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In Brain Chemistry We Trust—The Gospel According to Pharma

Mad in America

Depression was sold to us as a simple problem of serotonin insufficiency, a convenient narrative that made drug companies like Eli Lilly, Forest Pharmaceuticals, and Pfizer very rich. As a former pharmaceutical advertising writer, I not only witnessed the explosive growth in antidepressant drugs, I contributed to it.

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Right-Wing or Left-Wing: Who Really Owns the Critique of Over-Medicalisation?

Mad in America

Both left and right-wing critiques start from the notion that we are indeed over-medicalising ever more domains of emotional and mental life, arbitrarily expanding the definition of ‘mental disorder’ to capture experiences that weren’t previously considered in medical terms.

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Behind the Smiles: Mental Health in South Korea’s High-Pressure Society

Mad in America

It is a reflection of deep systemic issuessocial pressure, medical hierarchy, lack of education around mental healththat collectively push people into silent suffering and pharmaceutical dependence. It is time to ask not only how many people are receiving medication, but why so few are being offered real alternatives.

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Decolonizing Psychiatry in Pakistan: A Reckoning with our Colonial Past and a Call for Reconstruction

Mad in America

Yousaf Raza Illicit Ties with the Pharmaceutical Industry Prescribing more medications than are justified is the number-one crime of which a shamefully large number of psychiatrists are guilty. The answer is simple: it is also the standard that pharmaceutical companies hold us to. This is where the kickbacks come from.

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Antidepressant Withdrawal: A Clinician’s Middle View

Mad in America

Pharmaceutical companies, exerting their influence on academic psychiatry through lucrative honoraria and advisory board payments, have clearly played a role in how antidepressant risks have been presented. It depends,” especially on the definitions used. No single number accurately presents the whole picture of withdrawal.

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Summing up the STAR*D Scandal: The Public was Betrayed, Millions were Harmed, and the Mainstream Media Failed Us All

Mad in America

In our 2015 book Psychiatry Under the Influence , Lisa Cosgrove and I wrote about the STAR*D scandal in depth, as it served as an example of the institutional corruption in psychiatry due to pharmaceutical interests and psychiatrys own guild interests. The 12 STAR*D authors listed a collective total of 151 ties to pharmaceutical companies.

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Reflections on the RADAR Study

Mad in America

Through the 1990s, I was dismayed that the influence of pharmaceutical marketing had seemed to suppress that idea, as polypharmacy and use of higher doses of drugs became part of accepted practice. At the same time, I anticipate that is difficult to collect the kind of data needed to provide definitive answers.