> Ed Weick replied:
> > This assumes that we know what the "causes" are. I know people who are
well
> > off, productive and have no cause to get depressed, but they still do.
> > There is not much you would want to add to or remove from their lives.
>
> How superficial. The medical literature has identified quite a few
causes,
> but Joe Sixpack and his "practicioner" aren't aware of them or deny them
> (the latter because treating symptoms keeps him in business). One of the
> main causes is mercury, the main supply of which comes from dental amalgam
> [14]. FYI I'm attaching a few references on the topic.
>
> No silly flames from the vested interests, please...
> Chris
I was really trying to stay out of this one, but I guess I bit. And I
didn't think what I posted was superficial. But perhaps it was. Being of
about the right age, I do have a fair bit of mercury amalgam in my mouth.
To survive the spring and fall in a more positive state, I might look into
having my teeth pulled, though that might not work because by now the
mercury would have entrenched itself into my brain and body. But I do
wonder why the toxins in my b&b work mainly during specific periods of the
year and not at others. I seem to recall a study of suicide rates in
Scandinavia which indicated peaks in April and November. Perhaps it is
during those months that people are most exposed to toxins, or during which
the toxins they had accumulated have their most powerful effect?
I also wonder if people never got depressed in pre-industrial times when
there were far fewer toxins in the environment. Historic literature is full
of characters who behaved rather strangely, many of whom mass murdered.
However, perhaps they too were unduly exposed to quicksilver?
Please understand that I'm not denying the impact of environmental
degradation on physical and mental health. However, I would make two
points. One is that susceptibility to depression has a variety of causes,
probably including genetic inheritance. The other is the one which I
believe Judi Kessler has been making - give people who are susceptible to
depression a chance of a better quality of life even if it means feeding
them pills. We take pills for ever so many other reasons, why not for
depression? If they work, they work. Besides, by the time we cleaned up
the environment and gave people a better quality of life that way, the
current generation of depressives, and probably several subsequent
generations, would be long dead.
Ed Weick
