Medication?

Yeah why are the doctors drugging me?! Wait, it's not the doctors, it's my neighbor! sheit.

Deep indeed! I will never trust pig pharma for these well stated reasons.

I come from Scandinavia and over there I never heard of anything like this. I've had a similar experience where
lot of people I met here in America are on all kinds of pills. To help them concentrate, then they cant sleep so they take a sleeping pill, then they get anxiety so they take an anxiety pill... And this is so strange because it seems to me that they are taking pills 24/7 non stop. I feel really bad for them.

Bravo!!!!!!!!!!!! I salute you Filmmaker

I liked how you presented a huge issue within our society and you also gave a solution.

I hope you win.

Amazing!!!!!

Well done. It is about time someone speaks out about this terrible American problem.

This should be in TV

excellent documentary.
current t.v. should pick this up

Some drugs are good, but most drugs are unnecessary and overused. I find it very interesting that 80% of Americans are eating up all these drugs.

I agree with the doctor that more time needs to be spent diagnosing the patient before handing drugs out like candy. This issue should be taken way more seriously.

Also, what about the fact that the Pharmaceutical companies didn't even know half the side effects of the drugs before releasing them to the public.
MMMMM VERY INTERESTING

And plavix, I'm not so concerned with what you say but I am even more concerned with the prices that all of us have to pay for medications to help control things like Allergies and Asthma etc.

I am concerned when people like you want to use
"Blue Smoke and Mirrors" to direct attention AWAY from real dangers...

And that's just what you are trying to do..

Sorry, but I don't buy it!

I'm not saying that drug companies don't make a lot of money and I'm not saying that there may not be overmedication...but before I say that I would want real data to back it up.

All I'm saying is that because of what I have been through in my life with my brother's illness and because of what I've seen as an advocate, that many people are and can be helped.

But many, many fall through the cracks too...

Oh and I've just remembered someone else..Mike Wallace too.

It's so easy though for some, whose ulterior motive is questionable, to naysay the good that does come from Pyschiatry and Psychoactive medications but then common sense, as with everything else, should apply....

Or you might be thrown into the same trash heap as

Tom Cruise the noted actor and Scientologist!:(

And then you are denying Post Partum Depression that Actress Brooke Shields had!

I find it very interesting though that folks are more willing to negate the good that these medications do...
rather than asking ourselves what is it that makes folks so depressed?

And ready to committ suicide?

Former Vice President and Senator Hubert Humphrey once said that you can tell a lot about a country by the way it treats it's least citizens...

How do we treat those who are severely mentally ill?
By closing hospitals or by making them work and work well?

By granting them the "Right to Refuse Treatment"?
Or by making sure they have the "Right to get well"?

And how do we treat the families of the mentally ill?
Like untouchables? Or do we help them as much as we possibly can?

Well, I can tell you from personal experience that we care more about granting these poor souls the "Right to Refuse Treatment" more than caring about the "Right they have to get Well"

And we treat their families like they are creatures you found under a rock.

But, we also don't care much about those souls who are unborn too...

Is it a wonder then that people committ suicide?

Kid not actin' right? Hey, pop him a pill!
Having some anxiety about...something? Hey pop a pill!
Mom threw all your weed away? Hey, pop a pill!
Feeling some phantom pains once every blue moon? Hey pop a pill!

I've never been on any drug. My two cents to this conversation is that humans have depressions as a normal part of our existence. These depressions, or "mellow" moods usually precede life changes, big or small - if one allows it. If one doesn't, it cause for more depression.

Beyond the normal cycle of life, with children depressions can happen for a number of reasons either psychological (lack of love and attention), physiological (poor diet / malnutrition), or both. In America it's probably both.

Sorry, but sugar coated cereal for breakfast, white bread with jelly, cookies and a soda pop for lunch, and fast food pizza delivery (or Mcgarbage) for dinner will make anyone sick.

Nice documentary! The narrator is correct, the medical profession is abusing our trust on them.

excellent and informative pod...really appreciate your research federico.

great comments too

I don't think anyone is disputing the benefits of drugs like lithium for bi-polar disease Patrick, but rather the recent proliferation of drugs for children who are not ill, but more often than not, are suffering from the side effects of what we call food in this country.

I have been on zoloft, paxil,wellbutrin,lexipro,elivil and some i dont remember, 15 yrs worth,tell me patrick, do you have any of these issues or are you just being oppinionated. Have you ever been on kolonopin, wake up buddy, you cant say without experience,speed for weight loss, zanax and valium to sleep, lithium, thorizine, ihave friends that are paranoid scitzophrenic, these things dont work. I am in this life of pharming and it sucks pal....sorry i get festered.

