There’s some interesting reading at Mercola.com posted April 6, 2011. Dr. Mercola states that depression is not an illness! - and that this bogus illness was created by psychiatrists and drug companies in order to sell drugs! No surprises there for regular readers of this site. Unfortunately Dr. Mercola doesn’t take the logic far enough. Although he rightly debunks depression as an illness, he clings to the notion that other “mental illnesses” are bona fide. ...

Dr. Val Jones has this week’s Grand Rounds up at Better Health. You can find reading material here for the entire week, as Dr. Jones has included more than forty posts. Some are inspirational, like Dr. Ed Pullen’s Carpe Diem; others cover material that is hard to believe, as in Roy’s post Doctors to Go to Jail for Asking Patients about Guns in the Home. Whatever your fields of interest, there will something for you. Take a look. ...

There’s an interesting article on the New York Times website: Talk Doesn’t Pay, So Psychiatry Turns Instead to Drug Therapy (March 5, 2011). The essence of the article is that psychiatrists no longer engage in talk therapy to any great extent, but instead prescribe behavior-altering drugs. What’s interesting about this is that the author, Gardiner Harris, seems almost surprised at this “discovery.” In fact, the change from talk to pills occurred decades ago – during the 70’s I would say, and was more or less complete by 1980. ...

Grand Rounds is up at Diabetes Mine. You will find the usual wide range of topics, so stop by and have a read.

I am writing this post as a response to a comment posted by medical blog in my previous post, More on So-called Bipolar Disorder. In the summer of 2001 I became very ill. The symptoms were exhaustion and mild nosebleeds. I went to three different practitioners, but they all were dismissive of my concerns, assured me that I was in good health, and sent me on my way. On August 8th of that year I was admitted to the hospital in Greeley, Colorado with complete kidney failure. The nephrologist at the hospital gave me the diagnosis that had eluded the earlier doctors: Wegener’s Granulomatosis - a rare autoimmune disease that attacks lungs, kidneys, and airways. I have been on dialysis every since. ...

A few days ago, I received the following email: Hi Phil, I would like to hear from you how we can survive the bipolar disorder, as I understand bipolar is a very serious disease. Regards, [Name] The question seems important enough to warrant a more public response, though I have omitted the writer’s name to safeguard confidentiality. So here’s my reply. Firstly, the condition known as “bipolar disorder” is emphatically NOT a disease. Rather, it is a loose cluster of behaviors which psychiatrists – in concert with the pharmaceutical companies – have called an illness with the purpose of selling drugs. ...

DrRich has Grand Rounds up at The Covert Rationing Blog. He has obviously put a lot of work into hosting this week’s rounds, with explanatory paragraphs concerning each entry. The reader is easily able to discern what is covered in each submitted post, so stop by to have a look, and read further.

In his book Anatomy of an Epidemic, Robert Whitaker drew attention to the increasing numbers on the Social Security disability rolls due to so-called mental illness. Robert raises the possibility that the drugs routinely used to “treat” depression may be contributing to the problem. In a recent post, he discusses this matter further. I think the reasons for the increase in the disability rolls are as follows: People who seek psychiatric help are being told routinely that they have brain abnormalities and that they need to take drugs for the rest of their lives –“just like diabetics.” This promotes a disability mindset which often translates into a disability application. 2. Applicants for disability based on the so-called mental illnesses are screened by either a psychiatrist or a psychologist. Both of these professional groups are immersed and heavily invested in the conceptualization of ordinary living problems as illnesses, and tend to accept uncritically the applicants’ claims that they “just can’t do anything.” ...

Grand Rounds is up at Gruntdoc. As usual, Dr. Roberts presents a very user-friendly rounds, simple to follow, easy to use. Close to thirty posts, with a wide range of subjects. Stop by and have a look.

Christopher Lane, author of Shyness has written an interesting post. The gist of the matter is as follows. There’s a class of drugs known as benzodiazepines (benzos for short) that are promoted by Pharma and prescribed by psychiatrists to “treat” anxiety. (As if anxiety were an illness!) See my post on the So-called Anxiety Disorders. Benzos include such household names as Valium, Librium, Ativan, Xanax, etc.. When introduced in the 1960’s, these drugs were widely touted as “safe” tranquilizers. Readers may remember Valium as “mother’s little helper,” so called because it was marketed to millions of harried housewives as they struggled to adapt to an increasingly complex and multi-faceted lifestyle. ...