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Wow, this is a depressing read. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2022-03-11/cerebral-app-over-prescribed-adhd-meds-ex-employees-say https://www.bloomber

Wow, this is a depressing read. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2022-03-11/cerebral-app-over-prescribed-adhd-meds-ex-employees-say https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2022-03-11/cerebral-... https://archive.ph/aKcMK https://archive.ph/aKcMK

chizhik-pyzhik 5y ago
Cerebral (read: Uber for drugs)
- sebmellen 5y ago
  SoftBank is a huge Uber investor and also threw $300 million into their latest round.
  - bigDinosaur 5y ago
    Asking for a friend, but is the secret to receiving Softbank capital just to be either a scam or a highly misleading business? I still can't work out why they ever invested so much in WeWork.
    - hef19898 5y ago
      At the very least SoftBank money is a good indicator of something fishy. If get an answer so, let me know. A friend of could use some SoftBank millions as well!
    - thow-58d4e8b 5y ago
      This is the best write-up of the Softbank business model: https://www.readmargins.com/p/softbank-robinhood-and-a-margins?s=r https://www.readmargins.com/p/softbank-robinhood-and-a-margi... In short, the background of Softbank founders is in plumbing of the financial system. They intentionally bid up dubious companies into obviously unsustainable valuations, with the aim to make them highly illiquid. Faced with illiquid stocks, many of the assumptions behind trading models break down, and obscurities of the financial plumbing come to fore - the water Softbank knows really well. Eventually, index funds include a portion of the bid-up companies on their balance sheets, FOMO investors roll in - that's when Softbank unloads their bags
      - Apocryphon 5y ago
        Is this like a- preemptive vulture fund?
sebmellen 5y ago
That article is incredibly damning. The "TikTok-ification" of medicine is pretty frightening as well. > One ADHD content creator, Reece Palamar, has posted about a half-dozen Cerebral-related videos to his almost 600,000 TikTok followers. (https://www.tiktok.com/@reeceisrandom?lang=en https://www.tiktok.com/@reeceisrandom?lang=en) > In [another ad] a woman is asked: “Yo, bro, who got you smiling like that?” She then begins dancing with a box of prescription pills. (https://www.tiktok.com/@samanthaswanson1?lang=en https://www.tiktok.com/@samanthaswanson1?lang=en) Do either of these creators look like they're qualified to provide medical advice? They're getting millions of views to dance around and convince people that they have ADHD and need amphetamines. Why? Because they have trouble keeping their lives organized in an age of smartphones and constant media bombardment. But doesn't everyone? > Some ads suggest that symptoms as common as difficulty with multitasking, focusing, and stress, as well as poor planning, procrastination, and disorganization can all be symptoms of ADHD. (They can also, as one former Cerebral nurse says, “simply be attributed to being an adult in 2022.”) While this article is particular to Cerebral, they are not the only offenders. There is a whole cottage industry around convincing people with mild organizational problems that they have ADHD, even in "traditional" psychiatry. It's happened to family members and friends of mine. I was diagnosed with ADHD and went through an Adderall -> Vyvanse -> Ritalin pipeline. I eventually settled on using half of the smallest available dose of Ritalin (5mg/2 = 2.5mg) and that is plenty for me. It's scary how many people I know who are dependent on regular doses of 30+mg of amphetamines.
- PragmaticPulp 5y ago
  > It's scary how many people I know who are dependent on regular doses of 30+mg of amphetamines. I’m actually very worried about where this is heading. We had a cohort of mentees come through a mentorship program I help with who ended up recommending Cerebral to each other and getting prescriptions together. I didn’t catch on until later when they started talking about regrets, but I was stunned at how easily they were prescribed excessive doses in exchange for cash payments. Once the initial euphoria of a medically unnecessary or otherwise excessive amphetamine prescription wears off (and it will), some people end up in a rather unhealthy place. There is no free lunch.
- shp0ngle 5y ago
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

chizhik-pyzhik 5y ago

Cerebral (read: Uber for drugs)

sebmellen 5y ago
SoftBank is a huge Uber investor and also threw $300 million into their latest round.
- bigDinosaur 5y ago
  Asking for a friend, but is the secret to receiving Softbank capital just to be either a scam or a highly misleading business? I still can't work out why they ever invested so much in WeWork.
  - hef19898 5y ago
    At the very least SoftBank money is a good indicator of something fishy. If get an answer so, let me know. A friend of could use some SoftBank millions as well!
  - thow-58d4e8b 5y ago
    This is the best write-up of the Softbank business model: https://www.readmargins.com/p/softbank-robinhood-and-a-margins?s=r https://www.readmargins.com/p/softbank-robinhood-and-a-margi... In short, the background of Softbank founders is in plumbing of the financial system. They intentionally bid up dubious companies into obviously unsustainable valuations, with the aim to make them highly illiquid. Faced with illiquid stocks, many of the assumptions behind trading models break down, and obscurities of the financial plumbing come to fore - the water Softbank knows really well. Eventually, index funds include a portion of the bid-up companies on their balance sheets, FOMO investors roll in - that's when Softbank unloads their bags
    - Apocryphon 5y ago
      Is this like a- preemptive vulture fund?

sebmellen 5y ago

That article is incredibly damning. The "TikTok-ification" of medicine is pretty frightening as well. > One ADHD content creator, Reece Palamar, has posted about a half-dozen Cerebral-related videos to his almost 600,000 TikTok followers. (https://www.tiktok.com/@reeceisrandom?lang=en https://www.tiktok.com/@reeceisrandom?lang=en) > In [another ad] a woman is asked: “Yo, bro, who got you smiling like that?” She then begins dancing with a box of prescription pills. (https://www.tiktok.com/@samanthaswanson1?lang=en https://www.tiktok.com/@samanthaswanson1?lang=en) Do either of these creators look like they're qualified to provide medical advice? They're getting millions of views to dance around and convince people that they have ADHD and need amphetamines. Why? Because they have trouble keeping their lives organized in an age of smartphones and constant media bombardment. But doesn't everyone? > Some ads suggest that symptoms as common as difficulty with multitasking, focusing, and stress, as well as poor planning, procrastination, and disorganization can all be symptoms of ADHD. (They can also, as one former Cerebral nurse says, “simply be attributed to being an adult in 2022.”) While this article is particular to Cerebral, they are not the only offenders. There is a whole cottage industry around convincing people with mild organizational problems that they have ADHD, even in "traditional" psychiatry. It's happened to family members and friends of mine. I was diagnosed with ADHD and went through an Adderall -> Vyvanse -> Ritalin pipeline. I eventually settled on using half of the smallest available dose of Ritalin (5mg/2 = 2.5mg) and that is plenty for me. It's scary how many people I know who are dependent on regular doses of 30+mg of amphetamines.

PragmaticPulp 5y ago
> It's scary how many people I know who are dependent on regular doses of 30+mg of amphetamines. I’m actually very worried about where this is heading. We had a cohort of mentees come through a mentorship program I help with who ended up recommending Cerebral to each other and getting prescriptions together. I didn’t catch on until later when they started talking about regrets, but I was stunned at how easily they were prescribed excessive doses in exchange for cash payments. Once the initial euphoria of a medically unnecessary or otherwise excessive amphetamine prescription wears off (and it will), some people end up in a rather unhealthy place. There is no free lunch.
shp0ngle 5y ago

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]