Even worse than one drug is a combination of drugs..
ac cocktail of their drugs or rather a cesspool of them. They are telling patients...errr victims that 10 medications are normal for older people.
My father was on many many of them when he died, My gut tells me he was killed by them not helped.

Most of our violence problems are self made in the USA system for profits. Other countries are afraid to let their children visit us. These Pharm Companies and our enabling government are Science Fiction material.

In what are alot of cases of behaviourial problems in children and adults can be attributed to food allergies. If you think of all the artifical and so called natural additives that are being put into foods and of course the antibiotics and hormones that are put into most animals that are to be consumed by people it really is quite scary. Through process of elmination one can determin If they are allergic to them.Certain products such as any processed foods and certain dyes like red and yellow are praticulary nasty.Also certain chemicals such as chlorine can deplete the amount of vitamins (such as the b vitamins) which are essintial to the brain and keep the chemical balance in check.The normal western diet barely meets the daily requirements to stay healthy as it is so If you add all these facts together It shows why so many people are on these drugs

I took the anti-depresant Paxil after my divorce, I was told they weren't addictive and that the side affects were minimal. I did become adicted and the drugs only served to complicate and magnify my symptoms. I did some research and discovered that the pharacutical company Smith Kline and Beachum, (the manufacturers of Paxil) Are involved in numerous law suits from individuals and the families of individuals who claim that their lives were destroyed by Paxil. Long story short... after a nightmarish withdrawl period I can say from personal experience that vitamins, regular exercise, proper diet and rest go infinately further then anti-depresants.

Plavix....

Generalizations always get you into trouble..

Perhaps you never heard of Actress PATTY DUKE?
Ms Duke (Patty is a stage name) suffered for many years, spent years being treated for "Depression" until her Psychiatrist finally figured out she had extreme highs meaning that she suffered not from depression but from Manic Depression or Bi-Polar. Once she started treatment with Lithium her disease became managable.

You can find out about it by reading "Call Me Anna" and "A Brillant Madness" from Amazon.com

Every American, including you should know her story but you don't. And there are others too, lesser lights and lesser known.

Personally, without going into much detail, I've had the experience of a family member with a severe mental illness which caused me to become an advocate for the mentally ill for many years, hoping that in some way, I could help my distressed family member.

I became a member of the Pennsylvania Alliance for the mentally ill and a National member as well.

I took part, with many others, in the congressionally mandated, Mental Health Association of Pennyslvania's "Hospital Monitoring Project" in the 1980's.

I have seen these medications work.

And I have also seen what can occur when the State, allied with folks that are not completely well and paranoid of being re-committed, work together to prohibit folks from getting well by supporting their
"Right to refuse Treatment" instead of their "Right to Get Well"

Let's just say that for my family member, it ended in death.

Since I was four until I was 16 I was probably on 10 - 20 different medications ranging from ritalin to lithium. When I was 16 I took probably ten a day. It's so tragic how American medical institutions will do anything at the expense of human beings to make a profit.

Actually, many of these medications help quite a number of folks. Sorry but being against medication because someone has a "personal" conviction against medication isn't a good opinion because it's not based on facts!

Wake up people! Stop feeding your kids a diet of white flour, sugar and fat and add healthy foods - this would probably help those 'hyperactive' kids. Replace the colas with water - you're teackhing them their eating habits - do your job!

Great post! Critical subject..the unnecessary drugging of our country for profits.
The web site http://www.askapatient.com has thousands of comments from people like us who are telling us about their side effects...begging us not to take these drugs...These are not reported because the Mainstream Media is sponsored by the Pharmaceutical Companies.

"AND NOW A WORD FROM OUR SPONSORS:
"TAKE YOUR DRUGS PEOPLE THEY ARE GOOD" FOR YOU..A COMBINATION OF TEN ARE NORMAL...DRUGS ARE GOOD...PREVENTION IS BAD"

Search your drugs rating by Drug Type here:
http://www.askapatient.com/viewtopratings.asp

Search for you drug's rating by name:
http://www.askapatient.com/rateyourmedicine.htm

Paxil;
http://www.askapatient.com/viewratings.asp?drug=20031&name=PAXIL&sort=ag...

Zyrtec:
http://www.askapatient.com/viewrating.asp?drug=19835&name=ZYRTEC

need more drugs........??

why not get the children used to the pharmaceutical ladder.once they have all the side effects. then they can give them something to deal with those. what a monopoly children have been for those huge pharmaceutical companies.