The two sides of the coin

[[ra...]]

Marigold,

 

Nailed it in one.  I am completely done discussing anything, at least for now.  I am miserable, in pain, and I acknowledge my threshold for suffering is very low and I am far more likely to kill myself than heal. (I have like 3 more cards to play, so not yet)

 

That said, ok.  You finished your last med in March 2016, so over 2 1/2 years ago.  Statistically over 90% heal in 2 years, so I guess you are well?

 

Kpin,

 

Did Prosac help you heal?  Damn straight it did.  There is a lot of science behind that.  I will be playing a similar card soon enough.  Too bad about the writing.  Totally get the 'f' God thing though.  If there is a God, I hate him too. Almost as much as I hate Peter Breggin [and Amy Yasko and Ben Lynch (I will leave Una Corbett alone because I love Pretty ;-) ].  Oh if I publish before I die they are going down!

 

I am just blowing off some rage.  The wave will pass and I will feel differently in a few days.

 

ramcon1

[[Su...]]

FWIW Ramcon,

I am with you on this.  Some meds used judiciously can be very helpful for some people.  To have this as a black an white argument is not helpful for anyone I believe.  I worked in the field before there were SSRI's and after and believe me I saw many people creating a life for themselves that could have never been predicted.  People who were absolutely not functioning in any way could have full fulfilling lives and futures.  I've seen it too many times to say it is a placebo effect.

 

Are meds used too often and in dosages that are unnecessary instead of other lifestyle changes and therapies?  You betcha!  The number of people on meds in the world is insane! Would therapy help a number of people who are on meds? yes.  absolutely.  But many people don't have the resources or the time to put into the years of therapy that would be required to help with some situations. 

 

But there are people -- and it's not a chemical imbalance, that is a myth to help doctors because they don't really like saying "we don't know why these things work"  -- that are helped tremendously by meds.  Benzos are the medication that is the most poisonous and dangerous.

 

To throw out the baby with the bath water is extreme.  Just because we don't know how these things work doesn't mean they don't.

Just want you to know there are other points of view here as well.  I don't think this is going to be a popular viewpoint but it is a viewpoint I have come to from years of observation.

SS

[[ra...]]

Suffering,

 

Thank you for that.  One of the worst feelings in the world is thinking that the whole world is crazy and you are the last sane person on earth.  The good thing is, even though most of medicine is an accident, science is slowly catching up.  We now know why most of the meds do what they do, doctors don't, but researchers do.

 

I have some really interesting new info about gene mapping, but I do not have the mind for it today.

 

In the immortal words of Douglass MacArthur, "I'll be baaaack."

 

Thanks again,

 

ramcon1

[[Su...]]

Suffering,

 

Thank you for that.  One of the worst feelings in the world is thinking that the whole world is crazy and you are the last sane person on earth.  The good thing is, even though most of medicine is an accident, science is slowly catching up.  We now know why most of the meds do what they do, doctors don't, but researchers do.

 

I have some really interesting new info about gene mapping, but I do not have the mind for it today.

 

In the immortal words of Douglass MacArthur, "I'll be baaaack."

 

Thanks again,

 

ramcon1

SS

[Guest [Sk...]]

FWIW Ramcon,

I am with you on this.  Some meds used judiciously can be very helpful for some people.  To have this as a black an white argument is not helpful for anyone I believe.  I worked in the field before there were SSRI's and after and believe me I saw many people creating a life for themselves that could have never been predicted.  People who were absolutely not functioning in any way could have full fulfilling lives and futures.  I've seen it too many times to say it is a placebo effect.

 

Are meds used too often and in dosages that are unnecessary instead of other lifestyle changes and therapies?  You betcha!  The number of people on meds in the world is insane! Would therapy help a number of people who are on meds? yes.  absolutely.  But many people don't have the resources or the time to put into the years of therapy that would be required to help with some situations. 

 

But there are people -- and it's not a chemical imbalance, that is a myth to help doctors because they don't really like saying "we don't know why these things work"  -- that are helped tremendously by meds.  Benzos are the medication that is the most poisonous and dangerous.

