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Wedge
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24 Dec 2009, 7:21 pm

CockneyRebel wrote:
Asperger's is not made-up, nor is it a disease. If Asperger's was a disease, I would have died from it, a long time, ago. It's a disorder and not a disease.


I like the term disorder as in developmental disorder because it is a different way that the brain develops so the term is correct... I also like the term disability as AS hinders the development of some abilities... However I think that disease is offensive because it sounds like we are inferior just because of the way we are....



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24 Dec 2009, 7:27 pm

Made down topic

For the record, my youngest does have ADD and her meds do help her focus while her prefrontal cortex is developing, albeit a little slower than the rest of her.


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24 Dec 2009, 7:32 pm

My impression is that most people who denies the existence of AS (or, at least, think that it is overdiagnoses) don't realy denies that there are persons with the symptoms associated with AS - what they denie is that AS is an entitie distinct from the normal variation of personality.

And, if we think a bit, what is the big difference between "AS does not exist - it is a made-up disease" and "AS is not a disease nor a disability, it is a difference" (the second being an opinion much popular where at WP)?



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24 Dec 2009, 7:51 pm

Scroll all the way to the bottom of the page, and look at what it says right below "privacy policy"
Image


Wedge wrote:
Transplantman wrote:
EDIT: Additionally, do you believe that for the most part doctors will prescribe you drugs even if it is unnecessary for their own benefit? Can they be trusted?

In my country if a doctor earns money for the drugs he prescribes he would lose his lincese and probably go to jail. And we are just a "developing" country. Really, where do you people live that the state of things is so chaotic??? 8O 8O

It's not chaotic, it's extremely organized.. by the pharmaceutical companies.
I don't think it's usually so much that the doctors are paid to prescribe certain drugs, as the crazy advertising.. doctors spend a rather large amount of their time with drug reps, hearing all about the "wonders" of the newest drugs that have barely been tested. A few companies have gotten huge fines recently (Pfizer was fined 2.3 billion.. I think there was another company that got fined too.) for actively encouraging doctors to use their drugs for things that they're not approved for. They give them stuff, doctors' offices are covered in stuff from drug companies, not just the clipboards and pens and soap and everything, but drug reps bring them food and pay for "conferences" that are really vacations.. mostly stuff like that, I think.
Some doctors are paid to promote drugs.. and there have been some scandals with some researchers "lending" their names to "academic" papers written by drug companies..



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24 Dec 2009, 7:54 pm

I'm not diseased, so don't drug me or cure me.


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Wedge
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25 Dec 2009, 8:52 am

Maggiedoll wrote:
Scroll all the way to the bottom of the page, and look at what it says right below "privacy policy"
Image


Wedge wrote:
Transplantman wrote:
EDIT: Additionally, do you believe that for the most part doctors will prescribe you drugs even if it is unnecessary for their own benefit? Can they be trusted?

In my country if a doctor earns money for the drugs he prescribes he would lose his lincese and probably go to jail. And we are just a "developing" country. Really, where do you people live that the state of things is so chaotic??? 8O 8O

It's not chaotic, it's extremely organized.. by the pharmaceutical companies.
I don't think it's usually so much that the doctors are paid to prescribe certain drugs, as the crazy advertising.. doctors spend a rather large amount of their time with drug reps, hearing all about the "wonders" of the newest drugs that have barely been tested. A few companies have gotten huge fines recently (Pfizer was fined 2.3 billion.. I think there was another company that got fined too.) for actively encouraging doctors to use their drugs for things that they're not approved for. They give them stuff, doctors' offices are covered in stuff from drug companies, not just the clipboards and pens and soap and everything, but drug reps bring them food and pay for "conferences" that are really vacations.. mostly stuff like that, I think.
Some doctors are paid to promote drugs.. and there have been some scandals with some researchers "lending" their names to "academic" papers written by drug companies..


Ok, I don't know much about the situation in US. I heard the argument about academic research being dictated by drug companies. I think that prescribing anti-depressives to children is wrong unless it is a extreme case (even more considering that the majority of the depression cases are in people over 30 years old). I will support a different view from yours focusing on what I know from depression and anti-depressives. I don't know too much about other conditions or meds to state an opinion.

