast. Robert has shown that the rest of the study was excluded from that "result" and as everybody in the fields of science knows you can cherry pick the results. What happens if we then look at the rest of the study that shows a longer-term patient response? Then we see this: Oops! According to this data the use of Xanax only provide marginal benefit through week 8 and then placebo was by far the better choice ever-after. In fact if we're to take this at face value, going off Xanax made things worse than they ever were. So what are we to make of an industry that promotes the sale and use of a drug that for many people commits them to either permanent use of the drug or a tapering regimen that's worse than how they were in the first place? This is just what the data says and we don't have to get too wrapped up in how complicated psychiatric issues around panic attacks are are and all of that, because we are perfectly capable of reading these charts for ourselves. Xanax doesn't seem to be the right choice for this patient population. Now did Robert cherry pick this data? Is there other believable data showing something different? Then we can talk, and I'd welcome that. As I said in my intro:
The statistics are gripping; 1 in 6 Americans takes a Psychiatric drug. Over 130,000 US toddlers, children aged 0 to 5 years old, are prescribed addictive anti-anxiety drugs, including the wildly addictive and difficult to stop using benzodiazepines.
Xanax is a benzo. And it's wildly addictive and it turns out it's a super poor choice for long-term care in nearly every instance where I can get data for it. We've put 130,000 toddlers on such meds. That's just data too. My opinion about that is we're taking the easy route and using drugs to mask symptoms rather than spending the time to figure out what's actually wrong. I have no qualms about having such an opinion because I truly do not believe that the "experts" placing so many kids on such cocktails are doing the right thing. Something is definitely wrong, but it ain't broken brain chemistry....more likely the environment in which we've placed these children, and adults, is simply not life affirming and it runs against our circuitry in ways that show up as "mental health issues." Young boys unable to focus at the age of 6 for hours at a time in boxes under 60 hz lighting ... you know... it may just be the box, not the kids?
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"Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend" - Melody Beattie
Perhaps we should focus on the other 99.999% of the stuff we put into our bodies as the potential source of the problem (diet). We're constantly in search of the magic elixir to fill the void. In an "instant society", disappointment is rampant. I think I'll go and have a nice "healthy industrial" snack to make myself feel better!
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Uncle Tommy’s I suspect you know that Cheerios has among the highest levels of glyphosate in our processed foods.
Below is a great video by a woman who holds several advanced degrees from MIT. Dr. Stephanie Seneff says that Autism used to be 1 in 10,000 and now it’s one in 36. An interesting video.

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One of my favorites: “Most doctors think alcoholism is caused by a Valium deficiency.” wink Pretty sharp for a bunch of drunks.

