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The Expanding Mental Disorder Profession

Posted: 2/11/2019

Trigger

Just read Why it’s key to identify preschoolers with anxiety and depression New research shows these kids have mental and physical problems as they grow older

In this article, we learn that young children were subjected to a few carefully selected and rather narrowly crafted and blunt experiments to determine early onset of anxiety and depression. My hunch is that these few experiments are rather crude to make such far reaching judgments! More longitudinal studies and more observation are called for!

A Few Observations

1. There is a huge conflict of interest affecting in particular the mental disorder profession (psychologists, psychiatrists, neurologists etc.), but something similar applies to other medical professions as well
2. The more humans, this profession identifies as having mental disorders, the more money flows their way, the more prestige, fame, and stature they gain, the more such professionals we need and so forth. A nice self feeding, reinforcing process (or a vicious spiral)
3. I would argue since Sigmund Freud, the mental disorder profession has attempted to declare as many members of society to be suffering from some mental disorder as possible
4. Do members of the mental disorder profession exploit their authority as trusted specialists? I would say yes! Lay people are kind of left to rely on their pronouncements
5. If it is to some extent true that a disproportionate number of the members of the mental disorder profession are their own best patients (self treatment), then would these members not feel better if they are not isolated case, but that many humans share their fate?
6. Like ADHD or autism spectrum disorders, anxiety and depression are very much in the eye of the beholder. All these disorders are difficult to specify and measure. Their diagnosis was expanded dramatically over the past decades. More and more children and adults have been diagnosed as having one of these disorders
7. To what extent are e.g. anxiety and depression just part of the normal range of human behavior and mental condition? To my knowledge, there are still no hard facts or diagnostic tests to determine if and when a human being (adolescent or adult) has a mental disorder so severe and clinical that requires treatment

FDA Drug Approval Process Is Deeply Flawed

Posted: 7/10/2018

Vicious Cycle Of Government Intervention Since 1906

If you need an example of an almost ideal/stylized, but unfortunately, all too real vicious cycle of excessive government intervention just take the official history of drug approval by the U.S. Food And Drug Administration.

A History of the FDA and Drug Regulation in the United States

The only positive entry I could find perusing this history was: “1905 The American Medical Association (AMA) begins a voluntary program of drug approval that would last until 1955. In order to advertise in the AMA and related journals, drug companies must show proof that the drug will treat what they claim”. Without the vicious cycle of government interventions, we would probably have a much better system of private, voluntary drug testing and approval.

Thalidomide 1962

First, I am not a doctor nor am I medically trained etc.

The Thalidomide scandal of 1962 and its aftermath is a great example of a highly irrational, overreaction by our elected representatives that was never corrected. Thalidomide apparently has been an important drug. It is still used today.

In the U.S., the Thalidomide disaster was prevented thanks to “FDA inspector Frances Kelsey, who prevented the drug’s approval within the United States despite pressure from the pharmaceutical company and FDA supervisors. Kelsey felt the application for thalidomide contained incomplete and insufficient data on its safety and effectiveness. Among her concerns was the lack of data indicating whether the drug could cross the placenta, which provides nourishment to a developing fetus.” (emphasis added)

So what actually caused the breakdown of safety tests and approval for this drug? The sources below do not really tell.

It was approved as an over the counter drug in 1957 in Germany on the safety claims of the maker (what?). Did any German health authorities then approve this drug? Why was this drug so quickly promoted and sold as a morning sickness treatment for pregnant women (on the claims of the maker that it was safe for pregnant women as well)?

“Between 1958 and 1960 it was introduced in 46 different countries worldwide”. How was that possible that this drug was so fast approved and marketed worldwide?

“Around this time [1960?], Australian obstetrician Dr. William McBride discovered that the drug also alleviated morning sickness. He started recommending this off-label use of the drug to his pregnant patients, setting a worldwide trend. ” Did nobody verify this claim?

Apparently, highly advanced countries like the UK had inadequate government drug approval procedures in place up to 1962. How come?

“Until Thalidomide tragedy, the drugs were being sold by notification to health authority and NO safety, efficacy or quality data were required to be submitted prior marketing.” This was the sorry, troubling state of affairs in Western Europe.

Since The Thalidomide Scandal Drug Efficacy Needs Approval

Before Thalidomide (1962), the FDA drug approval process was only concerned with drug safety. Then, U.S. legislators rushed to pass the so called the Kefauver Harris Amendment (a.k.a. Drug Efficacy Amendment), which required drug efficacy as well. We still suffer from this incredibly misguided and short-sighted decision! This was certainly not the “finest achievement in consumer protection”, rather the opposite or everything else!

How Many Lives Were Shorted!

We will perhaps never find out how many lives were shortened since the the drug efficacy requirement came into effect in the U.S. However, I bet many more people were prematurely killed or harmed then by Thalidomide, because new and safe drugs were not speedily approved based on safety alone.