I hear a lot of people saying nowdays that psychiatrists are "dumping prescription drugs" on patients with depression and that is due to the influence of the big pharmaceutical companies that are trying to push us their products on us. Along with that it is said that there is a kind of an upsurge in the use of meds in conditions that are dubious and could be treated otherwise. Really, I don't think that is true regarding depression... I will show some statistics from World Health Organization (WHO) the health authority within the United Nations system that is clearly not funded by pharmaceuticals!

According to a nationally representative survey cited by WHO the lifetime prevalence for major depression in the United States was 16.2% and of that only 21.7% of respondents with major depression was receiving adequate treatment (that is treatment with a psychitriatist). So, far less than half people suffering from depression are given meds. Not overmedicating but undermedicating...

That being said depression is also a serious illness responsible for most of the suicidal rates that also causes significant burden on national economies (also human suffering). For eg, 57.5 million working days were lost as a result of depression and anxiety in 1987 and 2.5% of the working population reported having depression that limited the work they could. Also according to WHO depression is the 4th leading contributor to the global burden of disease (DALYs) in 2000. DALYs is the sum of years of potential life lost due to premature mortality and the years of productive life lost due to disability. Also, WHO data suggest that in 1990 unipolar major depression was already a leading cause of disability worldwide. Moreover, depression costs the US economy more than US$ 43 billion annually in medical treatment and lost productivity.

Also the report says: "At the same time, there is substantial under-utilization of known
efficacious treatments.". Look at the chart below for that:

Image

So, 2,5-4% of people suffering from major depression is compliant after 3 months of treatment. Only a tiny percentage.

Furthermore, the report advices for a mix of psychiatric treatment and psychotherapy for the treatment of depression and claims that "...a large number of studies have demonstrated that antidepressant drugs are effective in treating acute depressive episodes in adults.".

Another thing that some people don't know... Psychiatrists claim that while mild and moderate depression can be treated without the use of anti-depressants they usually claim that severe episodes cannot. Quoting WHO: "...the National Institute of Mental Health Treatment of Depression Collaborative Research Program concluded that CBT alone is not an effective treatment for severely depressed out-patients." CBT meaning Cognitive Behaviorial Therapy. In addition "At present, evidence suggests that treatment with psychotherapeutic approaches alone in patients suffering from severe major depression is insufficient: a meta-analysis from six controlled studies revealed that psychotherapy alone was effective in milder depression, whereas a highly significant advantage in treating patients suffering from more severe recurrent depressions was obtained through a combination of pharmacological and psychotherapeutic interventions.".

The report doesn't says that but something that I am really for are the development of new drugs for depression Maggiedoll. Of course controlled trials are necessary and I am aware that some of the tests are conducted by the pharmaceutical companies themselves and that they throw away the bad results...

However, new drugs are necessary (I'm thinking of anti-depressants) on two grounds. First, newer drugs are more effective on a larger number of people (statistically). Second newer drugs offer less side effects and if they do they happen on fewer people (statistically).

Of course the existence of anti-depressives is not a resaon to discharge psychotherapy and cognitive therapy!

Another book that I read after stating that depression is a major public health issue (due to lost work hours, etc...) claims that many depressed patients go unreconized and untreated because they ignore what depression is and also fear the stigma of mental illness. Also the same argument, there is effective treatment but some people don't seek it.


Sources:
"What are the most effective diagnostic and therapeutic strategies for the management of depression in specialist care?" World Health Organization Europe, May 2005

"An Atlas of Depression" The Enciclopedia of Visual Medicine Series, David S. Baldwin; Jon Birtwistle, The Pathenon Publishing Group



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25 Dec 2009, 12:23 pm

Transplantman wrote:
Ok aspies, how do you feel about the general folk wisdom that disorders like ADD are for the most part made up by money-hungry doctors and drug manufacturers and perpetuated by lazy parents who would rather slap a disease label on their child's youthful behaviour than be a good parent, and that this thinking permeates into ASD's as well? (ie. that South Park episode)


Oh, so that's why ASDs were invented.....and there I was thinking it was a commie plot to give the oppressed masses an excuse to get out of being exploited :roll: . Seriously, it looks like Hans Asperger was telling the truth when he said he'd noticed all those "little professors" who looked like they were autistic apart from having such high IQs. I really don't see what motive he would have had for making it up.

