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i guess the devil's advocate position on this one is that there are lots of government jobs that you supposedly are not 'fit' for if you've ever had to rely on psych meds before.
i also recall reading about a story recently where the VA is denying vets from iraq disability for 'PSTD' under the guise that they had pre-existing psychological problems and it's not the army's/marine corp's fault that you got fucked up in iraq, because you already had a screw loose due to that two week span doctors put you on prozac your freshman year of high school when you're parents were concerned with how you were sleeping in more than normal. so, no to the lifetime paycheck for your troubles.
and i'd have to imagine their using that database for coming to those conclusions.
another thing is, social security disability will look back on your record of med usage when trying to determine if you are, in essence, 'untreatable' to the extent that you have tried medication and it doesn't work for you well enough to get you back to normal 'working condition'.... whatever that means.
i suppose if the SS admin. has a record of someone taking tons of different medications, and they have doctor testimony saying someone isn't responding to treatment, it might be a little easier to corroborate then.
which, i don't know. i would assume in most cases talking to doctors and going through hard-copies of people's records would be sufficient.
that said, i don't endorse it at all, and i think it's an extremely cheap way to try to assess someone's psychological makeup.
how many people have been healthy all their lives and have had something happen to them (spouse/close one passing away or the like) and had to rely on anti-depressants for a while to get through it?
it's just such a slippery slope, and obviously that's where reasonable people object.
