In a discussion of “mental illness” below, I neglected to highlight the work of a woman (linked to the right here) with first-hand experience in the field, a former beauty queen and pharmaceutical rep (and the two are not coincidentally related), Gwen Olsen. I highly recommend her book, Confessions of an Rx Drug Pusher, as a primer. It opens the door to the seedy world of PhRMA, ineffective and overpriced drugs, and a corrupt culture taken over by rent seekers whose only objective is to create dependency on pills to make cash flow.
They actually spend their time creating diseases to justify the pills, and schmoozing and bribing the psychiatric professionals (who seem unable to resist) to prescribe them. It is utterly corrupt. As Olsen says,
The most frightening aspects of our pill culture are the unknown interactions of various drugs when taken at once, or even taken serially, as their half-lives allow them to linger in our systems as the shrinks jump from one prescription to another looking for one that might actually work.
Ms. Olsen is doing her best. Heed her warning:
WARNING/DISCLAIMER:
DO NOT ATTEMPT TO WITHDRAW FROM ANY PSYCHIATRIC MEDICATION ABRUPTLY, AS THIS COULD EXACERBATE SEVERE AND LIFE-THREATENING SYMPTOMS!It may require a period of weeks or months to successfully discontinue your medication. I am not a licensed practitioner and cannot make diagnoses and/or medical treatment recommendations as such. Please consult a qualified doctor before adjusting or discontinuing any medication regimens.
This link at her website has an (unfortunately) limited list of resources to assist people who are hooked on benzodiazepines, antidepressants and other psychiatric drugs.
Piece of Mindful 
When the plan objective and goal is to monetize, all other values kneel to profit. This system endangers all living things. Not all things can be commodities without running the risk of extinction. The system is bankrupt. It’s time to decide: God gave you all animal instincts — fight or flight. Please don’t just stand there, people.
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More to the point. http://mic.com/articles/104096/there-s-a-suicide-epidemic-in-utah-and-one-neuroscientist-thinks-he-knows-why?fb_ref=Default#.kLO4ONSgN
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You’re on a roll. That is a fascinating piece of literature. I sit here at 7,800 feet and have no trouble concentrating and am in good spirits. But my wife gets headaches, and our neighbors, “mountain people” seem to be somewhat anti-social, that is, they keep to themselves. I have always assumed that this is why they moved to the mountains, but maybe I have reversed cause and effect?
I hope JC sees it, as he is deep in the subject.
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It’s hard to trust doctors or drug companies these days. Not all doctors are bad, it’s just that so many are overworked, stressed, and in debt. I profiled this problem on my site a year ago. Huge issue.
The best thing for people to do is try and eat healthy. Cook your own food. Use spices. Don’t be afraid of vitamins and minerals. If you can prevent the things that the drugs are “for” then you can live a long time.
Just saw my 98-year-old great aunt today in Helena. She can’t walk that well anymore but she’s all there upstairs. Probably never took a statin. Beware of those especially – we know they cause Alzheimer’s. Something else that causes Alzheimer’s is too-low cholesterol. Something else that doctors told us for years was bad but now we know is essential. In fact, it helps cause erections.
As you can see, getting rid of things like that is key for Big Pharma. Beware.
http://www.bigskywords.com/montana-blog/why-is-healthcare-killing-us
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Interesting piece you wrote there. I had not heard about the side effects of statins, but had known for years that the pills are expensive and ineffective. Here is how they spin it: they claim that statins reduce heart attacks by 33%. What they mean is that of every 100 people who take them, 3 will die that way. If all 100 people take the drug, the likelihood is that only 2 will die that way. But they have no way of identifying which person of the 100 will benefit.
Stuff on doctors and suicide is intriguing, though I would bet far more complex a matter than simple failure to help patients. Dentists too have high suicide rates, and they help people beyond measure.
I guess I have more respect for doctors than you, as when it comes to emergent problems like broken bones are bad knees, they can fix us. The interventions, the surgeries, the cancers and all of that … It is frustrating for doctors as people do not take care of themselves, as you say, and doctors cannot fix that. Diet is primary, as you say, and that leads to more corruption: studies in nutrition over time have tended to lead us away from healthy eating and towards processed foods and high-carb diets because the food processing giants fund the studies. The field of nutrition is rife with college-educated people who do not understand basic nutrition, who want us to count calories and avoid fat and to over-exercise. This is what they are taught even as we have known for well over a century that fat and protein are the essential ingredients in a healthy diets, that carbs need to be minimized, and sugar is basically a poison.
Anyway, you’re more knowledgeable about this stuff than 95% of the population. Keep up the good work!
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Reblogged this on Site Title.
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