Two Thirds of People on Antidepressants Aren't Clinically Depressed

What Dr. Forman (below) doesn't say is that the main reason patients are taking antidepressants even when they are not needed is that many physicians actually believe the "chemical imbalance" theory of depression. Primary care physicians should be referring patients to a mental health expert (e.g., clinical psychologist) to make the diagnosis and recommend treatment options.

Medical Daily

"A new study published in The Journal of Clinical Psychiatry reports some 69 percent of people taking selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), the primary type of antidepressants, have never suffered from major depressive disorder (MDD). Perhaps worse, 38 percent have never in their lifetime met the criteria for MDD, obsessive compulsive disorder, panic disorder, social phobia, or generalized anxiety disorder, yet still take the pills that accompany them.

In a society that is increasingly self-medicating itself, capsules, tablets, and pills are turning from last resorts to easily obtained quick fixes. Between 1988 and 2008, antidepressant use increased nearly 400 percent. Today, 11 percent of the American population takes a regular antidepressant, which, by the latest study’s measure, may be a severe inflation of what’s actually necessary.

“I think while psychotherapy is another option to helping people obtain better mental health, there are roadblocks,” said Dr. Howard Forman, medical director of the Addiction Consultation Service at Montefiore Medical Center. Forman, who wasn’t involved with the study, points toward cost, availability of experts, and time demands as the main reasons people may decide to pursue alternatives."

Source: Takayanagi Y, Spira A, Bienvenu O, et al. Antidepressant Use and Lifetime History of Mental Disorders in a Community Sample: Results From the Baltimore Epidemiologic Catchment Area Study. The Journal of Clinical Psychiatry. 2015.

98 year old Japanese fighter pilot fears return of war

Kaname Harada, 19 confirmed enemy kills

NYT

"“Nothing is as terrifying as war,” he began, before spending the next 90 minutes recounting his role in battles, from Japan’s early triumph at Pearl Harbor to its disastrous reversals at Midway and Guadalcanal. “I want to tell you my experiences in war so that younger generations don’t have to go through the same horrors that I did.”

...He recounted how in dogfights, he flew close enough to his opponents to see the terror on their faces as he sent them crashing to their deaths.

“I fought the war from the cockpit of a Zero, and can still remember the faces of those I killed,” said Mr. Harada, who said he was able to meet and befriend some of his foes who survived the war. “They were fathers and sons, too. I didn’t hate them or even know them.”

“That is how war robs you of your humanity,” he added, “by putting you in a situation where you must either kill perfect strangers or be killed by them.” 

...

Mr. Harada’s talk was filled with vivid descriptions of an era when Imperial Japan briefly ruled the skies over the Pacific. During the Battle of Midway in 1942, he said, he shot down five United States torpedo planes in a single morning while defending the Japanese fleet. He described how he was able to throw off the aim of the American tail gunners by tilting his aircraft to make it drift almost imperceptibly to one side as he closed in for the kill.

He also described his defeats. He said he had to ditch his plane in the sea after Japan lost all four aircraft carriers it sent to Midway, the battle that turned the tide of the war in favor of the United States. Four months later, he was shot down over the island of Guadalcanal. He survived when his plane crashed upside down in the jungle, but his arm was so badly mangled that he never fought again. He spent the rest of the war training pilots back in Japan.

After Japan surrendered, he said, he hid from what he feared would be vengeful American occupiers. He worked for a time on a dairy farm, but found himself plagued by nightmares that made it tough to sleep. In his dreams, he said, he kept seeing the faces of the terrified American pilots he had shot down.

“I realized the war had turned me into a killer of men,” he said, “and that was not the kind of person I wanted to be.”

He said the nightmares finally ended when he found a new calling by opening a kindergarten in Nagano in 1965. He said he was able to alleviate the pangs of guilt by dedicating himself to teaching young children the value of peace. While he has now retired, he said he still visits the school every day he can to see the children’s smiling faces.""

Happy Easter!

William Blake, Christ Appearing to His Disciples After the Resurrection, ca. 1795

Little Lamb who made thee 

         Dost thou know who made thee 

Gave thee life & bid thee feed. 

By the stream & o'er the mead;

Gave thee clothing of delight,

Softest clothing wooly bright;

Gave thee such a tender voice,

Making all the vales rejoice! 

         Little Lamb who made thee 

         Dost thou know who made thee 

         Little Lamb I'll tell thee,

         Little Lamb I'll tell thee!

He is called by thy name,

For he calls himself a Lamb: 

He is meek & he is mild, 

He became a little child: 

I a child & thou a lamb, 

We are called by his name.

