Depressing News Indeed

Seeing the Funny?

Early this week on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, the introductory monologue, like always, reviewed what seemed like the Yahoo! news of the day. Fallon is still warming up to his new role, but he is much smoother now that his nerves have calmed down. For the first three days he kicked some news (without his typical dead joke wince) about how antidepressants use doubled from 1996 to 2005 and how depression had been diagnosed in kids as young as 3 years old and in second graders. The audience laughed. They must have understood. I think laughter is healthy, even if it is at yourself.

But those in the know, also know, this is no laughing matter. It's the difference of laughing at you rather than with you. Depression is a real deal with scary consequences if symptoms are left untreated. The question of the day was, what does treatment really look like? No article really touched on that.

And that's what scares me.

It's too easy to say, hey, this is just the Pharma movement looking to pump up their billion dollar sales bottomline.

More than 164 million prescriptions were written in 2008 for antidepressants, totaling $9.6 billion in U.S. sales, according to IMS Health.

I've been know to be too idealistic and naive that it hurts. I like to think that's just the wise Latina in me.

I am no doctor, but here is how I see the writing on the wall. Are we going to sit idly by as pills are popped without proper weekly supervision or talk therapy treatment with a patient. Are we all not listening to the same antidepression commercials where the fine print person comes on to say that along with bad breath, acne, constipation and dizziness, etc. that antidepressant treatment in children and young adults causes/increases depression symptoms, including suicidal idealation?

What are we to do? Well, my answer is to pass health care reform. Most people must self-select their treatments based on how much it costs them. In this day of over medication, it's just easier to pop a pill and think it will all be taken care of. (In my opinion, primary care doctors misdiagnose and thus, over prescribe antidepressants, many without really keeping up with the changes in the field of psychiatry.) We now must choose between our very health and our financial survival. In this good US of A, I just find that to be unacceptable.

And yes, I am nervous. You can even say anxious. Why? The Birther Movement, who insist that President Barack Obama was born in Kenya despite all the proof shown, have joined forces with the Swift Boat people, Dick Armey and Freedomworks.org, to kill health care reform for those 50 million people without insurance and for those who think their insurance will last forever under the status quo. All those lobbyist (yes, including Pappas from Freedomworks) are all laughing themselves to the bank. Cha-ching and bling, bling, Dick.



Either we come with it to face the Brooks Brother's protesters or we may just prematurely die or go banckrupt trying to live with the status quo, which ever comes first.

The Afterw@rd