 

To throw out the baby with the bath water is extreme.  Just because we don't know how these things work doesn't mean they don't.

Just want you to know there are other points of view here as well.  I don't think this is going to be a popular viewpoint but it is a viewpoint I have come to from years of observation.

SS

 

:thumbsup:

[[ra...]]

Just PS, and back to what Kpin said earlier.

 

So in May, life starts to improve, not great, but ok.  I reduce diazep from mid may to mid July.  Again, slowly, 11 mg/day to 8 1/2 mg/day.  Making progress.  Then things get tough, I bump up to 10 and hold.  Things get tougher and tougher, no friggin idea why.  I max out at 13 mg/day and hold.

 

Things ease up, I drop to 12 1/2 and hold.  Two weeks.  Had a 100% window fro 3 hours yesterday. From last night into today is holy crap off the charts can't hold a thought in my head brutal.  My spine is all kids of wonky and my belly is sticking out like a balloon.  I don't normally take more than 2 1/2 mg at a daytime dose or I will fall asleep.  I took 4 mg 2 hours ago and it was fly spit in the ocean.  I wont take any more because there is no point.  And I promise you I am not in "tolerance" because:

A) my dose is pretty damn low

B) I was in tolerance in 2012 and this is not that.

 

I have no idea why I feel what I feel right now, but there is something going on here beyond my current benzo use.  My past use?  Damage already done? Whatever got me on benzos in the first place rearing its head?

 

Damned if I know, but it sure makes me say, "hmmmm." (in between Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

 

Ramcon1

[[Fl...]]

To throw out the baby with the bath water is extreme.  Just because we don't know how these things work doesn't mean they don't.

Just want you to know there are other points of view here as well.  I don't think this is going to be a popular viewpoint but it is a viewpoint I have come to from years of observation.

SS

 

Define "work".

 

If you look at a snapshot in time you can easily find people who claim that the drugs are helpful, but the long term stats paint a very different picture. You would think that if these drugs do indeed work, that we we see a decrease in the illnesses they are supposed to treat, but the exact opposite is true.

 

That's a very important fact that drug proponents like to ignore.

[[Fi...]]

FG: Benzodiazepines have been overprescribed & abused but, some useful purposes (where they work) include: "Adjuncts to anesthesia to induce relaxation and amnesia (procedural memory loss), To treat or prevent seizures, and Sedative-hypnotics for sleep/anxiety..." (this is where they have primarily been over prescribed/abused but remember that benzodiazepines have largely replaced barbiturates as sedative-hypnotic agents because of their superior safety profile).

 

 

 

 

[[Te...]]

FG: Benzodiazepines have been overprescribed & abused but, some useful purposes (where they work) include: "Adjuncts to anesthesia to induce relaxation and amnesia (procedural memory loss), To treat or prevent seizures, and Sedative-hypnotics for sleep/anxiety..." (this is where they have primarily been over prescribed/abused but remember that benzodiazepines have largely replaced barbiturates as sedative-hypnotic agents because of their superior safety profile).

 

The lesser of two evils???

 

Says who? What studies? We already know there's a paucity of information that's been divulged.

 

I guess my hatred of benzos came easy. I had plenty of issues right from the start. I had a very short "honeymoon period." It was a slam dunk to get off these terrible pills. But others may have reluctantly done so because they felt well on them. To each their own. 

 

 

 

 

 

[[Su...]]

To throw out the baby with the bath water is extreme.  Just because we don't know how these things work doesn't mean they don't.

Just want you to know there are other points of view here as well.  I don't think this is going to be a popular viewpoint but it is a viewpoint I have come to from years of observation.

SS

 

Define "work".

 

If you look at a snapshot in time you can easily find people who claim that the drugs are helpful, but the long term stats paint a very different picture. You would think that if these drugs do indeed work, that we we see a decrease in the illnesses they are supposed to treat, but the exact opposite is true.

