Just Say No

Eli Lilly developed Fluoxetine hydrochloride, better known as Prozac as an antidepressant throughout the 70’s and 80’s. It has been used to treat a broad array of mental health disorders including (but not limited to) clinical depression, obsessive compulsive disorder, bulimia nervosa, premenstrual dysphoric disorder and Hypochondria.

Thats a fuck-ton of problems to solve for one pill.

Prozac made its US debut in 1987 and quickly became a mega hit. The patent expired in 2001(after making Eli Lilly obscenely rich) and the generic version is still extremely popular today. In 2006 23.1 Million prescriptions were given for generic Prozac making it number 3 on that year’s legal drug top 5 list, which provides a glimpse at the size of the Behemoth Legal drug industry.

Problem with Prozac is that it doesn’t really work. At least not as well as Drug Companies say it does.

The truth is that the pharmaceutical industry isn’t in the business of curing. That would be bad business. They are in the industry of treatment, which keeps people on prescriptions for long periods of time.

You can see this principle illustrated in this flowchart.

They are a business, whose sole goal is to make money, and the way they make money is by having more people buy their Product. So they sell their product and look at numbers the same way that GE does with washing machines. Only problem is that Prozac isn’t a washing machine.

A great book on the subject is “The Truth about Drug Companies: How they Deceive Us and What to Do About It” by Dr. Marcia Angell the former editor of The New England Journal Of Medicine.

There is a good Mother Jones Interview with her here.

She refutes the major lie of pharmaceutical companies, that they are “powerhouses of innovation” and their profits are deserved and than “fairly” reinvested into new Research and Development to help humanity.

Bullshit Ex. Figure 1.1

She shows how these companies actually invest 2.5 times more money in marketing and advertising their products than they do in new research and development. Again, smart moves if you’re in the business of selling washing machines, unethical if you’re selling Prozac.

But it doesn’t stop there, Dr. Angell goes on to show that about 75% of the “new drugs” they market are “me-too” drugs, which are essentially the same(if not worse) than other drugs already on the market

They claim that they are free-market adherents, yet vie for government handout “research grants”. They take drugs developed at Universities, grossly inflate the price to the American Consumer and compensate those researchers and schools with next to nothing. One more time, this kind of business is smart if you’re selling washing machines, but it is downright evil if you are selling Prozac.

What these companies do is use Drug “Representatives”(salesman) to employ every underhanded trick in the book(cakes for your daughters birthdays, golf in Fiji etc.) to get doctors to prescribe their medication.

Would you like to be a rep why just click here. Seriously this site is probably beautiful in how it illustrates how far from reality this whole industry is.

And for more information on Drug Reps check out the story of Shahram Ahari who worked for Eli Lilly for two years selling Prozac and Zyprexa.

Sure they use in-house studies, and fancy color coded charts to convince doctors that their “medicine” is helpful, but so did Cigarette Companies.

Remember, 9 out of 10 doctors smoked Camels.

When asked if they are swayed by Drug Reps, most doctors say very little or not at all. But when asked about how they think their peers are persuaded, they respond that their peers are very influenced by these same reps. This disconnect is intentional and keeps these companies laughing all the way to the bank.

This brings us full circle back to Prozac.

A study published last month showed that Prozac and similar drugs did not have a significant difference in treating depression than a placebo except in the most severe cases.

We continue to feed an industry that goal is to hook us on inferior products, with no regard for consequence. Today, Parents and Doctors alike must concede that there is no magic Pill substitution for Parenting or Therapy, and finally starve this beast.

This is by no means a call for people to flush their pills down the toilet.

In fact, withdrawal is one of the most difficult problems associated with prescriptions drugs.
These chemicals are way too dangerous to play around with, and Doctors are essential in making sure that any change that it is done safely.

Someone once told me that sunny days were nothing; without the rainy ones nothing has substance.

Just about Every great Artist, Politician and Writer has suffered from depression.

For an incomplete list, click here.

That just made you feel better didn't it?

Mental health is a complex, and medication can be helpful. But without a serious examination of the cause of one’s depression, coupled with a constructive healing method like therapy no real progress can be made. Root problems don’t go away when masked by drugs, be they legal or not.

Depression may just be nature’s way of helping us to our natural path, indicating when we need to adjust our lives to better attain fulfillment.