Now more snarky blogging and less posting videos because of how drunk/lazy/hungover I have been. It's time for a Nonpopulist Fundamental Assumption Review, where I like to take something most people glance over and shine a light on it momentarily so as to make you think. Pills are a part of the way we live. It's accepted. No one disputes or questions the proliferation of pharmaceuticals in recent history, and the billions of dollars of revenue that biotechnology and pharmaceuticals generate yearly are the wage by which many people put food on their tables and shelter over over their heads. This story from Reuters says that prozac use has more than doubled in the the past decade from 13 million to 27 million.
That number takes a minute to get your mind around. Whenever I hear a number like that I like to remember that there are around 300 million people in the United States to put such large figures in context. I'm not trying to say pills are bad or no one should take pills and just pray or chant until sickness goes away, but I think it's good to ask the questions, "Are that many people clinically depressed? If so, why and how can they be helped besides pills? Or are pills the only way?
Let me rework some words of Jesus to say it another way. (Jesus is probably one of the most Nonpopulist people that ever lived, by the way.) Man does not live by pills alone.
And prozac isn't the only pill being depended on. This story just provoked my thoughts. The way I really feel is that I hope that I never have to lean on any sort of pill for an extended period of time be it for cholesterol, high blood pressure, or pain. I want to live outside of that construct.
when you say that prozac use has doubled, do you mean that 27 million people use prozac or that 27 million pills have been used?
ReplyDeleteThe number of people who use prozac has gone from 13 million to 27 million.
ReplyDelete