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[Teneb]

Wow, and I thought Brazil's medic distribution was a problem. At least we got something going for us.

The problem here, my friend, is not a lack of medics. There's plenty of 'em. The problem is a lack of resources for public healthcare and health insurance oligarchs making sure it stays that way. Sort of like the inverse of the US problem if you ignore the fact there is no such thing as public healthcare there.

[Magistrum]

Yeah, I was talking about that. Seems like one of the current issues is how there are enough doctors in cities, but in rural areas the salary is far too low and nobody wants to pratice in the middle of nothing.

Doctors are made in cities after all, you need good compensation to move out of one.

[martinuzz]

I cannot prove it, but I strongly suspect it is due to strong corporate forces at work, not wanting to acknowledge that stress promotes depression, and that depression is a mental illness that needs treatment.

Indeed. Instead, we push people to start taking 'medicine' that basically is as addictive as heroin, as poisonous as arsenic, and as debilitating for your mind, or for having any feelings at all as major brain damage. And we expect them to drive their cars to work while doped up on it too.

[Zangi]

Murrica doing patents the bestest way.  The Murrican way. 
In summary, 3 things encourage perverse incentives to accept dumber things.
1: The patent office is mostly funded via application fees, renewal fees, and acceptance fees.  The chunks of money actually being from the acceptance of patents and renewal fees being a nice steady income.
2: Applicants can reapply unlimited times.  Kinda like spam.  For some dumbMurrican reason, application fees do not cover the operation expense of reviewing patent applications.
3: Senior/'Higher Wage' patent reviewers are expected to review patents faster.  Regardless if it is actually a thorough review or not.

[Antioch]

I cannot prove it, but I strongly suspect it is due to strong corporate forces at work, not wanting to acknowledge that stress promotes depression, and that depression is a mental illness that needs treatment.

Indeed. Instead, we push people to start taking 'medicine' that basically is as addictive as heroin, as poisonous as arsenic, and as debilitating for your mind, or for having any feelings at all as major brain damage. And we expect them to drive their cars to work while doped up on it too.

Sorry but this is just baseless nonsense. Depression is a serious condition and modern serotonin re-uptake inhibitors are an effective medicine with relatively mild side effects for most people.

[hector13]

I cannot prove it, but I strongly suspect it is due to strong corporate forces at work, not wanting to acknowledge that stress promotes depression, and that depression is a mental illness that needs treatment.

Indeed. Instead, we push people to start taking 'medicine' that basically is as addictive as heroin, as poisonous as arsenic, and as debilitating for your mind, or for having any feelings at all as major brain damage. And we expect them to drive their cars to work while doped up on it too.

Sorry but this is just baseless nonsense. Depression is a serious condition and modern serotonin re-uptake inhibitors are an effective medicine with relatively mild side effects for most people.

What do you mean by "relatively" mild side-effects?

Ah fuck it, how is your baseless nonsense any better than the baseless nonsense to which you're responding?

[Helgoland]

I cannot prove it, but I strongly suspect it is due to strong corporate forces at work, not wanting to acknowledge that stress promotes depression, and that depression is a mental illness that needs treatment.

Indeed. Instead, we push people to start taking 'medicine' that basically is as addictive as heroin, as poisonous as arsenic, and as debilitating for your mind, or for having any feelings at all as major brain damage. And we expect them to drive their cars to work while doped up on it too.

Having first-hand experience, I'll second that 'baseless nonsense' opinion. Got sources for those claims, in particular the heroin one? Because if heroin withdrawals are only as strong as the effects of discontinuing an antidepressant, I'm getting a whoooole bunch of smack with my first paycheck.

[Rolan7]

@hector13
Burden of proof, I'd say. Martinuzz made several extraordinary claims about common medication.

[martinuzz]

While not solely for depression, this widely prescribed medicine is quite illustrative for the whole psycho-pharma drug trade. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aripiprazole
Minimal, short term trials, no idea what it does on the long term, terrible side effects, and billions per year profit.
To put it in your words, for a great part, baseless nonsense. I mean... longest trial... 26 weeks... For medication that's intended to be prescribed lifelong? Really? U wut m8s?

My mom is on this one since 4 years for her bipolar disorder, because of budget cuts in psychiatric care system, and it has utterly destroyed her. Her diabetes has dramatically worsened, she has to take stomach protectors, her liver is damaged, she stumbles and falls over things because she doesn't care to look where she steps shuffles, she can't ride a bike anymore, takes 4h to make a simple shopping list, and just sits behind her pc and plays magic marbles 10+h per day. But her welfare manager, shrink, and last but not least, the health insurance company are happy, because she doesn't call crisis services anymore, and needs less expensive attention from healthcare professionals when stress triggers hypomania or depression. Still, I can clearly see the hypomania rise even under the medication, it just doesn't manifest on the surface anymore. The meds don't treat at all, they just surpress symptoms. At an immense cost. She used to be manic once every decade or so, and need institutionalizing for a couple of months (granted, sometimes with medication, but only temporarily), and then have a normal, or well, normal enough life for 10 years until it surfaced again. With the meds, she's just a zombie for the rest of her days, and has more hypomanic episodes under the surface, they just don't bother anyone or cost more taxpayer money anymore.

