Patience . . .

Just a little longer now.

"A little patience, and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their spells dissolve, and the people, recovering their true sight, restore their government to its true principles. It is true that in the mean time we are suffering deeply in spirit, and incurring the horrors of a war & long oppressions of enormous public debt.... If the game runs sometimes against us at home we must have patience till luck turns, & then we shall have an opportunity of winning back the principles we have lost, for this is a game where principles are the stake."

-- Thomas Jefferson

Golden (??!!) Triangle, Texas

Yay.

I'm in sunny Port Arthur, Texas. Its only claim to fame is that this is where Janis Joplin hailed from. There's even a museum for her, but I don't think we'll make it over there this trip. Sorry, Janis, it's just not Graceland.

An AP article published today (http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/health/2007-09-09-risk-penalties_N.htm?csp=34) discusses the trend of companies charging their employees for failing certain health metrics. There was an opinion piece by Dr. Arthur Caplan on the MSNBC website a few weeks ago (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20181526/) that really lit a fire under me to oppose this trend. Please go read it yourself, but to summarize it encourages employees to be thoughtful when weighing discounts (or penalties) offered (or threatened) by employers against the value of your personal privacy. The MSNBC article pointed out that it's not an unreasonable extension of the "increasing insurance costs" logic to charge employees extra if they engage in "risky" behavior. Like SCUBA diving. No, thanks. You can take your money and shove it. I'll keep my private self private.

You've got to check out the archive of the Australian TV show The Chaser's War on Everything. These are the guys who just recently created a "motorcade" with Canadian flags and got within 10 meters of the Shrub's hotel in Sydney during the APEC conference. And one of the passengers was dressed as Osama bin Laden!

From the Chaser's War website:

"If you've got a tip off or a gripe, don't tell MediaWatch they'll just make a legitimate point on your behalf. That may give you some satisfaction, but it won't be as satisfying, or as fun, as getting the Chaser team to wreak some revenge for you."

You can find the show at http://abc.net.au/tv/chaser/war/ . There's a year or so of back episodes that you can download or stream to your computer. Bloody hilarious! A lot of the gags relate to Aussie politics, but just roll with it and pretend you understand until they get on to another topic. Thanks to Lesley for pointing me to that archive.

More on National Healthcare

"Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health care is the most shocking and inhumane."
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

At least someone's hard at work on solving the healthcare problem. California is chewing on a pro-insurance healthcare "reform" bill that feeds the insurers, but the California Nurses Association and the National Nurses Organizing Committee are showing how bad that bill is. Please look at their website, guaranteedhealthcare.org, learn about the issues, and tell those who have been or want to be elected to office about how important healthcare is to our nation. Here's one to get you started:

Children's Mental Health, Social Decay, and Big Profits

The number of pre-adolescent children diagnosed with bipolar disorder has skyrocketed since the mid-1990s, according to a very sketchy Associated Press article today summarizing a study by Dr. Mark Olfson of Columbia University and the New York State Psychiatric Institute and partially funded by NIMH.

Throughout the mid 1990s the number of kids diagnosed with, and medicated for, ADHD also increased dramatically. One explanation was that the medical community (and society at large) had become more comfortable acknowledging the existence and validity of pathological psychiatric conditions. Another camp argued that parents who were unwilling to discipline unruly kids were jumping at the possibility that a pathological dysfunction was to blame, thus absolving them of the charge of failure to discipline.

I'm sure that there is some truth to both positions. The real question is what lies at the heart of the increase? By the title of my entry, I bet you can guess where I'm headed: Money. Always follow the money. My outrage this time was ignited by a recent episode of the Australian Broadcasting Company's Radio National program "Background Briefing" entitled "Mentally Ill Children." The transcript is here:

http://www.abc.net.au/rn/backgroundbriefing/stories/2007/2012718.htm#transcript

You can listen to the radio show by streaming or downloading the audio from the same page.

The obvious link between profits and psychiatry can be seen in the MASSIVE amount of money being thrown into advertising campaigns for "new" psychotropic drugs. The pharmaceutical industry is happy to validate any diagnosis that they can sell a "cure" for. If you want a disturbing example of the lengths to which big pharma will go to make money, do an internet search for "Neurontin," an anti-seizure drug that Pfizer Pharmaceuticals and its subsidiary Warner-Lambert manufactured. Although the FDA approved the use of Neurontin as an anti-siezure medication in 1993, Pfizer and its subsidiaries heavily marketed Neurontin to psychiatrists for a variety of unapproved ("off-label") uses. They pushed its use for bipolar disorder, ADD, migraines, drug/alcohol withdrawal, restless-leg syndrome, and even Lou Gehrig's disease, despite scientific studies showing it to be ineffective for these conditions. In 2004 Warner-Lambert pled guilty and paid more than $430 million to resolve criminal and civil charges that its off-label marketing of Neurontin was illegal and fraudulent. In addition, over 300 lawsuits were filed alleging that Neurontin contributed to suicidality in certain patients. More information on this case can be found here:

http://www.fda.gov/fdac/features/2004/404_wl.html

Parents of children that have been flagged by school counselors as problems can attest to another phenomenon: If a psychologist or psychiatrist diagnoses the child as having a coping disorder or other non-pathological condition, their insurance company is likely to refuse reimbursement or payment for treatment. However, they will reimburse healthcare providers if the condition is pathological and medication is prescribed. Since it's easier for a psychologist or psychiatrist to collect fees from an insurance company than from an individual, guess which alternative the professional is likely to choose: Follow the money.

Are we as a society becoming less tolerant of people that fall outside the "norms" of behavior? Wasn't Albert Einstein a poor student? I think he ended up OK even without Ritalin. Why are kids that don't want to conform to the expectations of the majority shunned as pariahs? I'm really worried that after generations of "fixing" kids who are different we will crush the creative spirits that make our life interesting. Fortunately, there are still parents who welcome this diversity of thought. I just hope our schools don't take on the role of thought police. Orwell's 1984 didn't just warn against a political hell, but a social one as well. We'd do well to heed his warning (though obviously we haven't).