Recently, I ran across an article regarding the probable over-diagnosis and subsequent over-treatment with pharmaceutical drugs of diabetes and hypertension. Published in the September/October 2012 of the Annals of Family Medicine, it was written from an anthropological standpoint.
The second topic is the current issue of gun control and increased mass violence and suicides. The issue that has been almost totally ignored in the current discussions is the uncanny connection between psychotropic drugs that coincided and/or preceded almost all of these events. I believe it is about time that the public gets educated on that issue since we will not ever see it in the main news, which is often sponsored by the pharmaceutical industry. –From Peter S in California
You are absolutely correct regarding your second point about the connection between psychotropic drugs and violent behaviors–to oneself and others. I have touched on this problem in prior Daily Dispatches and in my book with Michael Jawer, Your Emotional Type.
On your first point, I look forward to reviewing this article (of which I know two of the three authors) as a physician and anthropologist. Diabetes and hypertension are serious problems that require treatment. However, it is also true that the invention of a new drug often precedes the “discovery” of a new disease, or certainly the recruitment of new patients.