 

That's a very important fact that drug proponents like to ignore.

 

that's not the logic that i adhere to.

[[Fi...]]

Terry, barbiturates were a common form of lethal overdose (accidental & intentional) before they were replaced by benzodiazepines. Whether or not that is considered a good thing depends upon the individual but, legislatively yes benzos are considered the lessor of two evils in that benzos in the absence of other drugs like alcohol or opioids generally are not lethal. 

[[Lo...]]

Terry, barbiturates were a common form of lethal overdose (accidental & intentional) before they were replaced by benzodiazepines. Whether or not that is considered a good thing depends upon the individual but, legislatively yes benzos are considered the lessor of two evils in that benzos in the absence of other drugs like alcohol or opioids generally are not lethal.

 

Sadly, those regulating and revieiwing benzodiazepines and their safety did not look into their lethality in cases of severe or even partial benzodiazepine underdose, which can be sometimes lethal due to direct or indirect effects of the drug. Apparently if an underdose occurs and the patient has no access to benzodiazepines, a quick emergency room visit will rectify the situation. Sadly, the emergency room departments are trained to deal with overdoses and not underdoses, so a severely underdosed patient with no doctor or psychiatrist and/or no access to the medications themselves might end up repeatedly going to the emergency room until the said patient is either connected with an ER psychiatrist or committed into a hospital and given medication and then discharged, only to find himself in a same underdosed situation.  Unfortunately, not all doctors had been trained to recognize a severely benzodizapine underdosed patient, and they may lose valuable time while diagnosing someone who is barely hanging on alive.

 

Medication underdoses are real and very dangerous, yet they don't grab headlines or make for interesting conversations the way the overdoses do.

[[Ca...]]

Terry, barbiturates were a common form of lethal overdose (accidental & intentional) before they were replaced by benzodiazepines. Whether or not that is considered a good thing depends upon the individual but, legislatively yes benzos are considered the lessor of two evils in that benzos in the absence of other drugs like alcohol or opioids generally are not lethal.

 

Sadly, those regulating and revieiwing benzodiazepines and their safety did not look into their lethality in cases of severe or even partial benzodiazepine underdose, which can be sometimes lethal due to direct or indirect effects of the drug. Apparently if an underdose occurs and the patient has no access to benzodiazepines, a quick emergency room visit will rectify the situation. Sadly, the emergency room departments are trained to deal with overdoses and not underdoses, so a severely underdosed patient with no doctor or psychiatrist and/or no access to the medications themselves might end up repeatedly going to the emergency room until the said patient is either connected with an ER psychiatrist or committed into a hospital and given medication and then discharged, only to find himself in a same underdosed situation.  Unfortunately, not all doctors had been trained to recognize a severely benzodizapine underdosed patient, and they may lose valuable time while diagnosing someone who is barely hanging on alive.

 

Medication underdoses are real and very dangerous, yet they don't grab headlines or make for interesting conversations the way the overdoses do.

That is so true LF, -In relation to my experience on a non benzo med... They had not a clue, which inevitably cost not only my health, But a cost to the "system" that would blow ones mind as they treated and tested, proving their (and my) ignorance...

 

[[Fl...]]

that's not the logic that i adhere to.

 

You don't adhere to the logic that more and more drugs are being prescribed, yet people are getting sicker and sicker? That's the facts.

 

This doesn't mean that everyone gets sicker, but the scary fact is that once you are on the drugs it becomes nearly impossible to tell what is being caused by the drug and what isn't. And when your doctor is ignorant of the dangers of the drugs, everything is going to be blamed on the pre-existing condition or something else. Good luck getting off that train.

 

If you choose to ignore the big picture and focus only on a moment in time you do so at your own peril.

[[...]]

Dude, I read your Vineet posts from beginning to end, every single one of them and, damnit, you are sooo GOOD at what you do!!!  You got away with it for a long time, didn't you? 

