The conspiracy of the medicated generation

According to the official figures one in four of the UK population will suffer from some form of mental health problem and many will be prescribed one of the many pharmacological drug treatments to alleviate symptoms and control the underlying conditions. The trouble is that these figures don't give the real picture, for two reasons. Firstly the figures are for the UK population as a whole, rather than split out into age groups, and secondly the figures fail to demonstrate change over time, and these are serious omissions. When you drill down further into the figures and explore the age aspect and the rate of change the story is strangely similar. In the under 40 age group the rate of mental health issues rises to an almost unbelievable one in two for women and one in three for men, the sex discrepancy being almost certainly due to mens reticence to discuss mental health concerns with medical professionals. Having established this rather higher figure it will come as no surprise that the number of people at any one time with a mental health disorder is rising sharply.

Now, there are several valid reasons for this including the increased awareness of mental illness, the campaigns to remove some of the stigma of a diagnosis of mental illness and a better understanding amongst medical professionals of the symptoms and indicators of mental health issues. However, even taking all of these reasons into account there is still a discrepancy between the figures and the number of people being diagnosed and therefore medicated, so the question is, why is this the case? The background to this lies with the pharmaceutical industry. For many years there has been a schism between drug manufacturers and doctors in that doctors, through their training and the Hippocratic oath are bound to attempt to heal their patients ills, whilst the drug companies are bound by their owners and shareholders to maximise profit. This dichotomy represents most strongly in the understanding that people who are well tend not to require the products made by the drug company so doctors making people well adversely affects drug company profits.

There is no clearer area of this than in the field of mental health. Through control and manipulation of the medical establishment the drug companies have been able to drive legislation and therefore prescription criteria. The way that this works is by funding universities and research institutes, alongside infiltrating the upper echelons of government legislature thereby creating a situation in which doctors are actively encouraged by drug companies and advised by institutions funded by drug companies to prescribe drugs for mental health conditions that would be better treated with counselling or therapy, drugs that alleviate symptoms in preference to ones which will effectively treat the condition, and drugs that serve little or no purpose as a treatment for the condition in question. Of course, there is another, more sinister aspect to this story. The medications that are used to treat many of these conditions have a range of side effects including decreased motivation, decreased libido, decreased intellectual and critical faculties and reduced ability to function effectively. Now, who could possibly benefit from side effects such as these? Who stands to gain from large sections of what have been the most politically active sections of society being reduced in their capacity to protest? Answers on a postcard please....