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Uncletommy wrote:
"Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend" - Melody Beattie
Perhaps we should focus on the other 99.999% of the stuff we put into our bodies as the potential source of the problem (diet). We're constantly in search of the magic elixir to fill the void. In an "instant society", disappointment is rampant. I think I'll go and have a nice "healthy industrial" snack to make myself feel better!
Cheerios is gluten free. USDA allows farmers to use glyphosate (the active ingredient in RoundUp) as a desiccating agent (dries the oats for harvest.) Farmers can spray RoundUp on non-GMO oats to kill the oat plant to allow the farmer to harvest the oats on a predetermined schedule. (Your health isn't the primary concern. Sorry.) As long as residues are within legal tolerances, everything's fine. (I've seen the limit cited as 20 ppm - 30 ppm.) USDA allows products in the food system to contain pesticide/herbicide residues. Did you know that there is an official limit to the number of rat hairs in the average candy bar? As gross as that sounds, it is reality. There is no reasonable way to completely exclude any of these common items from our food system. If there wasn't a limit, you could literally (legally) have a matt of rat hair masquerading as your favorite candy bar. Yum!
https://www.fda.gov/Food/FoodborneIllnessContaminants/Pesticides/ucm583713.htm Has the EPA established tolerances for safe use of glyphosate? EPA has established tolerances for glyphosate on a wide range of crops, including corn, soybean, oil seeds, grains, and some fruits and vegetables, ranging from 0.1 to 310 ppm.
Glyphosate disrupts the Shikimate pathway. Here is an excerpt from Wikipedia...
This pathway is not found in animals, which require these amino acids, hence the products of this pathway represent essential amino acids that must be obtained from bacteria or plants (or animals which eat bacteria or plants) in the animal's diet.
Since the pathway isn't found in humans or other mammals, we can theoretically tolerate relatively high doses. Unfortunately, the microflora and microfauna that inhabit our guts and help us digest our food are susceptible to glyphosate. If they aren't there to help digest the food, the food residues that aren't digested become toxins to our internal system. Got food allergies? It could be that your gut bugs can't digest portions of that food. Does that affect your overall health? What does that do to mental health?
http://www.americanherbalistsguild.com/sites/default/files/the_shikimate_pathway_gut_flora_and_0.pdf Since GMOs were introduced in 1996, the percentage of Americans with three or more chronic illnesses went from 7% to 13% and we have witnessed an unprecedented rise in autism, food allergies, digestive disorders, and reproductive issues. GM foods are believed to be contributory to the diabetes and obesity problems in the population, now seen at epidemic levels. - Beneficial Enterococcus bacteria antagonize pathogenic Clostridia. Enterococci are extremely vulnerable to glyphosate. - When there are less Enterococci, Clostridia and Salmonella thrive. - There are multiple strains of Clostridia and Salmonella, the pathogenic strains are known to have the most resistance to glyphosate. Autistic children show elevations of Clostridia in their feces. Glyphosate is thought to directly affect the synthesis of tryptophan, an essential amino acid. The depletion of tryptophan results in decreased serotonin and melatonin production in the brain. Serotonin is an important neurotransmitter whose depletion leads to overeating, especially of carbohydrates. Thus, increased obesity is associated with impaired tryptophan metabolism, and diabetes and many cancers are associated with obesity.
Unfortunately, glyphosate usage is so ubiquitous that drift and over spray along with other normal insect and mammal movements contaminate organic products as well. We really can't get away from it. As long as it is profitable, it will be used. Here's an older article about Quaker Oats comments about glyphosate (Note that Quaker Oats' website used to carry this information. I can't find it now.) :
http://www.foodsafetynews.com/2016/10/fda-testing-finds-weed-killer-residue-in-honey-instant-oatmeal/#.WugR2IWcFZU Quaker, which was bought by PepsiCo in 2001, stated that it does not add glyphosate during any part of the oat milling process, although the chemical is “commonly used by farmers across the country who apply it pre-harvest.” The company also noted that it “thoroughly cleanses” all oats it receives for processing. “Any levels of glyphosate that may remain are trace amounts and significantly below any limits which have been set by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as safe for human consumption,” Quaker stated on its website. “It’s important to put this into perspective,” the Chicago-based company added. “The typical consumer would, on average, have to consume approximately 1,000 bowls of oatmeal a day to even come close the safe limit set by the U.S. government. We proudly stand by the safety and quality of all of our products. Producing healthy, wholesome food is Quaker’s number one priority and we’ve been doing that for nearly 140 years.”
That bolded part may be true for humans in an isolated system. It isn't true when we consider its impacts to our microflora and microfauna. Of course, we're not the ones with all the lobbying money to throw around. Until the economics changes, expect it to get continually worse. Side effects such as health degradation should get worse. We're the modern Beta testers for everything. Just be thankful that we have subsidized health care (sick maintenance) to keep us limping along. There's got to be a better way. Grover
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cmartenson wrote:
dryam2000 wrote:
I must preface my comments by stating I am a internal medicine physician with a slant towards having an interest in psychiatric care. I have mixed emotions about this discussion. The discussion was all over the place: depression, schizophrenia, bipolar d/o, ADHD, etc. At the beginning it felt as though Mr. Whitaker and Chris were talking well beyond their knowledge base…which they were. These type of discussions should be talked about in a very cautious fashion as they can be easily misinterpreted by uninformed readers. Mental illness is a very complicated topic, and can have very serious consequences if not addressed appropriately.

