read whole article:

www.badscience.net/

Washing the numbers, selling the model
January 26th, 2008 by Ben Goldacre in neurostuff, regulating research, medicalisation, adverts, bad science |

* * *

Over the past few decades, we have been subjected to a relentless medicalisation of everyday life by people who want to sell us sciencey solutions. Chancers from the $56 billion international food supplement industry want you to believe that intelligence needs fish oil, and that obesity is just your body’s way of crying out for chromium pills (”to help balance sugar metabolism” etc).

Similarly, quacks from the $600 billion pharma industry sell the idea that depression is caused by low serotonin levels in the brain and so – therefore - you need drugs which raise the serotonin levels in your brain: you need SSRI antidepressants, which are “selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors”.



That’s the serotonin hypothesis. It was always shaky, and the evidence now is hugely contradictory. I’m not giving that lecture here, but as a brief illustration, there is a drug called tianeptine – a selective serotonin reuptake enhancer, not an inhibitor – and yet research shows this drug is a pretty effective treatment for depression too.

Meanwhile in popular culture the depression/serotonin theory is proven and absolute, because it was never about research, or theory, it was about marketing, and journalists who pride themselves on never pushing pills or the hegemony will still blindly push the model until the cows come home.

* * *


theicarusproject.net/

Welcome to Icarus
The Icarus Project envisions a new culture and language that resonates with our actual experiences of 'mental illness' rather than trying to fit our lives into a conventional framework.

We are a network of people living with experiences that are commonly labeled as bipolar or other psychiatric conditions. We believe we have mad gifts to be cultivated and taken care of, rather than diseases or disorders to be suppressed or eliminated. By joining together as individuals and as a community, the intertwined threads of madness and creativity can inspire hope and transformation in an oppressive and damaged world. Our participation in The Icarus Project helps us overcome alienation and tap into the true potential that lies between brilliance and madness.