I can see why people might be skeptical though. AS is harder to prove than a bad back.....particular because we can probably do anything a neurotypical can do, at least for a little while, if we have enough energy and the time and motivation to prepare. And of course employers and benefits officials aren't going to like it - it's the expense.

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Bonus points: who wants to push Jenny McCarthy down a flight of stairs?

No, she (or her lawyers and devotees) would milk the situation for everything it had got. May I suggest pelting her with eggs? The punishment is a lot less and it won't create a martyr.

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Additionally, do you believe that for the most part doctors will prescribe you drugs even if it is unnecessary for their own benefit? Can they be trusted?

Pretty much, yes they do that. My own GP has already said that all the help I can expect is tranquillisers and antidepressants. I don't know how the economic pressure works but there's enough evidence out there to show that there's a bias towards dishing out pills whether they help o harm the patient. I'd like to see the details of how their income and other job prospects relate to the number of tablets they prescribe....perhaps they like pills because it looks like they're doing their job, as long as you don't look very carefully - which is exactly the level of diligence I'd expect from a performance-related pay review. I'd always consider carefully any suggestion that I should take a tablet, but I'd never take anything on the advice of just a doctor.



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25 Dec 2009, 2:29 pm

Ok folks, ease up on the "disease" thing and the "flight of stairs". Sometimes to get a discussion going, you have to be a little polemic. I have actually read someone's post online saying "Asperger's is a made up farking disease." And while literally pushing Jenny down the stairs would not be ideal for the cause, she and Oprah need to be publicly ridiculed and scandalized if and when the public finally wises up to the misinformation and real harm they have caused.



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26 Dec 2009, 3:20 am

It's like calories. Where it's not an actual thing but it describes something.
And that and the fact theyre both words. As aspergers is a word that describes a set of symptoms.

And yes I would like to push Jenny Mccarthy down a flight of stairs, not because of what she's using her son for but because of the freaking Santa Baby movies. They're so god awfully annoying.


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26 Dec 2009, 6:27 am

I just looked up Jenny McCarthy on wikipedia. How chelation therapy would have any effect on the wiring of the brain is beyond me. That it could have any effect on autism is questionable at best.

I wish people would research a topic before running their mouth off.



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26 Dec 2009, 10:06 am

Spokane_Girl wrote:
Transplantman wrote:
Ok aspies, how do you feel about the general folk wisdom that disorders like ADD are for the most part made up by money-hungry doctors and drug manufacturers and perpetuated by lazy parents who would rather slap a disease label on their child's youthful behaviour than be a good parent, and that this thinking permeates into ASD's as well? (ie. that South Park episode)
Bonus points: who wants to push Jenny McCarthy down a flight of stairs?

EDIT: Additionally, do you believe that for the most part doctors will prescribe you drugs even if it is unnecessary for their own benefit? Can they be trusted?



I hate it when I see it. It annoys me. Sometimes it makes me mad. I just stay away from those people because no chance will they understand me and they might assume I am being this way on purpose and I can just stop it if we chatted online.
They just don't fully understand it and maybe if they met a real aspie, they would see it's real but me, I am too mild so they won't really learn from me would they? I might just come off as normal with a few flaws that can easily be fixed or have a few things I have difficulty with that isn't really big such as taking things literal or not reading people.

Sounds like you described my ex-gf there. Which is strange, since she's a pharmacist.



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26 Dec 2009, 10:46 am

Transplantman wrote:
Ok aspies, how do you feel about the general folk wisdom that disorders like ADD are for the most part made up by money-hungry doctors and drug manufacturers and perpetuated by lazy parents who would rather slap a disease label on their child's youthful behaviour than be a good parent, and that this thinking permeates into ASD's as well? (ie. that South Park episode)

I believe that ADD is real, but I also think what you describe above happens A LOT of the time.

