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Then I take it you haven't been paying any attention to the news this past week. Huh? That only reinforces his point. Millions of people are on cholesterol m

Then I take it you haven't been paying any attention to the news this past week. Huh? That only reinforces his point. Millions of people are on cholesterol medication. People have an irrational, negative reaction to medication related to mental health, yet cholesterol medication is socially acceptable. He wasn't discussing efficacy, he was discussing willingness to use medication.

Alex3917 15y ago
"That only reinforces his point. [...] He wasn't discussing efficacy, he was discussing willingness to use medication." Whether or not it reinforces his point is irrelevant if his advice is wrong to begin with.
- georgieporgie 15y ago
  But you posted a link about a single study showing a specific cholesterol drug being ineffective. How does that show his advice to be wrong?
  - Alex3917 15y ago
    "How does that show his advice to be wrong?" It doesn't. But people should be questioning whether the longterm use of HDL-raising drugs is a good idea, because it's highly uncertain whether this is actually the case. The reason why I quoted it is that this common mistake is symptomatic of the same kind of sloppy thinking throughout the rest of the piece.
gfunk911 15y ago
There's a growing body of evidence that statins are actually net harmful to the body. Millions of people are on medications that are helping them, and other millions of people are overmedicated.
- georgieporgie 15y ago
  ...which still has nothing to do with the author's original statements regarding the social bias against medication for mental issues.
cwzwarich 15y ago
Millions of people are on antidepressants too.
- georgieporgie 15y ago
  And one of these groups is more reluctant than the other to use medication for their condition due to social bias. Which was the point.
  - cwzwarich 15y ago
    Is that really true? How does reluctance to take antidepressants compare with reluctance to take medications with similar side effect profiles?
    - brianleb 15y ago
      If you think that the side effect profile is what keeps people from taking about their personal mental health issues with their doctor, you're mistaken. There is a long-standing social stigma against people with mental disorders, and you can find it in our media throughout the past decades. Depression, for example, has been looked at as a weakness, because people that don't have it don't understand it. They look at someone and just tell them to 'snap out of it' or 'exercise more' or 'get more sunlight.' They see depression as a weakness of character, they do not see it as a disease.
      - Poiesis 15y ago
        Same with ADD/ADHD.

Alex3917 15y ago

"That only reinforces his point. [...] He wasn't discussing efficacy, he was discussing willingness to use medication." Whether or not it reinforces his point is irrelevant if his advice is wrong to begin with.

georgieporgie 15y ago
But you posted a link about a single study showing a specific cholesterol drug being ineffective. How does that show his advice to be wrong?
- Alex3917 15y ago
  "How does that show his advice to be wrong?" It doesn't. But people should be questioning whether the longterm use of HDL-raising drugs is a good idea, because it's highly uncertain whether this is actually the case. The reason why I quoted it is that this common mistake is symptomatic of the same kind of sloppy thinking throughout the rest of the piece.

gfunk911 15y ago

There's a growing body of evidence that statins are actually net harmful to the body. Millions of people are on medications that are helping them, and other millions of people are overmedicated.

georgieporgie 15y ago
...which still has nothing to do with the author's original statements regarding the social bias against medication for mental issues.

cwzwarich 15y ago

Millions of people are on antidepressants too.

georgieporgie 15y ago
And one of these groups is more reluctant than the other to use medication for their condition due to social bias. Which was the point.
- cwzwarich 15y ago
  Is that really true? How does reluctance to take antidepressants compare with reluctance to take medications with similar side effect profiles?
  - brianleb 15y ago
    If you think that the side effect profile is what keeps people from taking about their personal mental health issues with their doctor, you're mistaken. There is a long-standing social stigma against people with mental disorders, and you can find it in our media throughout the past decades. Depression, for example, has been looked at as a weakness, because people that don't have it don't understand it. They look at someone and just tell them to 'snap out of it' or 'exercise more' or 'get more sunlight.' They see depression as a weakness of character, they do not see it as a disease.
    - Poiesis 15y ago
      Same with ADD/ADHD.