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Healthy Skepticism Library item: 6169

Warning: This library includes all items relevant to health product marketing that we are aware of regardless of quality. Often we do not agree with all or part of the contents.

 

Publication type: Journal Article

Vandereycken W.
[Bitter and gilded pills: psychiatry in the light (or shadow) of the pharmaceutical industry].
Tijdschr Psychiatr 2006; 48:(2):119-29


Abstract:

Psychotropic medication has brought about far-reaching changes in psychiatry: in its nature and practice, its image of man and its public image. Never before have so many psychotropic drugs been prescribed for young people. ‘Difficult’ children are now referred to as ADHD children and moody youngsters are given antidepressants. In adult psychiatry treatment is being dictated more and more by protocols and guidelines: very often medication is the treatment of choice. The reasons for this are largely economic. Increasingly ‘research’ is being sponsored by the pharmaceutical industry. Published research results are often skewed so as to favour the sponsor. Some scientific journals owe their survival to drug advertisements. Even some patient organisations are supported by the pharmaceutical industry. How will psychiatry and mental health care be able to escape from this ‘straightjacket’ in the future? The purpose of this polemical essay is to draw the attention of health care professionals and researchers to this rather worrying development.

Keywords:
Advertising Drug Industry/economics* English Abstract Evidence-Based Medicine Humans Mental Disorders/drug therapy* Psychotropic Drugs/economics* Psychotropic Drugs/therapeutic use* Research*/economics Treatment Outcome

 

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There is no sin in being wrong. The sin is in our unwillingness to examine our own beliefs, and in believing that our authorities cannot be wrong. Far from creating cynics, such a story is likely to foster a healthy and creative skepticism, which is something quite different from cynicism.”
- Neil Postman in The End of Education