America Is Over Diagnosed and Over Medicated: Allen Frances on Huffington Post
January 9, 2012
America Is Over Diagnosed and Over Medicated: Allen Frances on Huffington Post #1
Post #125 Shortlink: http://wp.me/pKrrB-1Di
Today, Allen Frances, MD, who chaired the Task Force that had oversight of the development of DSM-IV has published the first of a series of blogs, on Huffington Post, on his concerns for DSM-5.
Allen Frances | January 9, 2012
Professor Emeritus, Duke University
America Is Over Diagnosed and Over Medicated
“…The really bad news is that the bulk of psychiatry is no longer done by psychiatrists. Psychiatric medicines are most often prescribed by primary care doctors who are always busy and usually under trained in psychiatry. And their diagnostic and treatment decisions are heavily influenced by drug company advertising aimed directly at patients combined with aggressive marketing campaigns aimed at doctors.
“The result is massive overprescription of medicine for off label, untested, and inappropriate indications. Drug companies have more unregulated freedom in the U.S. than anywhere else in the world to push their product where it does not belong. Their success is measured in returns to shareholders, not benefits to patients…”
“…They call them ‘scientific hypotheses’ that can always be tested and corrected after DSM 5 is published. This is dead wrong and dangerously reckless. DSM 5 will have a dramatic effect on peoples lives and everything in it must be certified safe and scientifically sound.
“Final decisions on DSM 5 will be made soon. I will post a series of blogs highlighting its worst proposals and updating the efforts to shoot them down before they can become official…”
Read on here Allen Frances on Huff Po #1
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