Author Topic: Makes no sense to me  (Read 20822 times)

Offline Truthsayer

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Makes no sense to me
« on: February 18, 2009, 02:36:51 AM »
Every time I see a commercial advertsing a pharmaceutical drug, the long list of the possible side effects of the drug outweigh the purpose of taking it. For example, I watched an advertisment tonight about a drug prescribed to people suffering depression. The list of about thirty possible side effects of taking this drug began with nausea and ended with heart failure. Would you want to risk having a heart attack, stroke or even losing your vision so as to ease depression?  :)7  I don't know. This I gotta weigh more carefully.
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Offline Smokebender

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Re: Makes no sense to me
« Reply #1 on: March 01, 2009, 11:00:46 PM »
I must agree. Some of those ads are like watching a skit on Saturday Night Live.  ~D~
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Offline Truthsayer

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Re: Makes no sense to me
« Reply #2 on: March 02, 2009, 04:42:10 PM »
Preventative medicine or a means of suicide?  :-\  Should we trust the FDA?
As God as my witness, I cannot tell a lie.  ;)

Offline 333angel

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Re: Makes no sense to me
« Reply #3 on: March 22, 2009, 06:38:53 AM »
 :)7  Makes no sense to me either. I have wondered for a long time now why are those prescription pads are so over used by physicians? When did we start relying so heavily on medications? I am not advocating marijuana or any other illegal drug, but from research, I do not see the side effects of marijuana being as frightful as most medications a physician gives out in free samples. Yet someone with M.S. or cancer cannot legally benefit from marijuana in the state I live in? Don’t understand.
Melody

Offline Smokebender

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Re: Makes no sense to me
« Reply #4 on: March 22, 2009, 10:35:36 AM »
Preventative medicine or a means of suicide?  :-\  Should we trust the FDA?
I wonder the same Mel. I'm told that in med school little if any time is spent on nutrition. Students learn there is a pill for almost everything. Then we have the kickbacks, gifts like trips and other cash value items along with loads of free samples all from the drug makers. And the "Reps" aka salespeople these company's send to every Dr's office. If one is a male Dr. the drug makers almost always send a young, vibrant and good looking female "Rep". The reverse is true in regard to female Dr.'s and their friendly drug salesperson. It's big business, very big business. We have some doctors here in the USA billing $1200.00 an hour and taking all the perks, kickbacks and freebies they can get their hands on. This is in no way true of all Doctors, but all to often, in fact most often it is. They say we have the best system in the world.
« Last Edit: March 22, 2009, 09:08:53 PM by Smokebender »
The time of the lone wolf is over. Gather yourselves!
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Offline Truthsayer

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Re: Makes no sense to me
« Reply #5 on: March 22, 2009, 06:46:27 PM »
Preventative medicine or a means of suicide?  :-\  Should we trust the FDA?
I wonder the same Mel. I'm told that in med school little if any time is spent on nutrition. Students learn there is a pill for almost everything. Then we have the kickbacks, gifts like trips and other cash value items along with loads of free samples all from the drug makers. And the "Reps" aka salespeople these company's send to every Dr's office. If one is a male Dr. the drug makers almost always send a young, vibrant and good looking "Rep" The reverse is true in regard to female Dr.'s and their friendly drug salesperson. It's big business, very big business. We have some doctors here in the USA billing $1200.00 an hour and taking all the perks, kickbacks and freebies they can get their hands on. This is in no way true of all Doctors, but all to offend, if fact most often it is. They say we have the best system in the world.


I agree with everything you said here. What irks me most is that nowdays we have more very active children being falsely diagnosed with "ADD" or "ADHD" and put immediately on Ritalin or some other narcotic. Both of my daughters are two examples. my oldest daughter learned to 'run' at nine months and never 'walked' anywhere! At four yrs of age she was diagnosed as having ADD and the doctor put her on Ritalin. All this did was make her even more hyper. When she started school, I weaned her off of the ritalin and she settled right down. She was just an overactive kid with lots of energy to burn! As she got older, you wouldn't know she was the same kid.
my youngest daughter was the same way with her energy. Her doctor diagnosed "ADHD" and tried her with ritalin first, then experimented with other medications. my daughter's father and stepmother had custody of her at this point and all the final decisions were theirs to make. They kept her drugged on many meds by 'doctor's orders', even though I suggested trying to wean her off. Now, she is totally out of control and rebelling against everyone. (The same doctor diagnosed both of my daughters).
As God as my witness, I cannot tell a lie.  ;)

Offline misfitguy

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Re: Makes no sense to me
« Reply #6 on: March 23, 2009, 09:02:08 AM »
Preventative medicine or a means of suicide?  :-\  Should we trust the FDA?

