Posted by bob on April 20, 2000, at 1:22:14
In reply to Re: THE MIDDLE AGES/REMOVING THE DEMONS, posted by boB on April 19, 2000, at 19:54:30
> For my part, I consider the brand of psychiatry that says mental disease is strictly organic and cannot be treated, either immediately or systematically, with behavioural and linquistic training, to be criminal. I reach that conclusion because such a view seems constructed to preserve for itself a pool of diseased people to which they can sell medications. Many of the scholars who teach this view no doubt hold stock in the companies that profit from drug sales. They are certainly dependant on pharmaceutical companies for research funding, and the research is not aimed at utlimately irradicating the disease from society.
gee, that's a pretty broad generalization to make about the stock thing -- though I'd bet that one could find statistics to support it (just look for where TIAA/CREF puts its mutual fund money, then eliminate the middle link between academic institutions -- TIAA/CREF -- pharmaceuticals).
[The other problem, tho, is that most psychopharms are paid for by HMOs and Insurance companies, not the "diseased" people themselves. Sure, a chunk of my salary goes towards my coverage, but there are a LOT of "healthy" people out there paying for my meds. On the other hand, it's ME who is footing most of the bill for my talk therapy. Your line of logic would suggest its the TALK therapists who are supporting a model of "mental illness" that keeps them in business ... it sure ain't Oxford, the Empire Plan (BC/BS ... yeah, right, BS indeed!), or "Value Options" (whoever the hell they are, the stingy b*st*rds) who are keeping the lights on at my therapist's apartment.]
you get the same effect, in the end, from properly "scientific" work anyway, since Science is still "run" by a collective mindset that strives for isolation of variables instead of coming to grips with how they interact. Worse yet, that's the attitude for potential variables within the same "category" of measurable effects -- asking Science to deal with social and/or economic and/or political and/or cultural issues ON TOP OF neurochemical issues is asking more from Science than it can grasp at once.
besides, if you're a pharmaceuticals researcher already, you've got your stock options (perhaps) no matter what and little control over the company's bottom line since the finance department will do the calculus to turn pills into profits.On the other hand, if you're at a research university, you DEFINITELY have a different set of demons to deal with ... tenure review panels, journal review boards, deans and college presidents who hand out real estate and slave labor (grad students/post-docs) on campus based on your funding level. I lived with some organic chem grad students while I was studying psychology ... most of their funding, perhaps across the department from what I understood, was based on the flimsiest claims that the compound they were investigating, whatever it was, had "anti-AIDS" properties. With the way that funding for basic research (with non-military applications) has dried up over the last 20 years, you gotta go where the money is.
That is, unless you want to spend the rest of your tenured life teaching "Chemistry for Poets" and using an antiquated fume hood in the fourth sub-basement of the OLD chemistry building as your office/research space.
cheers,
bob
PS to Lunatic-- if you want to see the mentally ill tossed out of one state-run facility (hospitals) to land in/on another state-run facility (the streets), come visit New York City. Rudy Giuliani's done a wonderful job of it during his tenure here (just think of what he can do for the REST of the country as a senator! My apologies if that sets of any panic attacks). Actually, Giuliani has moved a good number of these folk to yet another state-run facility (Riker's Island) as the homeless are denied medication and, if that doesn't push some over the edge into committing some punishable offense, arresting them for "Quality of Life" crimes.
poster:bob
thread:30376
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20000411/msgs/30659.html