Tribune. Most of the dysfunctions of the drug market have been well identified over the pharmaceutical scandals. They are largely due to a lack of access to data from clinical trials conducted by laboratories.
When the damage suffered by patients is of an organic nature – fetal malformations (thalidomide, Depakine), valvulopathies (Mediator), vascular accidents (Vioxx, glitazones), bladder cancer (glitazones) – recognition of imputability may require several decades. When organic degradation is slow, such as that of the kidney by anti-inflammatories, it takes even longer to obtain the mere mention of risk.
Unstable and unknown nosography
When it comes to addictions, as with opiates and benzodiazepines, the products are kept on the market despite the identification of the problem, because their withdrawal poses clinically intractable problems. The damage caused by these two drug classes is now a serious public health problem.
An additional degree of complexity arises when there is a similarity between the adverse effects and the symptoms that motivated the prescription. To affirm that a drug prescribed for mood disorders causes behavioral disorders, or that a drug prescribed for insomnia or depression worsens these in the long term, the doctor can rely only on his own judgment.
This is why drugs for psychiatric disorders are the preferred field of market manipulation and the recurring headache for clinicians who observe their inefficiency and damage.
In addition to accumulating all these defects, antidepressants of the SSRI type (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor) and benzodiazepines are prescribed beyond all reason, for depressions and anxiety disorders whose nosography [classification des maladies] is unstable and unrecognized by most prescribers. Major depression (formerly known as melancholia) represents less than 10% of diagnoses, while more than 90% of prescriptions relate to reaction forms whose healing is spontaneous or responds well to behavioral therapies.
Aggravation and addiction
The prescription of these psychotropics for the vicissitudes of life is an aggravating factor leading to an often irreversible addiction. Even when withdrawal is possible, patients find themselves in a clinical condition that is often more serious than that which motivated the initial prescription, which is interpreted as proof of the usefulness of the treatment. As if feeling worse following quitting smoking was proof of its health benefits!
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