(…)

I could go on & on about these broad topics. However, speaking about psychoactive medications in such a conspiratorial fashion in regards to what’s “been held back from the public” is inaccurate & not helpful.

You know, here's the thing I've learned the hard way in my life; never trust authority. I've always done better for myself by getting to know an issue all by myself before I turn to the so-called experts. This goes for lawyers, doctors and especially psychiatric practitioners. It turns out that we're all humans and some of us are smart and diligent and some off us are not, no matter what degrees we hold or how long we've been at something. My go to response is always to go to the data and see what it says. My personal observations from knowing a lot of people who've been on psychiatric drugs is that they are generally not a good long-term solution. And you know what? The data backs that up. Robert Whitaker has spent countless hours diving into the data and that makes him quite believable to me. So why don't we have a data based discussion and see where that gets us? I've no interest in trying to establish whose got more authority based on their chosen profession and/or interests. Yours is internal medicine with an interest in psychiatry, mine is pathology with an interest in mental and physical healing/transformation. We're both trained in the medical sciences, and I assume that we both share the passion for finding out what works best for the person(s) needing and deserving treatment and support. Here's a data-packed slide deck that Robert Whitaker has put together. It's all sourced, and referenced. Anatomy of an Epidemic And here are two slides from it. The first shows the Xanax results used to prove efficacy. It shows that compared to control (placebo) after four weeks of use Xanax reduced the incidence of panic attacks from 6 to 2, while the placebo only reduced them from 6 to 4. Success, right? Not so fast. Robert has shown that the rest of the study was excluded from that "result" and as everybody in the fields of science knows you can cherry pick the results. What happens if we then look at the rest of the study that shows a longer-term patient response? Then we see this: Oops! According to this data the use of Xanax only provide marginal benefit through week 8 and then placebo was by far the better choice ever-after. In fact if we're to take this at face value, going off Xanax made things worse than they ever were. So what are we to make of an industry that promotes the sale and use of a drug that for many people commits them to either permanent use of the drug or a tapering regimen that's worse than how they were in the first place? This is just what the data says and we don't have to get too wrapped up in how complicated psychiatric issues around panic attacks are are and all of that, because we are perfectly capable of reading these charts for ourselves. Xanax doesn't seem to be the right choice for this patient population. Now did Robert cherry pick this data? Is there other believable data showing something different? Then we can talk, and I'd welcome that. As I said in my intro:
The statistics are gripping; 1 in 6 Americans takes a Psychiatric drug. Over 130,000 US toddlers, children aged 0 to 5 years old, are prescribed addictive anti-anxiety drugs, including the wildly addictive and difficult to stop using benzodiazepines.
Xanax is a benzo. And it's wildly addictive and it turns out it's a super poor choice for long-term care in nearly every instance where I can get data for it. We've put 130,000 toddlers on such meds. That's just data too. My opinion about that is we're taking the easy route and using drugs to mask symptoms rather than spending the time to figure out what's actually wrong. I have no qualms about having such an opinion because I truly do not believe that the "experts" placing so many kids on such cocktails are doing the right thing. Something is definitely wrong, but it ain't broken brain chemistry....more likely the environment in which we've placed these children, and adults, is simply not life affirming and it runs against our circuitry in ways that show up as "mental health issues." Young boys unable to focus at the age of 6 for hours at a time in boxes under 60 hz lighting ... you know... it may just be the box, not the kids?
Most good doctors don’t have to do a “deep data dive” to know Xanax is a bad drug. There are good docs & bad docs. Anytime someone does to a doctor they need need to take some responsibility in vetting the doctor, doing their own research, and taking personal responsibility. No good doctor should be blankly trusted. I had 4 unsuccessful surgeries before I finally did my own research & found about 6 surgeons across the country that could do what I needed. i would highly caution “looking at the data” without having a strong background in psychiatric disease when it comes to very serious illness such as schizophrenia & bipolar disorder. “Outcomes” was mentioned several times during this podcast. However, what an outcome meant was never defined. Outcomes for mental illness are nebulous. Does that mean mortality? Homicides? Did they hold down jobs? Did they have to be hospitalized, etc? Thinking that data can be analyzed and solid conclusions can be arrived at on very complicated topics without having a wealth of context to place that data is probably not wise. I caution anyone who hears podcast like this to still very much with the medical community, ask lots of questions, do their own research, and not walk away thinking the government & the medical community is working against them. There are many problems with medicine & society in this country ranging from lack funding for mental health, corrupt pharmaceuticals (NOT all drugs are bad though), the breakdown of families & sense of community across this country......in days of old communities were tight knit and everyone knew everyone. If someone had mental illness, everyone would help out if there was a problem, schools were in closer communication with families if there was a problem, etc....a culture that is clearly less resilient than than the past, etc., etc. By the way, the federal government incentivized doctors to prescribe feel good drugs such as Xanax in the name of “patient satisfaction”. Doctors felt pressure prescribing them when angry patients demanded them. if you want a very articulate & knowledgeable speaker on your podcast I’d recommend ZDoggMD. He has a very popular YouTube channel. Do a search. He’s a well trained, smart internist who is widely knowledgeable about medicine and sorting out fact from fiction. He’s a great guy & very entertaining as a bonus. His goal is to reshape healthcare into something that makes sense. By no means is he about the status quo. Chris, don’t get me wrong. Bringing up mental health is great because it receives virtually no attention & the care in the US right now is awful.
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This (medical insanity masquerading as science) is what you get when you have the wrong model for the Universe. The mechanistic world view is falling apart along with all the cultural constructs associated with it. The sad thing is that we have irrational association, mechanistic world view = scientific world view, when in fact the opposite is true. Science and its foundation, the scientific method, have long since proved the world is not a machine, but its key characteristic, is that it is conscious, that it is in fact alive. It seems that we are slowly discovering that the stupidest thing stumbling around the universe is man, our own bodies are a lot smarter than we are.
Those on the “woo woo” side of things do the most damage here because they create easy targets for those desperately trying to keep the mechanistic construct alive. Fact is we need people with both hemispheres of their brains functioning if we are going to be able to solve any of the major issues of the day, from agriculture, medical “science”, free markets, you name it.
Great topic, great article.