         Little Lamb God bless thee. 

         Little Lamb God bless thee.

 

 

-- William Blake

 

Legalize It -- Peter Tosh

No, I don't know what "umara composis" is. I do think that the whole "medical marijuana" movement is a bunch of crap, though.

Legalize it, don't criticize it
Legalize it, yeah, yeah, and I will advertise it

Some call it tampee, tampee
Some call it the weed
Some call it marijuana, marijuana
Some of them call it ganja, ganja

Every man got to legalize it, and don't criticize it
Legalize it yeah, yeah, and I will advertise it

Singers smoke it
And players of instrument too
Legalize it, yeah, yeah
That's the best thing you can do

Doctors smoke it, nurses smoke it
Judges smoke it, even the lawyer too

So you've got to legalize it, and don't criticize it
Legalize it, yeah, yeah, and I will advertise it

It's good for the flu, a good for asthma
Good for tuberculosis, even umara composis

Got to legalize it, don't criticize it
Legalize it, yeah, yeah, I will advertise it

Birds eat it, ants love it
Fowls eat it, goats love to play with it

So you've got to legalize it, don't criticize it
Legalize it, yeah, yeah, and I will advertise it

Keep on telling you, legalize it

Songwriters
TOSH, PETER

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Secret Service agents are apparently above the law

Congratulations, one of the few previously respected organizations in DC is now the subject of ridicule.

 Washington Post

"Two Secret Service agents suspected of being under the influence while striking a White House security barricade drove through an active bomb investigation and directly beside the suspicious package, according to current and former government officials familiar with the incident.

These and other new details about the March 4 incident emerged Thursday from interviews and from police records obtained by The Washington Post.

The revelations spurred fresh questions Thursday from lawmakers about whether the newly appointed director of the Secret Service, Joseph P. Clancy, is capable of turning around the troubled agency.

Among lawmakers’ questions was whether Clancy, a 27-year Secret Service veteran appointed to his job last month after a string of embarrassing agency missteps, has been aggressive enough in his handling of last week’s incident.

Clancy placed the two senior agents involved in the incident in new “non-supervisory, non-operational” jobs pending an investigation — a less stringent approach than the service has taken in the past, when staffers suspected of misconduct were put on administrative leave or pressed to resign or accept demotion. Also, Clancy did not take action against a senior supervisor on duty that night who, according to officials briefed on the incident, ordered Secret Service officers to let the agents go home without giving them sobriety tests."

Study finds there are too many studies

CBS-Sacramento

"‘Attention decay in science‘, a new paper published by professors from universities in Finland and California, reports that “the attention that can be devoted to individual papers measured by their citation counts, is bound to decay rapidly,” due to the overwhelming number of studies.

The research suggests that the decay is accelerating in recent times signaling that papers are forgotten more quickly. The study focused on scientific research but notes that the same concept can be applied to the internet and popular culture.

“Over the past years, thanks to the Internet, a huge amount of data has allowed a thorough investigation of the dynamics of collective attention to online content, ranging from news stories to videos and memes. Here attention is measured by the number of users’ views, visits, posts, downloads, tweets. It is also noted that the attention decays over time, not only because novelty fades, but also because the human capacity to pay attention to new content is limited,” the study explains.

The conclusion states that due to the exponential growth of these publications scholars “forget” papers more easily now than in the past, sometimes making it harder to isolate the most relevant information."

Excerpt from Michael Dirda's review of new Mark Twain biography, American Vandal

 

Washington Post

"If you’re a scholar of Mark Twain, there’s probably nothing terribly new in “American Vandal.” But for the rest of us, Morris is a first-rate tour guide. He knows his subject, cites other authorities with respect and presents a good deal of information with easygoing, professional smoothness. His entertaining and — despite its title — eminently civilized book is just slightly marred by an occasional typo or mistake (e.g., it’s Sir Edward Grey, not Gray, who said at the outbreak of World War I that the lamps, not the lights, are going out all over Europe). I found it particularly pleasing to learn that Twain, who knew Civil War veterans Ulysses S. Grant and Ambrose Bierce, also met Lewis Carroll and shook hands with Sigmund Freud. He was even introduced to such lesser folk as Czar Alexander II, Kaiser Wilhelm II and King Edward VII.

As readers of Twain’s “Great Dark” writings know, his later years were heartbreaking. At the end of his world tour, his eldest daughter Susy died suddenly of spinal meningitis. In 1904 his beloved wife, Olivia, succumbed to heart disease. In 1909, his youngest daughter, who suffered from epilepsy, drowned in a bathtub at age 29. “How poor I am,” he wrote, “who was once so rich!”"