No you shouldn't trust the FDA as it exists today.  It has been bought by big business years ago.  MSG, and I can't find anybody accept the food industry, that denies the harm that it does to us, is used as an example of Generally Regarded As Safe by the FDA.  It was added during the Reagan administration.  When we had the peanut crisis a  last fall, the FDA's response was they were not going to force any callbacks, because they felt the industry could self monitor themselves. 

These actions are the result of the neo-con fascist dislike of any government oversight or intervention.  Hail to the conservatives.....NOT!

The FDA needs an overhaul and this administration may be able to help with that.  Barack Obama has already appointed an individual ahead of the agency that believes that the agency exists to protect us and not the food industry. We,now, simply need to monitor this.

I would like to see all prescription drugs be banned from main stream advertising.
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Offline EdisonBoy

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Re: Makes no sense to me
« Reply #7 on: March 23, 2009, 08:07:58 PM »
I've happen to have been having this conversation in private with Mick and I thought I'd weigh in here.  First I'll put a quote in from my email to Mick...

"YEAH!  The teachers have a really hard time keeping pace with these so-called "defective" children, so they have to stick them with a label like misfit or troublesome so they can drug them.  And the pharmaceuticals industry cleans up!  But the real problem is with the teachers and the school system itself.  We teach these kids in an "education factory" as if they were all the same with no regard as to what damage it can do when we try to force a child who is uniquely gifted into a mold that doesn't fit him or her.  They end up feeling persecuted and live unhappy lives thinking that there must be something wrong with them when actually the problem lies with the societal system.  This is the story of my life!

I'll put this in a topic..."

So, we've been discussing ADHD and my opinion is that there is no such thing.  What these children are is gifted with high levels of intelligence and creativity and teachers just can't keep up with them.  They do everything, including learn, just way too fast for the teacher to consider them anything but troublemakers (that was the term for me when I was a child)!

When I was young, even my dad criticized me for these problems.  His word for me was "weirdo".  Can you imagine a dad referring to his own son as a weirdo?

A really good book on this topic is "The Edison Gene: ADHD and the Gift of the Hunter Child" by Thom Hartmann.

Offline EdisonBoy

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Re: Makes no sense to me
« Reply #8 on: March 23, 2009, 08:13:22 PM »
I must agree. Some of those ads are like watching a skit on Saturday Night Live.  ~D~

The funny thing is, SNL has made a couple of these satirical commercials putting even "death" in the list.   ~D~

Offline Smokebender

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Re: Makes no sense to me
« Reply #9 on: March 24, 2009, 02:50:48 AM »
Hey EdisonBoy, Welcome to the City!

I just want to say that I'm with you I my thinking.

Thirty five years ago I knew a kid that today would be labled "Hyper" This kid is now a middle aged man.
As a kid, and to this day he gets more done than any other two guys I know. He was never given drugs.
The time of the lone wolf is over. Gather yourselves!
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Offline misfitguy

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Re: Makes no sense to me
« Reply #10 on: March 24, 2009, 08:48:16 AM »
I had mentioned to EdisonBoy that I had raised two children that it was suggested that they were ADHD.  One was put on Ridalin, at the wishes of the doctor, her teacher and her mother, which I took her off of within a month and the other we doctored his behavior with the elimination of sugar. Both are very good adults today.  Both were brilliant intellectually.  With my daughter, in a discussion with her teacher, I had asked how the teacher saw her in an intellectual manner and the teacher said she was brilliant.  I then asked if she felt brilliant was normal and she, of course, said no and agreed that we would call it unusual or rare.  I then asked her why she felt that it was acceptable for my daughter to be intellectually brilliant and unusual and rare, but she expected her to be emotionally normal.  I asked why it wouldn't be possible for her to be emotionally brilliant and therefore unusual and rare.  The teacher accepted my suggestion and she channeled my daughters energy into positive things and allowed her natural leadership role to develop since the other children accepted her leadership without question.  The next conference with the teacher was different, with the teacher bubbling about my daughter and expressing her feelings about the strength of leadership that she had.

My son, after him and I made an agreement that he would eliminate sugar (he hated how he was, having few friends and always mad and was surprised to hear that it could be caused simply by a poison that had been put in him.) for a bit to see what would happen, he decided to eliminate it completely and became an exemplary student, friend, neighbor, and a leader in his school. 

Our diet is so inundated with additives, sugar, excitotoxins, and chemicals, that before we give our children or ourselves a pill, we should carefully look at the diet we have and make an assessment of what we are eating.

Mick
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Offline Smokebender

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Re: Makes no sense to me
« Reply #11 on: March 24, 2009, 08:56:15 AM »
I could not agree more.
The time of the lone wolf is over. Gather yourselves!
We are the ones we've been waiting for.
A Hopi elder speaks.

http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/michiganbigfootgroup/  Just click it now! Then get back here right away or I'm tellin Mom.