Sources:

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Food_and_Drug_Administration
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Development_of_analogs_of_thalidomide
3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thalidomide
4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kefauver_Harris_Amendment
5. https://helix.northwestern.edu/article/thalidomide-tragedy-lessons-drug-safety-and-regulation
6. http://www.who.int/medicines/technical_briefing/tbs/Drug_Regulation_History_Present_Future.pdf
7. https://www.omicsonline.org/open-access/historical-overview-of-pharmaceutical-industry-and-drug-regulatory-affairs-2167-7689.S11-002.pdf

The Many Horrors of Dodd-Frank Act

An Act Containing Too Many Horrors

This monstrosity of an Act of the U.S. Congress is so full of horrors that a cabinet would not suffice to describe them.

So I just pick one here from source. This well written article titled “Dodd–Frank Mortgage Rules Unleash Predatory Regulators” (Emphasis added) published by the Heritage Foundation is very recommendable!

It is a great myth that a deregulated financial sector is the cause of the Great Recession or financial crisis of 2008.

“Ability-to-Repay Rule

The cornerstone of the mortgage regulations finalized on January 30 by the CFPB is a lender obligation to “make a reasonable and good faith determination based on verified and documented information that the consumer has a reasonable ability to repay the loan according to its terms.”[20] This ability-to-repay provision is more than a procedural requirement. It is the basis of an expansive new consumer right to sue lenders for miscalculating their financial fitness for a loan.

Under the new regime, a borrower may sue a lender within three years of an alleged violation, such as improperly documenting income or assets, or incorrectly calculating the borrower’s financial obligations. Those who prevail may recover damages equal to the sum of all finance charges and fees paid—potentially tens of thousands of dollars.

A borrower may also assert a violation of the ability-to-repay requirement as a defense against foreclosure—even if the original lender sold the mortgage or assigned it to a servicing firm. (The lawsuit may ensnare an assignee or holder of the mortgage, as well.) If successful, the borrower may recover all mortgage finance charges and fees paid[21] in addition to actual damages; damages in an individual action or class action; and court costs and attorney fees.” (Emphasis added)

Intentional Consequences

Low and modest income People will be denied mortgage loans, because no lender will risk to be sued. Of course, in this scenario federal government will sue lenders on the basis of cooked up charges of discrimination. A beautiful catch 22 situation created by big government.

The costs of mortgage lending will go up paid for by borrowers.

Banks are becoming like utility companies run by big government in Washington

Dodd And Frank

I have said it before, that this law is named after these two jokers is almost poetic justice. Senator Chris Dodd was a special friend of the CEO of Countrywide Financial, Angelo Mozilo. Thus, Senator Dodd preferred not to run again for the U.S. Senate to avoid scrutiny.

Representative Barney Frank was not much better. E.g. his absolute refusal to reign in the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac when there was still time to prevent the meltdown in the residential real estate market speaks for itself.

Obamacare Is Nothing But Nationalization Of Health Care

The Affordable Care Act Is

Full Of Unconstitutional Mandates

I am still surprised that the many other, interdependent mandates of the Patient Protection And Affordable Care Act (ACA) were not more vigorously constitutionally challenged. Thus, it has also escaped my attention how pernicious and unamerican this act is.

Here are the major mandates of the ACA, I am aware of:

1.       The individual mandate to buy health insurance

2.       The employer mandate to provide health insurance

3.       The guaranteed issue mandate aimed at health insurance companies

4.       The community rating mandate also aimed at health insurance companies

For sake of brevity, I will not comment on each of these mandates.

Each one of them is a massive intervention in individual liberty, free enterprise, and freedom of contract. None of these massive interventions is necessary. Only Big Government in collusion with corporatism are able to come up with such a horrific law.

Successive Nationalization Of Health Care In the US

Even today, major parts of US healthcare are already nationalized. Here is a quick rundown:

·         Health care for older Americans (Medicare)

·         Health care for the poor (Medicaid)

·         Health care for veterans

·         Health care for children in need (CHIPS and SCHIP)

Thus, a huge number of Americans have been already covered by government run health care before Obamacare was passed.

There is no doubt in my mind that this law would lead to basically a further nationalization of health care in the US. Private insurance companies would be not much more than an extended federal bureaucracy. Every time things would not develop as envisaged on Capitol Hill more intervention would be imposed (vicious spiral of intervention according to Ludwig von Mises). The penalty tax will surely be raised as soon as too many Americans do not comply and so on.

The New Deal Reloaded

Only seventy years after the New Deal, Democrats forced this continuation of 20^th century all powerful government on its citizens. Who thought that Fascism or Socialism are in the dustbin of history, should quickly wake up. The Statue of Liberty is inconsolably weeping.