:laugh: :laugh: you have to go down as my biggest fan you know. i wanted to be a fiction writer in college. then god knows what happened and here i am, 53, running a steel biz. in kolkata with 2 sons and a gorgeous wife. i can't make sense of life. i have given up making sense too.  and for the first time in my life i am not ashamed of having given up trying to make sense of life. so 2 months ago i threw away all my books and trashed all i had ever written -- because i was very angry with god, universe and above all, human logic. perhaps 2 months ago or even before, i would have felt very flattered by someone claiming that they had read all i wrote.

 

Yes, I admit I was very entertained, it really was a terrific read!  Kudos again, man, you were beyond *SLICK*, every third or fourth post, for years and years, there you were fervently trying to sell your antidepressants.  Seriously brilliantly played!  And then you had to go and mess up, and got caught with your pants down and egg all over your face.  Hate it when that happens. :laugh:   Please tell me you were at least being compensated, I'll be very disappointed hearing you, the businessman, were working so darn hard, pro bono, for Big Pharma.

 

Here's just one of your posts I particularly enjoyed reading.  Must've been before you were put on payroll, hmmm? 

 

 

Re: Clonazepam - Irratible and Sad .... Anyone else feel this way??

Please respondl

 

« Reply #12 on: December 06, 2012, 11:40:14 am »

 

      Quote from: dbeam on December 06, 2012, 11:13:34 am

 

        But I wonder what man did 200 years ago when we did not have any of this available

 

vineet2:

i too have thought about it -- it is an interesting question. speaking of depression, depression is recorded as a self-limiting episode lasting from a few months to years. so even in the absence of treatment, it would resolve (though in some cases may present itself as chronic). speaking of anxiety disorders -- alcohol has been a refuge (self medication). anxiety disorders respond well to alternative treatments too i think -- yoga, meditation, exercise, religious fervour. only psychosis has never had a treatment. so i do not think these ailments, or least many of them, were incurable or unmanageable in the past.

 

the quality of life, with the advent of these medications, has only MARGINALLY improved for those mentally afflicted. i emphasize "marginally." not enough research has gone into developing newer psychiatric drugs and a whole bunch of them are products of discoveries made in the 50s i think -- all serotonin based. the efficacy of this type of treatment is also dubious -- ssris and snris, though giving relief, continually "poop out" leaving patients in the lurch or on the roller coaster for trials and errors with different cousins of the same ssri family or even ECT (which is gaba based). add to that the rising demography of the "accidental addicts," to which this board is testimony or people made sick, iatrogenically, by the psychiatric community! so the net impact of these drugs on the human populace might be retrograde to say the least.

[[Te...]]

Terry, barbiturates were a common form of lethal overdose (accidental & intentional) before they were replaced by benzodiazepines. Whether or not that is considered a good thing depends upon the individual but, legislatively yes benzos are considered the lessor of two evils in that benzos in the absence of other drugs like alcohol or opioids generally are not lethal.

 

I can see using benzos short-term (days), but we don't know how many people have committed suicide because of their ill effects; benzos have become more popular by the sheer number of people using them. They've become street drugs. And people DON'T KNOW how to taper off them, if need be. They are used carelessly in clubs. Doctors don't have a clue about these drugs yet they dispense them regularly, carelessly. Benzos in the absence of doctors' knowledge and the lack of informed consent is appalling.

 

I know if I died while in this benzo crap (God forbid), I would take to my grave the real reason: benzos. But it certainly wouldn't be on the autopsy report, my family wouldn't know. No one would ever guess. And I'm thinking that a lot of deaths are that way too. No one suspects.

[[Lo...]]

Terry, barbiturates were a common form of lethal overdose (accidental & intentional) before they were replaced by benzodiazepines. Whether or not that is considered a good thing depends upon the individual but, legislatively yes benzos are considered the lessor of two evils in that benzos in the absence of other drugs like alcohol or opioids generally are not lethal.