Quote:
Bonus points: who wants to push Jenny McCarthy down a flight of stairs?

Ooh, ooh, pick me!!

Quote:
EDIT: Additionally, do you believe that for the most part doctors will prescribe you drugs even if it is unnecessary for their own benefit? Can they be trusted?

Of course they do - everyone in the U.S. knows they get kickbacks from the pharmaceutical companies. I've had several doctors be frankly honest about it. It's not surprise that everyone is in it for the money.


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26 Dec 2009, 10:58 am

Actually when I think of over-prescribed/misused drugs, I don't generally think of antidepressants so much as antipsychotics used in populations without psychotic disorders. At this point, most antidepressants are generic, so they don't want those prescribed, they want to pretend that antipsychotics are antidepressants, and prescribe those instead. The side effects are much worse and they're very very rarely useful in treating depression anyway.
If the undermedicating problem is that depressed people just aren't seeing psychiatrists, I'm not sure how to relate that to prescribing practices.. It's an issue of getting in to see one at all, not a problem of not being prescribed medication when they do.
I'm for the development of new medications too.. if it's done properly. If the real results are covered up and drugs are pushed through FDA approval without proving actual effectiveness and known side effects are lied about (internal company documents have recently proven that AstraZeneca knew that Seroquel caused massive weight gain.. they just didn't admit it,) then the development is a moot point. Developing effective medications with fewer side effects is a good thing. Pushing the approval of less effective medications with nasty side effects is not a good thing.
That could be part of the "compliance" problem. Non-compliance generally means that the person stopped taking the medication that they were prescribed-- generally because it wasn't working or because they couldn't stand the side effects.



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26 Dec 2009, 12:13 pm

I am incredibly rude when someone says that it does not exist. I usually respond with, "Well, it's quite obvious that you do not grasp even basic neurology. That is understandable, though, as neurology is a complex subject." I'm condescending. lol



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26 Dec 2009, 1:05 pm

In terms of AS being made up? Well, it's not.In fact, I'll go on the record that all of my quirkiness has been something not only seen in myself but, other members of my family though in varying degrees though.2nd, I feel bad that there are some people out there whom feel AS and many other neurological conditions are simply something that is created by the imagination of someone..Simply this is not the question whatsoever..Still, I'll admit there is a small minority of people whom feel conditions of the mind are the work of The Devil..
Anyways, I hope this ignorance eventually fades and is proven wrong by facts..



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26 Dec 2009, 1:47 pm

Transplantman wrote:
Ok aspies, how do you feel about the general folk wisdom that disorders like ADD are for the most part made up by money-hungry doctors and drug manufacturers and perpetuated by lazy parents who would rather slap a disease label on their child's youthful behaviour than be a good parent, and that this thinking permeates into ASD's as well? (ie. that South Park episode)
Bonus points: who wants to push Jenny McCarthy down a flight of stairs?

EDIT: Additionally, do you believe that for the most part doctors will prescribe you drugs even if it is unnecessary for their own benefit? Can they be trusted?


In the UK, we have the NHS, so we can't afford to give a child a diagnosis that they don't need or medicine they don't need. I don't believe that ASD's or ADHD are overdiagnosed or, even worse, "made up" by pharmecutical companies in order to get money from vulnerable people. Sure, there are doctors that are corrupt and exploit people, but they are a sub-form of Quack. Real doctors are doctors because they care for their patients and maybe this sounds naive but I think most doctors are trustworthy people. If we can trust them wth our bodies, then we can trust them with our minds as well.

It is possible that children may be misdiagnosed with ADHD or autism when their symptoms are actually part of a different disorder all together, but I'm not sure of how common this is (I doubt it's that common). A lot of people fool themselves by thinking that Aspies are just shy, that people with ADHD are just hyper and that people with ADD are just dull. That really frustrates me, however it is an example of how people assume that because someone doesn't "look weird" then the person is "normal".

I think people who claim that ADHD or Aspergers is a made up disorder don't really know what they are talking about and those people should be ignored (unless they have any evidence to prove their claims, which none of them do).

Also, I wouldn't mind pushing Jenny McCarthy down a flight of stairs :P