In “The Emperor’s New Drugs: Exploding the Antidepressant Myth,” just released in paperback, psychology professor Irving Kirsch argues that antidepressant drugs are not effective and that the idea of depression as a chemical imbalance in the brain is pure myth.
A 2005 government survey found that just 11 percent of psychiatrists provided talk therapy to all patients, a share that had been falling for years and has most likely fallen more since. Psychiatric hospitals that once offered patients months of talk therapy now discharge them within days with only pills.
Recent studies suggest that talk therapy may be as good as or better than drugs in the treatment of depression, but fewer than half of depressed patients now get such therapy compared with the vast majority 20 years ago. Insurance company reimbursement rates and policies that discourage talk therapy are part of the reason. A psychiatrist can earn $150 for three 15-minute medication visits compared with $90 for a 45-minute talk therapy session.
Competition from psychologists and social workers — who unlike psychiatrists do not attend medical school, so they can often afford to charge less — is the reason that talk therapy is priced at a lower rate. There is no evidence that psychiatrists provide higher quality talk therapy than psychologists or social workers.
A recent state district court ruling has cleared the way for a jury to hear claims filed by the State of Texas and plaintiff Allen Jones based on allegations that pharmaceutical manufacturer Janssen L.P. used false marketing tactics to convince state officials to spend millions on a schizophrenia drug…The drug was no better and no safer despite being substantially more expensive than older medications that treat the same illness, the lawsuit alleges. Janssen worked to build revenue by actively and purposefully marketing the powerful antipsychotic drug for use in children, the lawsuit says, even though the medication was approved only for the very narrow purpose of treating adult schizophrenia.
Thomas Edison, one of the world’s most prolific inventors, was kicked out of school at an early age as his teacher lost patience with his persistent questions and wandering mind. Where would we be now if his creative spirit had been numbed by prescription drugs? Albert Einstein, father of modern physics, was a quiet child who kept his distance from his peers. He resented the rote learning methods enforced in school and was labeled a foolish day dreamer. Imagine if he had been medicated into conformity. Winston Churchill, the great statesman and orator, had an independent and rebellious nature as a youth and was often in trouble. Surely he would have been deemed ODD (Oppositional Defiant Disorder) by today’s psychiatric standards. Frederick Douglass, one of the foremost leaders of the abolitionist movement (and a blood relative of Umar R. Abdullah-Johnson, quoted above) began defying the rules for blacks when he was a child. And the list goes on.
A teacher has been fired over her bumper sticker which mocked parents who mollycoddle their children. Tarah Ausburn put the ‘Have you drugged your kid today?’ sticker on her Toyota Prius in protest at what she claims is the overmedication of today’s children. She has 60 other such stickers on the car including ‘Recycle or die’ and ‘A clear conscience is a sign of a bad memory’. Five parents at Imagine Prep High School in Surprise, Arizona, objected to the suggestion that their children were on drugs and when they complained Ms Ausburn was asked to remove it or park her car off school grounds. She refused and was fired.
The incident has sparked a huge row over first Amendment rights with Ms Ausburn refusing to back down.
She told Arizona’s KPHO TV: ‘It’s kind of a criticism of us tending to over-medicate hyperactive kids who might not need those medications.’
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