 

I can see using benzos short-term (days), but we don't know how many people have committed suicide because of their ill effects; benzos have become more popular by the sheer number of people using them. They've become street drugs. And people DON'T KNOW how to taper off them, if need be. They are used carelessly in clubs. Doctors don't have a clue about these drugs yet they dispense them regularly, carelessly. Benzos in the absence of doctors' knowledge and the lack of informed consent is appalling.

 

I know if I died while in this benzo crap (God forbid), I would take to my grave the real reason: benzos. But it certainly wouldn't be on the autopsy report, my family wouldn't know. No one would ever guess. And I'm thinking that a lot of deaths are that way too. No one suspects.

 

I agree, Terry38. My life had not been this bad before benzos. Not even close. It's probably the most dangerous class of psychoactive Rx drugs not just because of the lack of understanding, but also because of the confusing-as-heck culture surrounding them. Anything that is a doctor prescribed drug, FDA approved for anxiety and a controlled substance, readily given by doctors and so easily witheld by them is prone to cause so much suffering. Had I never been on benzos and had I been tapering Prozac over 2 years at a snail's pace, my doctor, my family, my friends and my employer would not have cared one bit. I could have even talked about it openly without much stigma. I doubt many people can talk about benzos or benzo wd openly, anywhere.  :'(.

[Guest [Kp...]]

Did Prosac help you heal?  Damn straight it did. 

 

yes it did.

 

at first i tried lamotrigine. that made me even more sick, so i switched to prozac.

 

[Guest [Kp...]]

I'll be very disappointed hearing you, the businessman, were working so darn hard, pro bono, for Big Pharma.

 

:laugh: money is not everything in life abcd -- esp. when you have enough of it.

 

we will meet in the next life abcd! our roles will be switched -- you will be advocating ADs and i will be the fulminating peter briggins fan boy. (at least that is what physicists say -- everything that can happen does happen and thus there is a universe in which our roles are reversed).

[[Lo...]]

Prozac was a great med for me for many years. Wish I'd never tried to get off of it like I did, and wish I'd given a chance to another AD before I jumped on a benzo train from hell. Now, I can't tolerate any AD's, and I regret that benzos and benzo wd stole one of my depression coping tools, permanently. Getting on the benzo train to hell was probably the worst mistake of my life.

[[Lo...]]

that's not the logic that i adhere to.

 

You don't adhere to the logic that more and more drugs are being prescribed, yet people are getting sicker and sicker? That's the facts.

 

This doesn't mean that everyone gets sicker, but the scary fact is that once you are on the drugs it becomes nearly impossible to tell what is being caused by the drug and what isn't. And when your doctor is ignorant of the dangers of the drugs, everything is going to be blamed on the pre-existing condition or something else. Good luck getting off that train.

 

If you choose to ignore the big picture and focus only on a moment in time you do so at your own peril.

 

I think it's not just a matter of the number of drugs being prescribed, but also what type of drugs are being prescribed. Other than some really heavy-duty psychiatric drugs that are normally given to people diagnosed with severe mental disorders, benzos are probably one of the most dangerous Rx drug classes. I think that, in terms of harm reduction, if someone can avoid being on benzos long term by virtue of being on another psych drug or Rx drug I am all for it. If Remeron or Vistaril or Prozac or Buspar or a small, strategic dose of some other psych drug helps calm a person down and lift their mood without resorting to dangerous GABA drugs like benzos, I think it's better.

 

It would be nice if people could figure out life without any potentially harmful psych drugs, but if they can't be avoided, at least the less dangerous ones should be tried before the most dangerous, and benzos are sadly one of the most dangerous. Most people don't realize they are that dangerous, but they sure are. 

[[Te...]]

Terry, barbiturates were a common form of lethal overdose (accidental & intentional) before they were replaced by benzodiazepines. Whether or not that is considered a good thing depends upon the individual but, legislatively yes benzos are considered the lessor of two evils in that benzos in the absence of other drugs like alcohol or opioids generally are not lethal.

