At 7:06 AM -0400 27/8/09, shag carpet bomb wrote:
>*grin* 'tis true that I find the diagnoses described in the book
>more than a little absurd, since it appeared that the doctors making
>the diagnosis were basing it on what sounded like typical behavior
>that might happen in the wake of a father's death and a their
>mother's decision to work 60 hrs a week. She describes that decision
>as one made out of choice, not the circumstance of needing the
>money. At any rate, you can google it.
I'm afraid to google it. I fear what I might find, I fear that it might really be true that such a diagnosis officially exists.
Of course that would not lower the head-shrinking profession in my esteem, because it can't go any lower. To admit it is possible that ODD might be an official mental illness is to say I have the lowest possible opinion of them.
>Meanwhile, I was reading more, bothered by claims that books like
>Petersen's are anti-technology. I was bothered because the evidence
>she has corralled details a world of pharmaceutical research that
>flips the bird at scientific research. Whatever these people are
>doing when they do research, it's more like marketing -- not
>science. They invest millions in r&d on drugs for heartburn and
>joint pain, modifying only slightly an already existing drug, and
>then engage in what the pharmaceutical marketing industry calls
>"blockbuster marketing" in order to create huge demand for something
>"new" that isn't new at all, but a slight twist on something that
>already exists.
I can but imagine what "blockbuster marketing" of drugs might be like. It is unlawful in Australia to print or broadcast paid advertisements for prescription medication. Though there are many attempts to get around this by inserting promotions in "news" stories.
So I don't know what Baycol is. Is it some kind of psych drug? I've always recommended to anyone I knew was being prescribed such drugs that they should quietly flush them down the toilet.
Bill Bartlett Bracknell Tas