Study suggests depression is being overdiagnosed on a remarkable scale

While depression is real, and can be debilitating, have we become a nation that doesn't want to experience a range of emotions -- including sadness and stress -- and would prefer to medicate them away?

 

PC Nation strikes again.

 

I really wish the ban on advertising for drugs was never lifted.

Percent of persons using at least one prescription drug in the past month: 48.5% (2007-2010)
Percent of persons using three or more prescription drugs in the past month: 21.7% (2007-2010)
Percent of persons using five or more prescription drugs in the past month: 10.6% (2007-2010)

 

I took a class 20-some years ago called The Medicalization of Deviance. The gist of the class was that things that once were considered bad behavior, deviant, illegal even, were slowly being diagnosed as illnesses. And this was driven by, 1) the medical community that had a vested interest in seeing more patients and 2) the pharmaecutical (sp) companies that had an even greater interest in being able to market drugs to treat these behaviors.

That class is not completely analogous to depression diagnoses, but it just points out that this is not a new phenomenon. If Merck or Phizer or whatever big pharma company can get the public to believe they have a problem that can be cured by a drug, there's billions to be made. And lord knows big pharma ain't into doing things out of the good of its cold, black heart.

 

Agreed. History will look back and note someday what a bad decision it was to lift said ban.

 

The world would be such a better place if pharmaceutical companies didn't exist.

 

The world would be such a better place if the First Amendment didn't exit.

 

I blame the hot pharmaceutical reps, who show up at Doctor's offices with fancy donuts.

Who can resist that kind of marketing?

 

It is not just the drug companies that benefit here.

Doctors are reimbursed by insurance companies and Medicare when they treat a patient with a diagnosed illness/condition. Overdiagnosis is something that carries economic benefits with it to all corners of the health care sector.

 

It's amazing how much doctors push this stuff...

 

Not sure how that applies in this case.

 

We are all victims, etc., etc.