 

I can see using benzos short-term (days), but we don't know how many people have committed suicide because of their ill effects; benzos have become more popular by the sheer number of people using them. They've become street drugs. And people DON'T KNOW how to taper off them, if need be. They are used carelessly in clubs. Doctors don't have a clue about these drugs yet they dispense them regularly, carelessly. Benzos in the absence of doctors' knowledge and the lack of informed consent is appalling.

 

I know if I died while in this benzo crap (God forbid), I would take to my grave the real reason: benzos. But it certainly wouldn't be on the autopsy report, my family wouldn't know. No one would ever guess. And I'm thinking that a lot of deaths are that way too. No one suspects.

 

I agree, Terry38. My life had not been this bad before benzos. Not even close. It's probably the most dangerous class of psychoactive Rx drugs not just because of the lack of understanding, but also because of the confusing-as-heck culture surrounding them. Anything that is a doctor prescribed drug, FDA approved for anxiety and a controlled substance, readily given by doctors and so easily witheld by them is prone to cause so much suffering. Had I never been on benzos and had I been tapering Prozac over 2 years at a snail's pace, my doctor, my family, my friends and my employer would not have cared one bit. I could have even talked about it openly without much stigma. I doubt many people can talk about benzos or benzo wd openly, anywhere.  :'(.

 

Exactly, Loraz. Doctors stupidly withhold these drugs or force the patient into a rapid taper,  maybe to protect themselves.Meanwhile, the patient is left in sad shape. I think there ought to be more lawsuits, but that's a slippery slope, too. The person is probably in the throes of withdrawal and can't attend court proceedings, most likely can't leave the house. The list goes on and on...

 

Another thing I was considering is that people think that benzo withdrawal will end. They don't realize that they're dealing with the nightmare from hell, which seemingly never ends. A lot of times people have never experienced something like this. So they keep going, keep believing. And since the frequent thoughts of death are a withdrawal/recovery symptom, that can play into a person feeling helpless and hopeless. I can certainly see why so many take their lives. And I'm thinking there are many.

 

 

[[mo...]]

A psychiatrist should simply ask before they put anyone on anything, whether this human being is willing to have the Job experience.

 

It is one thing to be at one’s “wit’s end,” but when we basically are all aware it can get much worse, and who are we to deny the stories of those on somewhere like the survivingantidepressants.org website? Exactly. When we’re all aware what one may think could be their wit’s end is compounded exponentially by any given drug that is supposed to help them, by other regular human beings who went to school to be “doctors” but clearly don’t know all that much more than our regular average Joe about all that really takes place in the human body or brain, or what in the living earth all of these medications actually do or can do...

 

...until we get an apology and perhaps years of our lives back and all psychiatrists everywhere, and all gp’s too, all of the board of the APA and the all the other committees, and the Chocrane Institute, and whomever the hell else... drug reps, pharmacists...

 

Until a huge, public apology and a complete own up to all the damages due that can never be repaid while any of us are living....

 

Yeah until all of this including the admission that they all basically know nothing and have no real idea whether any given patient prescribed x-y-z will have what I am now calling this, the Job experience,

 

...maybe I just think they all really actually suck basically except for those actively trying to bring awareness— like Whitaker.

 

Yes, I do believe they suck entirely until they are willing to come clean. And until then I just don’t lend that much credence to any apart from Robert Whitaker and others just like him, but how many of those are there really.

 

Until they all come clean, why should the profession even exist any longer? Any GP of average level intelligence can write a script for Wellbutrin or Seroquel, and no one would be any worse off than they are now from all the damage currently being done. And the GP can simply say:

 

“As long as you are willing to risk an even Jobier experience than the one you’re having now, I’ll write this Rx for you. Please go and read the stories on benzobuddies.org and survivingantidepressants.org, so you have a good idea of what you are in for— especially if you take these long term. You may be one of the fortunate ones who’s cells, liver and other organs can manage these fairly well for some time, but honestly the odds become worse the longer you are on and the more of these you take.”

 

“Oh yes, and we do t truly know that much about the human body, or these medications. We do the best we can with what we know.”

