Antidepressants Become the Most Highly-Prescribed Drug in America
In the book Beyond Valium, written in 1981 by Seymor Rosenblatt, M.D., we are told the tale of the drug's rise to power, and how Valium, driven by marketing and widespread prescribing practices by psychiatrists and family doctors alike, became the number one drug prescribed in the nation. Of course, what eventually followed was the public release of information showing Valium's dangerous addictive nature, followed by its fall from grace as a common prescription.
It is a story one would not expect to see repeated. Prior to the 1960s psychotropic medication was rarely used by the general population, being reserved for those with serious mental disorders. Then, with the rise of illegal drug use in the '60s came the concept of "the happy pill," a drug for the "worried well" that would chase the blues away.
Fast-forward to 1987 when SSRIs arrive on the market in the form of Prozac. Again, the pill is marketed not only for the severely disturbed but for those seeking "mood brighteners." The book Listening to Prozac by Peter Kraemer, MD, becomes a best-seller. Even today, barnesandnoble.com refers to it as "The landmark book about antidepressants and the remaking of the self."
We should not be surprised, then, by a report from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) that, as of 2005, antidepressants are the most highly prescribed drug in the United States. Of the 2.4 billion drug prescriptions written in 2005, 118 million were for antidepressants. Coming in second were 113 million prescriptions for high blood pressure pills.
This increase took place throughout the 1990s and continues to grow. The numbers of adult antidepressant prescriptions tripled between 1988 to 1994 and 1999 to 2000.
In an interview with www.allheadlinenews.com, Dr. Dworkin, a Maryland anesthesiologist and senior fellow at Washington's Hudson Institute, said doctors are essentially prescribing pills to "cure" unhappiness. "Doctors are now medicating unhappiness. Too many people take drugs when they really need to be making changes in their lives."
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It is a story one would not expect to see repeated. Prior to the 1960s psychotropic medication was rarely used by the general population, being reserved for those with serious mental disorders. Then, with the rise of illegal drug use in the '60s came the concept of "the happy pill," a drug for the "worried well" that would chase the blues away.
Fast-forward to 1987 when SSRIs arrive on the market in the form of Prozac. Again, the pill is marketed not only for the severely disturbed but for those seeking "mood brighteners." The book Listening to Prozac by Peter Kraemer, MD, becomes a best-seller. Even today, barnesandnoble.com refers to it as "The landmark book about antidepressants and the remaking of the self."
We should not be surprised, then, by a report from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) that, as of 2005, antidepressants are the most highly prescribed drug in the United States. Of the 2.4 billion drug prescriptions written in 2005, 118 million were for antidepressants. Coming in second were 113 million prescriptions for high blood pressure pills.
This increase took place throughout the 1990s and continues to grow. The numbers of adult antidepressant prescriptions tripled between 1988 to 1994 and 1999 to 2000.
In an interview with www.allheadlinenews.com, Dr. Dworkin, a Maryland anesthesiologist and senior fellow at Washington's Hudson Institute, said doctors are essentially prescribing pills to "cure" unhappiness. "Doctors are now medicating unhappiness. Too many people take drugs when they really need to be making changes in their lives."
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