Psych Patients Will Never Get Proper Care as Long as There is a Profit Motive

And for some reason, this is an issue a lot of people don’t want to talk about. I don’t know why. I don’t know why people so badly want to derail a conversation about what changes need to be made to ensure proper treatment care, by talking about their own positive experiences with therapy.

It happens every single time I bring this up.

Me: ‘70% of the doctors on the board of the DSM 4 received money directly from pharmaceutical companies. One of the doctors receiving money from Risperdal-a medication approved by the FDA to treat bipolar in kids-lobbied to expand the diagnostic parameters for bipolar and “educated” his fellow doctors on how to spot bipolar. As a result, there was an epidemic of children misdiagnosed with bipolar between the late 90s and 2005. This is just one example of how pharma influences doctor education, research, and the standards of patient care at every level.’

Well-meaning people with weird blinders on: ‘But therapy was so helpful to ME and my family members! You can’t say it never helps anyone!’

Me: ‘I’m not….I never once said that….I’m talking about a conflict of interest and a profit motive that compromises patient care and leads to severe human rights violations. It’s weird as hell that you’re so resistant to talking about this.’

Some people I really like and respect have done this. I’m just having a hard time understanding why otherwise smart and kind people don’t care about this issue.

You can feel positively about therapy and also want to end the conflicts of interest. Why wouldn’t you want to? Why on earth would you want corporations to have MOST of the say in patient treatment?

This is an issue that every mental health ally needs to be talking about.

I’d love to form a group of like-minded people who are passionate about this and want to spread awareness about this issue. I’m not gonna lie: I don’t have high hopes for interest in this. The apathy is real.

But if you care about ending the financial conflicts of interest between pharma and doctors: here is a discord server https://discord.gg/rd73mm9m