We have so much more than our forebears. But I remember the study that found 10x increase in depression since 30s in US.
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My suspicion is that SSRIs do virtually nothing, at least for a lot of people. But Valium can create monsters.
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Some drugs apparently help in the right circumstances, some make things worse… there's the full range there.
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The biggest problem is that human ignorance and diagnostic incompetence multiply risk factors. It's pointless to compare controlled studies-
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w/real life, where doctors are worse than chance at diagnosing correctly, don't understand false positives, and are lobbied to push drugs.
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Drugs are theoretically useful, but the notion that they don't cause more harm than good comes from failing to recognize bounded rationality
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It's great if your drug passes all trials, but doctors don't have the luxury of hiring a lab - and pharmacovigilance exists for a reason.
The human body can take 20+ years to manifest really critically adverse drug effects. Drugs are developed over 5-10 years typically.
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Sorry for the rant, but the idea that drugs are super useful IRL was created by decades of pharma shilling and marketers.
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