The chilling grip of the pharmaceutical industry on the prescribing pens of American psychiatrists has been the subject of two must read articles by Marcia Angel in the New York books review.
In ‘An Epidemic of Mental Illness: Why?’ Angel reviews The Emperor’s New Drugs: Exploding the Antidepressant Myth by Irving Kirsch, Anatomy of an Epidemic: Magic Bullets, Psychiatric Drugs, and the Astonishing Rise of Mental Illness in America by Robert Whitaker and Unhinged: The Trouble with Psychiatry—A Doctor’s Revelations About a Profession in Crisis by Daniel Carlat. Angel gives powerful voice to the growing numbers of children and adults in the US who have a mental illness diagnosis and the subsequent deluge of drugs that are being prescribed.
The shift from “talk therapy” to drugs as the dominant mode of treatment coincides with the emergence over the past four decades of the theory that mental illness is caused primarily by chemical imbalances in the brain that can be corrected by specific drugs. That theory became broadly accepted, by the media and the public as well as by the medical profession…”
In the second review ‘ Illusions of Psychiatry’ she builds on the discussion and also has a resounding crack at the psychiatric “Bible” the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition, Text Revision (DSM-IV-TR) by American Psychiatric Association. Angel tracks the financial linkage between the pharmaceutical industry, psychiatrists and the diagnosis creation/ validation industry that appears to be rampant in the emerging DSM V.
…it appears that the already very large constellation of mental disorders will grow still larger.
In particular, diagnostic boundaries will be broadened to include precursors of disorders, such as “psychosis risk syndrome” and “mild cognitive impairment” (possible early Alzheimer’s disease). The term “spectrum” is used to widen categories, for example, “obsessive-compulsive disorder spectrum,” “schizophrenia spectrum disorder,” and “autism spectrum disorder.” And there are proposals for entirely new entries, such as “hypersexual disorder,” “restless legs syndrome,” and “binge eating.
With the increasing pressure on New Zealand to make changes to Pharmac as a trade off on a free trade deal and New Zealand could become a new playground for the mental illness drug industry.
