Amazing parallel between psychiatric hype and AIDS vaccine hype

[cinephile]

I just had an epiphany whilst reading 1boringoldman: the hype that psychiatry is now spreading about the future of psychiatry and how in the near future psychiatry will develop laboratory tests for mental illness is very similar to the hype about developing an AIDS vaccine back in the 1980s! In fact, it's almost identical! We never learn...

 

Here's my post:

 

Below is a passage from the avert.org page on AIDS history. Pay careful attention to the quotes (especially the last one!) — they are eerily similar to what Insel and his buds are saying about mental illness and the future of psychiatry. In fact, if you substitute "laboratory tests for mental illness" for "AIDS vaccine" they are both essentially saying the same thing! And even within roughly the same time-frame (2 years for the development of an AIDS vaccine, 5 years for development of laboratory tests for mental illness)!

—————————–

On April 23rd, 1984, the United States Health and Human Services Secretary Margaret Heckler announced that Dr. Robert Gallo of the National Cancer Institute had isolated the virus which caused AIDS, that it was named HTLV-III, and that there would soon be a commercially available test able to detect the virus with "essentially 100 percent certainty". It was a dramatic and optimistic announcement that also included:

 

"We hope to have a vaccine [against AIDS] ready for testing in about two years."

 

And it concluded with:

 

"yet another terrible disease is about to yield to patience, persistence and outright genius".

[Altostrata]

I think we're looking at entrepreneurship affecting medical research.

[cinephile]

I think we're looking at entrepreneurship affecting medical research.

Good point. I think psychiatrists like McGorry, Lieberman, and the entire NIMH and APA (that is, elite psychiatry) is basically looking to grow the brand with their own vision of how psychiatry should look in the future (and this will line their pockets, of course).

 

BUT I think it's a two-tier system. The first tier are the entrepreneurs/pseudo scientists you speak of, but the bottom tier are the rest of the psychiatrists. They go along with the entrepreneurial nonsense because they WANT to believe it. I mean, what's the alternative? Realizing that their profession is in deep crisis, and the last 30 years were largely based on lies and unfulfilled promises? And that the NIMH and APA is basically just packaging a fresh new batch of lies and hopium? Realizing all this would be devastating to the average psychiatrist: they'd realize psychiatry is still in the stone age as far as treating mental illnesses like medical diseases, and that the NIMH and APA is largely just continuing to lie about it going forward. I don't think most psychiatrists (and people in general) could handle so much naked truth. They need a lie to preserve their will and keep them from plunging into nihilism.

 

PS: Just had a thought. With the current corrupt paradigm of psychiatry, we've basically come full-circle from the pre-FDA days. You know, the days where any snake oil salesman could sell any tonic with ANYTHING in it and claim it would cure any illness. Essentially the entrepreneurial psychiatrists (McGorry, Lieberman, Biederman, Trivedi, Nemeroff, etc etc) have rigged the system so profoundly they are basically doing the same thing. Wow. It sure is dangerous to be a psych patient these days.

[Altostrata]

Yeah, I blame the rank-and-file. For example, I'd like to know exactly how Schatzberg got elected president of the APA, for example. They can't say they didn't know he was under a cloud (http://1boringoldman.com/index.php/2011/01/13/tanfords-chatzberg-redux/)

 

I find it very hard to believe these intellectual giants didn't know they were being manipulated by pharma reps, too.

 

But -- you know what they say, somebody graduates at the bottom of the class in med school.

[cinephile]

I find it very hard to believe these intellectual giants didn't know they were being manipulated by pharma reps, too.

You know, Alto, I've been thinking about this very point for some time now. I've come to the conclusion that if psychiatrists have been bought out by pharma for a certain length of time (let's say at least 5 years, which is not unusual), they truly begin to rationalize it. It really is normal for them. They honestly believe that the drug company money helps them be better physicians. They honestly think they are helping people.

 

I think this speaks to why so many medical societies and even universities are loathe to strengthen their ethical standards. Yes, there is the very real issue of money/funding (universities need funding from pharma companies for studies), but I also think that the corruption of medicine has been so bad for so long it's just considered normal, even healthy. Remember, if you're a med school student today, the culture of corruption is just considered normal and standard operating procedure.

[Altostrata]

Right, it's a tribute to the human powers of rationalization.