 

That would work out fine for me, and they can still offer AP’s to people who truly need them and then they can try and actually take in a patient’s history and lifestyle and see if/when/how long to be on some such med is really going to actually benefit a human being.

 

Something like this, but it’s 3:18am right now, I think that’s the general feeling I have that works for me... a HUGE apology and admission of facts is a start for the horrendous plague I feel that psychiatry currently is today.

[[mo...]]

And the suicides and accidental deaths, too, as a result of the living nightmare the iatrogenically harmed go through, I agree.

 

Before sometimes I have tried to have more sympathy for the potentially good doctors out there, well, they would maybe be “good” truly if they all admitted what the heck is actually taking place in their profession.

 

Of course I don’t feel like putting all the individual doctors in together and taking away every other angle or point about why some psychiatrists somewhere are not completely awful, or GP or NP or whomever. Also I don’t feel like doing away with all psych drugs for any reason at all times for all of time... but really, I think psychiatry to be one huge and giant failure on the whole— and big pharma is hellishly greedy and addicted to raking in money and exerting influence in nearly all spheres of human existence (on the whole.) I just really don’t think any of this can be argued. So many people die due to prescribed medications by the “dr.’s” who prescribe them... it’s one of the leading causes of death.

 

What the hell is psychiatry actually doing for anyone apart from branding them with labels and stuffing them with drugs. What are they doing that any reasonable GP could not accomplish? All they do is have you sit in a room for 10 or 15 minutes and then write a script!

[[ra...]]

Good morning buddies,

 

Well this one spiraled out of control quickly.  I hate when this happens because I feel compelled to come back and try to defend the "other" side because there is so much misinformation in the benzobuddy line of thought.

 

Florida, I used to agree with you a lot.  Those days are over.  I have already shown you how your logic is flawed, but you (and Mon pilote, and Terry, abcd, and many others here) have what is known as an "orthodoxy."  You have a belief that cannot be shaken by logic, and will use faulty logic to justify it.

 

This is THE final word on medication. Vioxx.  Merck was dragged through the mud and paid billions in reparations because of a drug that was essentially aspirin "caused" heart attacks.

 

First, 20 million people took Vioxx, "causing" an estimated 88,000 heart attacks, so 1 in 250, and second, 

almost of all of the people who got heart attacks were old, and had other risk factors, the biggest of which being THAT THEY WERE OLD.

 

Vioxx is a chemical IMPROVEMENT over aspirin and if those 20 million people had taken aspirin instead a hell of a lot more would have had cardiovascular events.

 

That did not stop idiots from punishing Merck and forcing them to take Vioxx off the market.  So a drug that helped 249 out of 250 people live with their arthritis is gone because the world is filled with idiots.  It was greedy lawyers that prevailed here, not medicine.

 

I am Dogbert, and I am not going to apologize for that.  While I am the first guy to admit I am wrong, if I tell you something is true then it is, and if you disagree with me then you just do not understand.  I will also be the first guy to agree that doctors know very little about science, but if there is a group of people that know far less it the group who feel compelled to criticize the doctors. If you cannot understand how the above argument about Vioxx definitively proves that while medicine may be flawed, the people who go after it are far more flawed, then you just don't understand.  And if that pisses you off, I don't care.  Forget you.

 

I am only here to appeal to those on the fence.  Those who are actually thinking, "How did I get here, and how I am I going to get out?"  If you already believe in the conspiracy orthodoxy, then I am not going to convince you of a Goddamn thing.

 

Are benzos dangerous?  Hell yes.  More dangerous than most drugs?  Hell yes again.  They put us here.  Is there a medical conspiracy to push drugs and hurt us?  Hell no.  Doctors are doing the best they can, and medicine is improving everyday.

 

I promised you that I would be back with more info, here you go:

 

https://www.technologyreview.com/s/611786/the-cartographer-of-cells/

 

This woman and her team will have all disease states cured and done in 20 years.  We just have to live through the next 19.

 

So stay off meds.  Or don't.  Believe me.  Or not.  Heal.  Or don't.

 

Ramcon1