Letters to the Editor
blunderdog
Published Letters: 509 Editor's Choice: 10
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@ AKA Smith
[Read the article: Girls' suicide rates soar]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I agree that SSRIs shouldn't be prescribed for mildly depressed patients. Mildly depressed patients, fortunately, DON'T KILL THEMSELVES.
I don't see anything in your post that really addresses the point of the "overprescribed to underprescribed" swing over the past few years, which is really what I think is the issue that these statistics are indicating.
My point about the books I mentioned wasn't really to suggest them specifically, but rather to encourage people to take a look at the "pop" literature of the time. It's the pop stuff that has a bigger impact on the society--peer reviewed journal entries for physicians and psychiatrists aren't the cause of overprescription/underprescription of drugs.
As to this, I call bullshit:
"In the book I recommend, the word backlash refers to effects of going suddenly off an SSRI. If you will recall, when these drugs first came out patients were led to believe they could easily stop them because there was no withdrawal."
I won't recall what you suggest, because I was being treated by the drugs at the time, and it was made damn clear to me that withdrawal would be an issue, and that UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES should I stop the taking the drug before consulting again with my psychiatrist.
A big part of all this is the point I mentioned already--there's little "public interest" in mental health issues. If your experience is described accurately, you were getting absolutely TERRIBLE mental health care. I'm sorry about that. That doesn't indict the DRUG you were given, it just invalidates the CARE you received. Would someone rationally suggest that digoxin is a "bad" drug if it were given to someone without a heart-condition and they died? It's madness to think that way.
If you went to a doctor or therapist and said you got depressed in the wintertime, and the care-giver didn't IMMEDIATELY prescribe light-therapy for you in the winter months, the care-giver totally blew the call. That's a problem with our mental health care in this country, not a problem with SSRIs.
PS: Sorry about the misquote in that other thread a few days back--I'd have fixed that, but they cut the replies, giving you the last word. ;)
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Course Change
[Read the article: Baby's first lead]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I was originally going to post something about the classic toys being the best, and the easiest ways to keep kids safe from modern poisons. I think there have been plenty of posts with that advice, so I'll just add one tip and then hijack the topic to talk about what I think really matters.
The tip: buy Amish toys. They're AWESOME. I still have some stuff that I played with over 30 years ago, and it's still in great shape and poison-free. Thank heavens for the Innernetz, right? Anyone can easily find this stuff today, while back in the early '70s, one needed a kinda wonky Mom or Dad to really go looking for it. (Not to say that Amish folks are running many websites.)
Aside from that, I'd mention that it seems to me that the bigger issue is the war on the traditional family that's been orchestrated in the US over the past 30 years or so. It's virtually impossible today for parents to raise kids on a single average income without being dirt-poor. Our current economy virtually forces both parents to work (if they're around), which subtracts pretty dramatically from the time they can spend with their kids.
Plus the fact that exhausted parents are far less likely to be able to "make their own toys" and really take charge of providing for the play of their children... A parent at home with the kids is interested in:
building a sandbox/treehouse/etc
doing arts and crafts with egg-boxes, pipe cleaners, glue
exposing kids to "real" non-play activities, like gardening, simple repairs, etc
building blocks
(Perhaps as much to help them keep their sanity as to provide fun activities for the kids.)
The parent who drags his/her exhausted ass home at the end of the workday at the shop/factory/office just doesn't have the same enthusiasm about such projects. Cheap plastic sandboxes, plastic "arts-and-crafts" kits, magnetic snap-together toysets--they all look pretty appealing to the parent who wants to provide good enjoyment for their kids but is just barely making it through the day.
Signing off, I wave my red and black flag and chant, "Solidarity!"
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Good Discussion of an Irrelevant Topic
[Read the article: It's a girl ... please]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I'm starting to "get" this Broadsheet thing.
The poster discussions are interesting even when the original post is crap.
I read the posting, which is about a claim that "more parents who are attempting to choose the gender of their children are choosing girls."
OK, so there's a claim. The claim's not backed up by actual data. The author of the posting doesn't attempt to make any determination about the accuracy of the claim.
That's incredibly crappy journalism.
But the discussion afterwards is fascinating!
As for why the topic is irrelevant...does anyone believe for the briefest moment that there's ANY risk of Americans choosing the sex of their kids in numbers greater than the number of 'em who are just going to keep gettin' busy the old-fashioned way?
A subject to waste mental bandwidth on.
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What went wrong here?
[Read the article: Girls' suicide rates soar]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]There were posts here before.
Did someone delete/hide them all? Or did someone screw up?