Anatomy of an Epidemic summary

One of the biggest problems with limited testing is that it doesn’t allow time for a medication’s possible side effects to emerge. And we now know that psychoactive drugs have side effects in spades.

When psychiatric medications are used for long periods of time, they can cause significant and long-lasting changes to a person’s neural functions. After just a few weeks on a psychoactive drug, the brain’s natural defenses begin to weaken, which is when side effects start to manifest.

As we’ve seen, sales of psychiatric drugs have risen sharply in recent years. So it stands to reason that diagnoses of mental disorders have risen in tandem with those numbers.

Since 1955, when these drugs were first introduced, the number of mentally disabled people has risen dramatically.

Remember that these psychiatric medications were intended to be a “magic bullet,” a perfect cure that could kill an infectious disease. And yet they’ve created more problems than they’ve solved.

Part of the issue is that the mental health community quickly began over-prescribing these medications, even giving them to patients for whom the drugs were never approved.

To fully understand why the mental health field is in such disarray, it’s important to consider the impact that these new drugs had on psychiatry itself.

Prior to the drugs’ introduction, psychiatrists were not concerned with brain chemistry and neurotransmitters; they were completely focused on Freudian analysis. They saw any mental illness as stemming from unconscious conflicts, often originating in childhood – conflicts that caused emotional problems which were separate from the physical aspects of the brain.

After years of inner and outer turmoil, psychiatry eventually struck back.

In the 1970s, the psychiatric profession underwent a radical re-branding. They launched a full media and public-relations campaign to assert their medical legitimacy and enhance their status.

It’s no secret that the income of a doctor can rapidly rise with the ability to prescribe pharmaceuticals. Between 1950 and 1970, the income of physicians doubled, thanks largely to the increase in available prescription drugs.

Even the American Medical Association brought in ad revenue from drug manufacturers by selling space in their magazine, revenue that rose from $2.5 million to $10 million in just the ten years between 1950 and 1960.