Offline Truthsayer

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Re: Makes no sense to me
« Reply #12 on: March 24, 2009, 10:13:09 AM »
I've happen to have been having this conversation in private with Mick and I thought I'd weigh in here.  First I'll put a quote in from my email to Mick...

"YEAH!  The teachers have a really hard time keeping pace with these so-called "defective" children, so they have to stick them with a label like misfit or troublesome so they can drug them.  And the pharmaceuticals industry cleans up!  But the real problem is with the teachers and the school system itself.  We teach these kids in an "education factory" as if they were all the same with no regard as to what damage it can do when we try to force a child who is uniquely gifted into a mold that doesn't fit him or her.  They end up feeling persecuted and live unhappy lives thinking that there must be something wrong with them when actually the problem lies with the societal system.  This is the story of my life!

I'll put this in a topic..."

So, we've been discussing ADHD and my opinion is that there is no such thing.  What these children are is gifted with high levels of intelligence and creativity and teachers just can't keep up with them.  They do everything, including learn, just way too fast for the teacher to consider them anything but troublemakers (that was the term for me when I was a child)!

When I was young, even my dad criticized me for these problems.  His word for me was "weirdo".  Can you imagine a dad referring to his own son as a weirdo?

A really good book on this topic is "The Edison Gene: ADHD and the Gift of the Hunter Child" by Thom Hartmann.

My daughter's father and stepmother have her believing that because she has "ADHD", she is 'mentally incompetant', and don't let her make any of her own decisions. They wonder why she rebels.
As God as my witness, I cannot tell a lie.  ;)

Offline EdisonBoy

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Re: Makes no sense to me
« Reply #13 on: March 25, 2009, 02:14:37 AM »
I think I can make sense of it...

First, we always hear the stat that the second biggest lobby in DC is Big Oil.  Ever wonder who they are second to?  <<BINGO!!!>>  Big Pharma!  It is the most profitable (and profit oriented) business in the world!  IE - they don't care about your health, they only care about you buying and getting hooked on their drugs.  Which means they don't want you hearing any news items or TV shows that might be critical to their products, which leads me to...

Second!  These commercials have to carry these disclaimers, but they are not really aimed at the consumer or to the doctors.  They are sponsoring the TV channels, they are an advertiser, which means that they can control the content of the show.  Ta-da!  It's insurance against the channel or station doing any investigative or negative reporting on the products.  And it works!  Remember when 60 Minutes used to be feared?  Executives used to have nightmares about Morley Safer appearing at their office.  Now 60 Minutes has been castrated.

Do an experiment.  Watch a news show, the hardest hitting one you can imagine (which are hard to find these days, they've been so horribly tamed) and count the number of these commercials per half hour.  Then watch a fairly benign show, a comedy like Two and a Half Men and do the same count.  I'll wager that you'll see a lot more of these commercials on the news show than on the comedy.

The corporatocracy strikes again!

Offline misfitguy

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Re: Makes no sense to me
« Reply #14 on: March 27, 2009, 06:16:33 AM »

I thought I would add this article to the thread.  It seems that studies in the past have been skewed by the pharmaceuticals to suggest that medication is the answer to ADHD.  It didn't tell the whole story, though.  Read the article and feel your heart hurt for all the children being poisoned by first, our food supply, and then second by medication.

The original article can be found here, http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29906327

Debate over drugs for ADHD reignites

New data from study paints different picture than initial results from 1999


By Shankar vedantam
updated 1:05 a.m. ET, Fri., March. 27, 2009


New data from a large federal study have reignited a debate over the effectiveness of long-term drug treatment of children with hyperactivity or attention-deficit disorder, and have drawn accusations that some members of the research team have sought to play down evidence that medications do little good beyond 24 months.

The study also indicated that long-term use of the drugs can stunt children's growth.

The latest data paint a very different picture than the study's positive initial results, reported in 1999.

One principal scientist in the study, psychologist William Pelham, said that the most obvious interpretation of the data is that the medications are useful in the short term but ineffective over longer periods but added that his colleagues had repeatedly sought to explain away evidence that challenged the long-term usefulness of medication. When their explanations failed to hold up, they reached for new ones, Pelham said.

"The stance the group took in the first paper was so strong that the people are embarrassed to say they were wrong and we led the whole field astray," said Pelham, of the State University of New York at Buffalo. Pelham said the drugs, including Adderall and Concerta, are among the medications most frequently prescribed for American children, adding: "If 5 percent of families in the country are giving a medication to their children, and they don't realize it does not have long-term benefits but might have long-term risks, why should they not be told?"

The disagreement has produced a range of views among the researchers about how to accurately present the results to the public. One e-mail noted that an academic review of the group's work, called the Multimodal Treatment Study of Children With ADHD (MTA), asked why the researchers were "bending over backward" to play down negative implications for drug therapy.

