

The Epidemic of Mental Illness: Why? - Alex3917
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2011/jun/23/epidemic-mental-illness-why/?pagination=false

======
mturmon
The reviewer, Dr. Marcia Angell, was formerly Editor in Chief of the New
England Journal of Medicine. She's written a series of stories for NYR about
"big pharma", and you can get to them by following

<http://www.nybooks.com/contributors/marcia-angell/>

They are very good. Try in particular:

[http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2009/jan/15/drug-
co...](http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2009/jan/15/drug-companies-
doctorsa-story-of-corruption/)

about the relationship between doctors and big pharma.

------
bokonist
My brother had a friend who was diagnosed with schizophrenia in his teens. He
spent the years 14 to 22 on various drug cocktails and going in an out of
treatment facilities. He'd be ok for a bit, but then do something like smash a
TV with a hammer and he'd be sent back. Finally after exhausting various drug
options, they took him off all drugs. He got better almost immediately. He's
been fine since, and end up joining the Marines and serving in Afghanistan.

------
pg
"Overall, placebos were 82 percent as effective as the drugs"

~~~
Alex3917
It's actually even worse than that because they do something called washing
out placebo responders. Essentially before the study begins they give everyone
a placebo, and then eliminate those who respond best to the placebo from the
study. So that 82% figure is only compared with the people who didn't receive
the most benefits from the placebo. The most ridiculous part is that the FDA
has let the pharma companies get away with this for so long they now argue
that it's not unethical because everyone else is doing it, it's just the
standard practice.

Robert Whitaker has a great explanation of the implications of this in his
book Anatomy of an Epidemic, which is one of the three books this article is
reviewing.

~~~
gruseom
That's insane. Are the numbers that have been "washed out" (there's a nice
euphemism for fraud) made public?

~~~
Alex3917
I think they are made public in the appendix, but not in the numbers quoted to
regulators or the public. Not entirely sure though. There is a lot of fraud in
general. The pharma industry recently overtook military contractors for most
dollars paid out under the false claims act. If you look into what they are
doing to rack up those penalties it's pretty ridiculous.

