Tuesday 20 May 2008

Did you know about NIDS?

Curious as I am, after listening to Larry Simon's interviews with Grace Jackson, I of course went on a Google search - and found this transcript of a lecture Dr. Jackson held at Birmingham City University in 2004.

Scary stuff, presented in a very intelligible way, and with just the right amount of - black - humour ("It’s probably such a long word that this is why the doctors don’t often say it!", "But these are what doctors frequently don’t tell their patients about, or perhaps they think it doesn’t happen so often.") to make it a treat to read, in spite of the "message".

Putting together a reply to a mail, I'd just been thinking about "informed consent", and the National Health Service of Denmark's recent statement that full information to patients on side effects wasn't always appropriate and desirable, since it might cause patients to refuse medical treatment, before I came across this transcript. Well, as I wrote in my mail reply, I can vividly imagine which are the medications the least information on side effects will be provided for, or, to put it in another way, who are the people, who will be least informed... Also in future.

Frankly speaking, this is totalitarian to me. Especially since it is a proven fact, that anything else, even no treatment at all, actually has better long-term outcomes than medication when it comes to emotional crises.

So, go and get informed, and think twice before you say "yes" to any psychotropic drug you're offered! If you're given a choice, that is.

(Geez, since we apparently don't have any professionals with the same expertise as Grace Jackson - or should it be that they just don't want us to know??? - I will have to do something about this, at least summing it up somehow in Danish, one of these days.)

2 comments:

Monica Cassani said...

Grace Jackson is a Goddess...have you read her book, Rethinking Psychiatric Drugs?

I have the intro to the book printed on my site with a review of sorts.

Also are you familiar with the 15 year longitudinal study that proves meds make people with psychotic experience worse?

I have a copy of the PDF is you want me to email it to you. It's not available for free on the net.

Marian said...

No, I haven't read it yet. I'd heard about it, but never reached to get hold of it. It wasn't before I'd listened to the interview that I thought it a must read. I do now! I'll have a closer look at it at your site later today, just need to finish a blogpost on a really really sad (and appalling) story - it ruined my weekend...

I've only seen the WHO-studies, and Ed Knight's article where he writes about several studies like The Vermont Longitudinal Study. Don't think I know the one you mention. Would be great if you could send it to me :)