Peter Jensen, one of Pelham's fellow researchers, responded that Pelham was biased against the use of drugs and was substituting his personal opinion for science.

Jensen said Pelham was the only member of the team of researchers who took away "the silly message" that the study raised questions about the long-term utility of drugs, but interviews and e-mails show that Pelham was not alone.

The MTA was designed to test whether children diagnosed with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD, do better when treated with drugs, with drugs plus talk therapy, with talk therapy alone or with routine medical care alone. Children with the disorder have trouble paying attention, are restless and hyperactive, and are sometimes disruptive in school.

The initial 14-month analysis published in 1999 randomly assigned children to one of four treatment options and showed clearly that those treated with medication did much better than those who got only talk therapy or routine care. The drugs' manufacturers distributed thousands of reprints of the article to physicians at a time when diagnoses of ADHD were spiraling upward. Because children given drugs alone appeared to do about as well as those treated with both drugs and talk therapy, the study skewed treatment in the direction of medication.

In a second phase of the study, the researchers followed the children and compared how they fared, but researchers no longer randomly assigned them to the various treatment options, making this phase less scientifically rigorous.

In August 2007, the MTA researchers reported the first follow-up data, which by then no longer showed differences in behavior between children who were medicated and those who were not. But the data did show that children who took the drugs for 36 months were about an inch shorter and six pounds lighter than those who did not.

A news release issued by the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) at the time, however, presented the results in a more favorable light. The release, dated July 20, 2007, was titled "Improvement Following ADHD Treatment Sustained in Most Children." The release noted that the initial advantages of drug treatment were no longer evident, but it quoted Jensen as saying this did not mean that long-term drug therapy was ineffective.

Jensen said, "We were struck by the remarkable improvement in symptoms and functioning across all treatment groups." And rather than saying the growth of children on medication was stunted, the release said children who were not on medication "grew somewhat larger."

As the MTA study continued to find smaller and smaller behavioral differences between children who were medicated and those who were not, use of the drugs soared. Pelham said most parents and doctors took away the message that the study had found drug therapy effective over the long run. In 2004, physicians wrote 28.3 million prescriptions for ADHD drugs; last year, they wrote 39.5 million, according to data provided by IMS Health.

With the MTA having followed the children for eight years, the latest data have confirmed that there are no long-term differences between children who were continuously medicated and those who were never medicated. Some of the data were published online yesterday in the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.

In a telephone interview, Jensen denied that the researchers had misled the public, pointing out that some children getting the drugs did do better over the long term. Looking at overall results was not as useful as studying how particular groups of children fared, he said.

Jensen and another co-author, L. Eugene Arnold at Ohio State University, who are both psychiatrists, emphasized the importance of individualizing treatment -- and warned parents against abruptly terminating drug therapy.

The subgroup analysis found that children in homes that were socially and economically stable did the same in the long term with or without medication. Children from troubled or deprived backgrounds slid backward as soon as the intensive therapy stopped and they went back to their communities. About one-third -- those with the least impairment to begin with -- continued to improve over the long term.

Jensen and co-author Benedetto Vitiello at the NIMH said drugs may not have shown an overall long-term benefit because the quality of routine care that children received may have been inferior to the care they got during the initial part of the study. Jensen said the take-home message is that community care needs improvement.

Brooke Molina, also a co-author and a University of Pittsburgh associate professor of psychology and psychiatry, argued in an e-mail that if the researchers wanted to draw attention to subgroups that might be helped by medication over the long run, they also should acknowledge that "long-term treatment with medication may not be efficacious" for others.

In an interview, Molina said the data do not "support that children who stay on medication longer than two years have better outcomes than children who don't." In an e-mail she shared with Pelham, she noted that academic "reviewers thought we were bending over backward (inappropriately) to dismiss the failure to find medication effects at 8 years."

James Swanson, another MTA co-author and a psychologist at the University of California at Irvine, said he believes that the researchers have been open about the diminishing benefits of medication therapy. He cited a variety of scientific publications in which he and others reported data showing that medications lost effectiveness over time and stunted growth.

"If you want something for tomorrow, medication is the best, but if you want something three years from now, it does not matter," he said. "If you take medication long-term beyond three years, I don't think there is any evidence that medication is better than no medication."

Pelham, who has conducted many drug therapy studies, said the drugs have a valuable role: They buy parents and clinicians time to teach youngsters behavioral strategies to combat inattention and hyperactivity. Over the long term, he said, parents need to rely on those skills.

A yet-to-be-published study, Pelham added, found that 95 percent of parents who were told by clinicians to first try behavioral interventions for ADHD did so. When parents were given a prescription for a drug and then told to enroll their children in behavioral intervention programs, 75 percent did not seek out the behavioral approaches.


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