Re: [Marxism] People Say I'm Crazy

["David Quarter" <davidquarter@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

From:                   Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>

> David Quarter wrote:
> >What is rarely if ever discussed in the medical journals or the
> >popular press is the fact that medications can very harmful.
>
> I guess I should have mentioned that John Cadigan put on 100 pounds after
> he started taking the medication that he was on during the filming of
> "People Say I'm Crazy". These medicines are freely acknowledged by the
> medical profession as having all sorts of nasty side-effects, from weight
> gain to Parkinson's Disease type symptoms. Unfortunately, science has no
> "magic bullet" for schizophrenia but that is no reason to condemn the
> medications that exist today.
>
>

 Lou,
I've dealt with psychatrists for most of my life. I know that some of
the older drugs prescribed for schizophrenia. are readily
acknowleged to cause parkisonian symptoms, such as Tardis
dykenisia (spelling). However the reason for this is that it is such a
common side effect for these medications.  It's rare that the very
severe side-effects -- aside from the most common  -- are
mentioned by doctors when prescribing a medication. They are
usually downplayed, if not kept completely hidden from the patient.

Some psychiatrists are probably not even aware of the major side
effects of the drugs they prescribe . They simply accept what they
read in the handouts they receive from the drugs manufactures that
come along with drug samples.

There is also tremendous resistance from the drug companies to
have the more serious side effects from a medications made
public. And the reasons is simple: If the  information is more
available,  drug companies would have difficult marketing the drugs
let alone having new drugs approved by, say, the FDA.

For example, there was a recently a law passed in Britian banning
Zoloft (it was either Zoloft, or one of the other SSRI anti depressant
medications) because it of its link to teen suicide (it's either been
pulled or restricted to adults). It is nothing new that Zoloft can
cause suicidal tendencies in teens, let along in adults. So I can
assure you that this new legislatioin didn't become law prior to
some huge resistance and lobbying of MPs by the drug
manufactures to prevent it  from being passed.


DOQ




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