CLASS ACTION - IMPORTANT - yahoo group

[Maldoror]

" I know that many doctors think that Healy is a quack."

What's the substance of it? In all these years reading about this the worst attack on Healy I saw was someone accusing him of not disclosing a potential conflict of interest in a paper he published. I'm sure they would love to get more dirt on him, so I take the lack of serious attacks on him as proof of his competence.

"Finally, these drugs are not all poisons. Did you know that before psychiatric drugs over half of institutionalized Americans were mentally ill? The 20th century saw some amazing drugs come from it. Many lives have been saved by SSRIs. Sadly, many have been ruined too."

I wasn't saying all psychiatric drugs are poisons. I was saying all drugs are both medicine and poison. The issue of institutionalized Americans is complicated. I'm sure you know the number of people on disability has exploded with the advent of biological psychiatry. I know correlation is not causation but I think Anatomy of an Epidemic makes at least an argument worthy enough to consider.

[future-recovery]

I but I think much of that comes from reading studies that tell them that Depression is causing all of this for us. They honestly believe that we are victims of depression, and unfortunately, they have a lot of literature to back that view up.

Then they should read more accurately.
Actually there is no single study that suggests that genital anesthesia is a symptom of a mental disorder although there are hundreds of millions of people who suffer from a mental disorder.
Moreover no single study has ever shown that PSSD is not possible.
They want to believe that the drugs are 1000000000000% safe, which is very silly. Some even don't want to read the PSSD literature. Even the prescribing information for Prozac mentions the issue.
It's the same with the Post-Finasteride syndrome. And Finasteride is even not given to people for treating a mental disorder.

[Maldoror]

There are people who have protracted withdrawal for years and who were put on SSRIs for reasons other than depression (like pain) and they still get a "nope, can't be the drug" from doctors. So I agree with future-recovery. It's just an excuse and huge huge cognitive dissonance.

[Ghost]

Take Marcia Angell's quote, for instance: "“It is simply no longer possible to believe much of the clinical research that is published, or to rely on the judgment of trusted physicians or authoritative medical guidelines. I take no pleasure in this conclusion, which I reached slowly and reluctantly over my two decades as an editor of The New England Journal of Medicine.” -- Marcia Angell (editor-in-chief of the New England Journal of Medicine)

And just yesterday: 'Dr Aseem Malhotra, an NHS cardiologist and a trustee of the King’s Fund health think tank, claims there is “a systemic lack of transparency in the information being given to doctors to prescribe medication, in terms of the benefits of drugs being grossly exaggerated and their side effects under reported in studies”.
“We need a cultural shift towards de-prescribing – and full access to the raw data from clinical trials for independent scrutiny, as this will encourage pharma sponsored research to be conducted at a higher ethical level,” he said, adding that until then “I personally regard all industry sponsored studies as marketing until proven otherwise”.'

I do agree with you here. I think there is wayyyy too much emphasis on pill popping in medical school, and not enough information getting to doctors about new research. But I don't think that it's the fault of Pharma or Doctors. They are just people themselves. I think that if they had even the slightest idea of what we are truly going through most would try to help us (especially in the case of doctors). I would call them misguided instead of ignorant. My fear is that if we come at them with anger, they may oppose us, but if we come at them asking for help, they may look at us differently. I've spoken with many doctors who don't believe in PSSD like I do, but many of them have researched it personally after speaking with me. That knowledge that there is a scientific counterargument to depression causing PSSD is important to spread. I would hate for our PSSD community to alienate itself from the exact people we want help from.

I think what we need is more researchers, doctors, and lawmakers who are aware of PSSD, and the dangers of SSRIs. That's where I think the lawsuit is helpful.

[Ghost]

I but I think much of that comes from reading studies that tell them that Depression is causing all of this for us. They honestly believe that we are victims of depression, and unfortunately, they have a lot of literature to back that view up.

Then they should read more accurately.
Actually there is no single study that suggests that genital anesthesia is a symptom of a mental disorder although there are hundreds of millions of people who suffer from a mental disorder.
Moreover no single study has ever shown that PSSD is not possible.
They want to believe that the drugs are 1000000000000% safe, which is very silly. Some even don't want to read the PSSD literature. Even the prescribing information for Prozac mentions the issue.
It's the same with the Post-Finasteride syndrome. And Finasteride is even not given to people for treating a mental disorder.

So where do we go from here? I surly don't think getting angry at them will solve anything. Calling them names will only make them angry and less likely to work with us in the future. Pointing fingers won't cure PSSD for any of us.

There are SO many academic papers coming out about depression and the best ways of treating it. PSSD is a fringe topic in mental illness treatment.

We can push the FDA to recognize PSSD.
We can show doctors papers on PSSD.
We can do our own research on PSSD.
We can contact researchers and ask for help.

But we can not, and will not, be able to stop a doctor from prescribing an SSRI in the future, and cannot force them to believe in PSSD. We can call them any names we want, but this is how they were trained. The beautiful thing is, if anyone here wants to become a PSSD-beleiving psychiatrist/ researcher/ lawyer/ policymaker, no one is stopping them.

I think that the scientific community is much more open to the idea of PSSD than 10 years ago. These things take time. As a student, I see a lot of my pre-med peers being skeptical of pill-popping to treat disorders. I think that a younger generation of doctors that look beyond the "quick fix" is going to be coming soon.

[fasttrack1982]

I agree it is important that we do not alienate ourselves from the very medical community that we need help from. To the extent that we talk about SSRI's as poison, we are alienating ourselves from the mainstream medical community. We have to aknowledge that SSRI's have a purpose, but also pose a risk (PSSD) that is real, but not accepted my the medical community.

[Ghost]

I agree it is important that we do not alienate ourselves from the very medical community that we need help from. To the extent that we talk about SSRI's as poison, we are alienating ourselves from the mainstream medical community. We have to aknowledge that SSRI's have a purpose, but also pose a risk (PSSD) that is real, but not accepted my the medical community.

Well stated.