At no time in our history have so many Americans and Canadians been prescribed antidepressants. Firstly, one should remember that patients who take the drugs often get them from their regular doctor rather than a so-called mental health professional. Feeling down or unhappy with your life, go see your doctor and get prescribed some form of antidepressant.
According to a 2011 analysis by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Health Statistics, antidepressants were the third-most common drug used by Americans of all ages between 2005 and 2008. They were the most common drug among people aged 18 to 44. According to the same survey, U.S. women are 2-1/2 times more likely than men to take antidepressants, and whites are more likely than blacks to take the drugs. Also, fewer than a third of Americans taking one antidepressant drug and fewer than half of those taking more than one have seen a mental health professional in the past year.
Canadians now rank among the highest users of antidepressants in the world. In 2011, Canadians consumed 86 daily doses of antidepressants for every 1,000 people per day. One of Canada’s top psychiatrists stated that too many Canadians are treating life’s normal spells of misery the way they would handle something they dislike about their bodies: by asking a doctor to make their lives better. Canadians take twice as many antidepressants as Italians do, and more than Germans or French. In 2011, Canada reported the third highest level of consumption of antidepressants among 23 member nations surveyed by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).
What’s even more alarming showed up in a large 2015 American study containing data about the state of children’s mental health in the U.S. The study found that depression in many children appears to start as early as age 11. By the time they hit age 17, the analysis found 13.6 percent of boys and a staggering 36.1 percent of girls have been or are considered depressed. These numbers are significantly higher than previous estimates. As recently as the 1980s, adolescents were considered too developmentally immature to be able to experience such a grown-up affliction. Today, most scientists recognize that children as young as 4 or 5 years of age can be depressed.
Now, don’t get me wrong. Diagnosed clinical depression is a very serious mental illness. Many of us are familiar with persons with such a diagnosis, and who are undergoing treatment which includes antidepressants. In such cases, antidepressants are essential in treating severe, debilitating and life-threatening depression. However, the pills including Prozac and its cousins that were held out to be miraculous when they hit the market in the late 1980s, are increasingly being swallowed by millions of Americans and Canadians every day. However, recent studies suggest that, in cases of mild depression where one is still working and functioning, the drugs often don’t work, or they produce a temporary placebo effect which doesn’t last.
One observer declared that “drugging unhappiness” has far too often become the easy solution, especially one taken by family physicians. Remember the 1960s and 1970s when someone complaining of some form of anxiety was prescribed Valium. With its launch in 1963, diazepam, which was patented in 1959 by Hoffmann-La Roche, became one of the most frequently prescribed medications in the world. In the U.S. it was the best-selling medication between 1968 and 1982, selling more than 2 billion tablets in 1978 alone, prescribed particularly to women. For some its continuing use became addictive. In addition, besides dependence, long-term use can result in tolerance and withdrawal symptoms on dose reduction. Abrupt stopping after long-term use can be potentially dangerous. For these reasons, the drugs became less prescribed in later years.
Today, our societies must begin to question why people believe that they require medication to deal with their everyday lives and a state of so-called unhappiness. What’s even more worrisome is the fact that more and more children are being diagnosed with some form of depression at an ever younger age! Given these facts, one cannot but conclude that something is terribly wrong with our general state of mental health and with our health care systems.
FROLITICKS 