4 ms·

This is a very important article, I wish I could upvote it more. The dangers of taking such psychoactive substances regularly, in combination, at such a young a

by Kenji 10y ago

This is a very important article, I wish I could upvote it more. The dangers of taking such psychoactive substances regularly, in combination, at such a young age with a developing brain, are not to be underestimated! Parents need to be better informed. They make these decisions for their children when really, a few decades ago, an iron rule was that medicating mental health problems in children is to be avoided if at all possible.

wu-ikkyu 10y ago
>a few decades ago, an iron rule was that medicating mental health problems in children is to be avoided if at all possible Perhaps it is because Big Pharma wasn't the beast it was now. Treatment for mental illness decades ago was still quite horrid though -- cutting up "patients'" brains (lobotomy) and electrocution being some of the methods used for "treatment".
- DanBC 10y ago
  ECT is still used and it's an important, life-saving, treatment. It's rightly used as a measure of last resort, and there are extra controls to make it much harder to give someone ECT against their will (in England). If it's being misused in the US that's a problem with the fucking awful state of healthcare over there, not with the treatment itself. https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/apr/17/licking-a-battery-what-its-like-to-have-ect-electroconvulsive-therapy?CMP=share_btn_tw https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/apr/17/licking-a-ba... https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/apr/17/what-is-ect-and-how-does-it-work?CMP=share_btn_tw https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/apr/17/what-is-ect-...
  - valuearb 10y ago
    Placebo effect.
    - thatcat 10y ago
      I doubt the physical changes caused by electrodes on your brain are imagined.
      - wu-ikkyu 10y ago
        Placebos can have biological effects
- neuromantik8086 10y ago
  Not to mention that drug testing basically amounted to the following process: 1) An MD at a psychiatric asylum finds a drug somehow (plants, the mob, who knows). 2) Aforementioned MD doses half of the asylum with the drug without their consent. 3) MD publishes paper, gets drug deal and profits. Ah yes... for the halcyon days before IRBs.
AstralStorm 10y ago
Precautionary principle is good, except when it harms people. We need to strike the balance here. The drugs prescribed typically have been pretty well researched for the current lousy state of neuroscience. Including reasonably good long term trials. This is why we know side effects among other things. Few other treatments have good evidence of efficacy, much less safety. Lack of treatment also has a pretty well known side effect profile. Everything is a risk, including doing nothing, medicating, using placebo, being subject to just a specific kind of therapy or combination or not etc.

by Kenji 10y ago

wu-ikkyu 10y ago

>a few decades ago, an iron rule was that medicating mental health problems in children is to be avoided if at all possible Perhaps it is because Big Pharma wasn't the beast it was now. Treatment for mental illness decades ago was still quite horrid though -- cutting up "patients'" brains (lobotomy) and electrocution being some of the methods used for "treatment".

DanBC 10y ago
ECT is still used and it's an important, life-saving, treatment. It's rightly used as a measure of last resort, and there are extra controls to make it much harder to give someone ECT against their will (in England). If it's being misused in the US that's a problem with the fucking awful state of healthcare over there, not with the treatment itself. https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/apr/17/licking-a-battery-what-its-like-to-have-ect-electroconvulsive-therapy?CMP=share_btn_tw https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/apr/17/licking-a-ba... https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/apr/17/what-is-ect-and-how-does-it-work?CMP=share_btn_tw https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/apr/17/what-is-ect-...
- valuearb 10y ago
  Placebo effect.
  - thatcat 10y ago
    I doubt the physical changes caused by electrodes on your brain are imagined.
    - wu-ikkyu 10y ago
      Placebos can have biological effects
neuromantik8086 10y ago
Not to mention that drug testing basically amounted to the following process: 1) An MD at a psychiatric asylum finds a drug somehow (plants, the mob, who knows). 2) Aforementioned MD doses half of the asylum with the drug without their consent. 3) MD publishes paper, gets drug deal and profits. Ah yes... for the halcyon days before IRBs.

AstralStorm 10y ago

Precautionary principle is good, except when it harms people. We need to strike the balance here. The drugs prescribed typically have been pretty well researched for the current lousy state of neuroscience. Including reasonably good long term trials. This is why we know side effects among other things. Few other treatments have good evidence of efficacy, much less safety. Lack of treatment also has a pretty well known side effect profile. Everything is a risk, including doing nothing, medicating, using placebo, being subject to just a specific kind of therapy or combination or not etc.