On 8/9/06, Carrol Cox <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
... in general, treatment of mental illness, whether by counselling
or drugs, is still a hugely iffy business. <
My experience is that medication is never enough. Counseling is still needed, while the side-effects of the med must always be monitored. So more human supervision may be needed than without meds. (Originally, meds were seen as a "magic bullet," so that counseling was unneeded.) For minor problems, on the other hand, counseling can be enough.
And the drug companies are, of course, too powerful. Development of
pharmacology will remain half-assed as long as this is so.< "half-assed" is a pretty weak term here. The companies develop new, unneeded, meds simply because the patents on the old ones expire. They advertise the damn things on TV. They suppress the research that makes their meds look bad, while trumpeting that which makes them look good. Etc. -- Jim Devine / "In science one tries to tell people, in such a way as to be understood by everyone, something that no one ever knew before. But in economics, it's the exact opposite." --- Paul Dirac [edited]