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Quote:
Uncle Tommy’s I suspect you know that Cheerios has among the highest levels of glyphosate in our processed foods. Below is a great video by a woman who holds several advanced degrees from MIT. Dr. Stephanie Seneff says that Autism used to be 1 in 10,000 and now it’s one in 36. An interesting video.
The diagnostic criteria has changed over the decades to include more people, just as the diagnostic criteria for bipolar and depression has become more broad. While the pattern of behaviors and symptoms has become more common, possibly due to environmental factors, autism is being over-diagnosed. There is no diagnostic test for autism, autism is not a condition in itself, it's a label for social deficits/sensory processing problems.
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treebeard-
Yeah I agree, wrong model for the universe is definitely the problem.
Bruce Lipton has said that the medical schools were still promoting the newtonian/mechanistic view of the universe that was discarded by physics long ago - but they just haven’t caught up yet.
He used to be an instructor at a medical school, so presumably he actually knows.
All those drug studies work so hard to get rid of the placebo effect. How much effort do we spend actually studying that placebo effect? If we could discover how to engage it, repeatably, just think. No side effects. Its nearly free. And it gives people agency over their condition.
For that Xanax trial: “I’ll take the placebo, thanks.” It materially improves patient outcomes.
If the “healthcare system” was about health, understanding the actual mechanism behind that placebo effect would be at the top of the list…and I’m not talking about tricking people with sugar pills, I’m talking about finding a teachable, repeatable method of harnessing the power of consciousness and belief, because even untrained, unconscious belief is pretty darned effective…

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Dave,
I am familiar with his work, he writes great stuff. One of many people trying to get us out of an 18th century scientific world view. It is astounding how long this mechanistic world view has persisted despite scientific evidence to the contrary.