Fuck medicalization of psychological afflictions. Of which the vast majority are stress-triggered.

[Maximum Spin]

That's all quite an unfortunate shame for you, but not representative, and you don't actually understand the situation as well as you think you do. It's sad that you've had to go through that, but it doesn't actually serve as a sound basis for extrapolation.

[Dunamisdeos]

I assume by the situation you mean the situation with big pharma?

It's valid to say that his experience is in the minority if that's the case (sympathies to you and your mother), but it's still a product of the current system that does have a bias towards profit. I also don't think it's reasonable to say that it's not representative, since the drug in question sells so much per year. A couple google searches say it makes between 7-8 billion a year. That's coming from somewhere.

I'm far from an expert but that kind of dough isn't exactly an accidental byproduct of a company prioritizing safety, health, and well-being. The side effects of that thing on the wikipedia page include multiple forms of death.

[martinuzz]

@hector13
Burden of proof, I'd say. Martinuzz made several extraordinary claims about common medication.

Not really, I didn't narrow it down to serotonin re-uptake inhibitors, which may or may not be less harmful when it comes to side effects, I am not too familiar with those.

I was talking more in general about the multitude of various drugs people get prescribed nowadays, be it for depression, anxiety, bipolar, autism, ADHD, stress, losing a job, having long hair and not shaving, or whatsmore.
I don't think it is very extraordinary to claim that a whole lot of those are extremely addictive (or dangerous to discontinue, like Abilify, where discontinuation appears to even be able to cause schizophrenia in people who did not have schizophrenia before), poisonous (a lot of them are more toxic than arsenic, it's just that the dosage is very low. Poisoning someone to death with arsenic can take decades, if the dose per exposure is low enough), and debilitating to mind and feelings. Impopular? Yes. But not extraordinary. It's not like I am the only person in the world, including those within the field of psychiatry and biomedics / neurology who has this point of view. It's just not a very popular view with the pharmacautic industry or the politicians that are responsible for the healthcare budgets, or those that think the main purpose of a human being is to work as many hours as you possibly can without dropping dead on the workfloor for as little wage as possible.

[Maximum Spin]

I assume by the situation you mean the situation with big pharma?

It's valid to say that his experience is in the minority if that's the case (sympathies to you and your mother), but it's still a product of the current system that does have a bias towards profit. I also don't think it's reasonable to say that it's not representative, since the drug in question sells so much per year. A couple google searches say it makes between 7-8 billion a year. That's coming from somewhere.

I'm far from an expert but that kind of dough isn't exactly an accidental byproduct of a company prioritizing safety, health, and well-being. The side effects of that thing on the wikipedia page include multiple forms of death.

Antipsychotics, of which aripiprazole is a pretty ordinary example, have some incredibly gruesome (rare) side-effects, unfortunately. The "multiple forms of death" you mention - tardive dyskinesia, neuroleptic malignant syndrome, complications with diabetes, etc. - apply to all of them. They are also, in the cases for which they are appropriate, effective when nothing else is. If martinuzz' interpretation of that specific case is accurate, which I doubt – it's easy to project your own feelings onto the patient in these cases – then a responsible psychiatrist would have discontinued the medication; if that's the case, it's unfortunate, yes, that his mother doesn't have a responsible psychiatrist. But that doesn't mean that antipsychotics don't have a responsible use or that they're just a heartless profiteering money-grab. Abilify pulls in $7-8B a year because it treats conditions that are really, really hard to treat.

[martinuzz]

"Some of these things are deadlier than arsenic at the right dosage"

That not what I said. I said some of those things are more toxic than arsenic. That's per dosage. Just like arsenic, they're a long term health risk at any dosage.
Which is why people get stomach protection meds prescribed with them, and organ failure after prolonged usage is considered a risk, but there's not been any long term studies done into that, because apprently if someone didn't die after 26 weeks, it's okay enough to put on the market.
I can give someone a certain dose of arsenic too for 26 weeks, and have them still pass as healthy, except maybe for some increased diabetes. Few years more of that dose though and they'd be dead and grey.

But apparently, for psychopharma meds, that is an acceptable risk.

[nenjin]

I figured you were talking about regular ol' prescription pain meds like Oxycontin, etc...