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“While the pattern of behaviors and symptoms has become more common, possibly due to environmental factors, autism is being over-diagnosed.
There is no diagnostic test for autism, autism is not a condition in itself, it’s a label for social deficits/sensory processing problems.”
Labels are like pets. Lots of people like their labels, they fuss over them, talk about them, compare their label to others labels, carry it around and are happy to share all the details about their label. Feed it, water it, medicate it and make it a constant companion. If you say “hi how are you” that means “ how is your label”? It often defines them. It’s very sad.
AKGrannyWGrit

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AKGrannyWGrit wrote:
“While the pattern of behaviors and symptoms has become more common, possibly due to environmental factors, autism is being over-diagnosed. There is no diagnostic test for autism, autism is not a condition in itself, it's a label for social deficits/sensory processing problems.” Labels are like pets. Lots of people like their labels, they fuss over them, talk about them, compare their label to others labels, carry it around and are happy to share all the details about their label. Feed it, water it, medicate it and make it a constant companion. If you say “hi how are you” that means “ how is your label”? It often defines them. It’s very sad. AKGrannyWGrit
I agree. It's even more sad when the label is forced on people and they're told they're disabled due to a neurological condition and will need supports for the rest of their lives. With no brain scan or way to prove it. It used to be that only severely affected individuals (think being nonverbal) were given an autism label.
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Here’s two sample videos from ZDoggMD. The first is his humorous way to criticize the overuse of Ativan, the short acting version of Xanax, which is used more in the hospital but still used commonly outside the hospital by patients at home. He often uses parody to make points. The second video is more of his usual serious discussions. This one happens to touch on mental health.
He talks about all sorts of medical topics and our messed up healthcare system on his YouTube channel.
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davefairtex wrote:
If the "healthcare system" was about health, understanding the actual mechanism behind that placebo effect would be at the top of the list...and I'm not talking about tricking people with sugar pills, I'm talking about finding a teachable, repeatable method of harnessing the power of consciousness and belief, because even untrained, unconscious belief is pretty darned effective...
I'll pop in here (tips hat to davef and treeb) to tout the awesome health benefits of a regular Tai Ji practice. I mean (as some aver), Chinese-style Placebo Effect. People diss Qi Gong and Chinese Medicine because qi can't be weighed or seen on an MRI. Okay, that's cool. I'll just assert that two Tai Ji classes a week (and the little life changes one makes when one starts to internalize a system of thinking/acting) keep my mind (relatively) serene, my body (esp my legs) toned, and my [vital energy/qi/mana/prana/you name it] flowy and stoked (in the sense of stoking a furnace, and not surfer "stoked")... I last was sick enough to miss a workday (my usual metric, hey is my American-ness showing?) when the swine flu came thru the northeast about a decade ago. So -- whenever I get into a discussion of qi (and the cultivation/application thereof) with a sciency person, they usually end up scoffing about mysticism and unmeasurables. So, uh: go ahead, call qi (and the cultivation/application thereof) a placebo effect. I'll be over here being healthy and happy-er-ish for having done my Tai Ji (in a social setting with people I like and who care about my well being, too). Let's not forget: time spent doing Qi Gong and Tai Ji are also time NOT spent ingesting Netflix or Prime or [insert other screen-based hypnotic technodrug]... I mean, there's nothing better than some good genes, a smart set of eating habits, 7+ hours of sleep a night and lots of water and movement. But when my homie the placebo effect stops by, I always open the door...