RE: Anti-Anxiety Pills
That's just the thing though. There are not a "lot" of mass shooters. By that measure, there are only a handful of people who should or would have been in such an inpatient facility that are not today. If there are significantly fewer people in such facilities today, then either the medication HAS done a great job or there were too many people there to begin with.
Sure, anti-depressants may cause suicide and may even cause aggression. But tampons may cause anaphylactic shock and in probably greater numbers. Virtually any substance in the world can cause death to someone in some way. When it is more likely to win the lottery while being attacked by a shark while getting struck by lightning (maybe an exaggeration but not much of one) than to kill people because of antidepressants, I think you can say they are reasonably safe, at least on those terms. Nothing is completely so. Either the odds of such medication causing mass shootings is incredibly low or doctors have done a great job prescribing them only to those who won't react that way.
As far as advertising and the drug industry, it isn't really clear to me why they spend so much on advertising. I don't believe that doctors generally prescribe medicine based on tv ads and they typically have more direct contact with drug reps anyway making the ads redundant for them. People can't chose to buy any old prescription medicine they want so they would have to ask their doctor. Doctors don't generally prescribe medicine just because you ask for it (though clearly some doctors are better than others). So why all the ads? Maybe people see the ads, think they have the symptoms advertised then decide to go see a doctor and in some percentage they really do have whatever condition the drug treats and this increases sales enough for the ads to pay off? I don't know... At any rate, the ultimate responsibility is with the doctors, ads or no ads. If overprescription is a problem, blaming the ads hides a larger underlying problem with proper diagnosis and treatment.
For those mass shooters who have a previous history of violence, they probably should have been locked up. I think the reasons they are not go beyond what drugs are available though. No doubt there has been a failure in treatment for these people whether the drugs have anything to do with it or not.
you are right, in reality mass shooters don't really kill many people, we probably shouldn't do anything about them. The problem is some people want to pass gun laws as a result and won't even talk about other factors like drugs. I would be happy doing nothing except maybe banning "gun free zone" signs.
Of course the ads pay off, otherwise they wouldn't spend 30 billion a year on them, way more money than the gun industry makes.
The drug companies are like the tobacco companies, out to make money and willing to suppress research and regulations that impact their profits. They own the politicians and scientists and doctors and sell a dangerous product. If you look for the long term safety studies for anti-depressants and various other psychiatric drugs what you will find is that there are not any.
The thing is, I'm not for banning the first amendment any more than I am the second. Advertising should not be changing the way doctors do what they do. If it is, then that's the problem that needs to be looked at... why they are making decisions based on advertising. Personally, for the most part I don't believe that they are. I mean if I were a doctor I wouldn't be prescribing medication based on a tv ad. Why would I? Why would anyone? I think that the advertising just makes consumers more aware of treatment options and makes them more likely to go to the doctor in the first place which isn't necessarily a bad thing.
As far as studies, there have been a ton on a variety of different anti-depressants. I'm not sure what you consider "long-term" but it isn't old people participating in mass shootings for the most part.
I'm not saying nothing should be done, just that the problem should not be exaggerated nor should it be assumed that the drugs are the cause because of a correlation, particularly one that makes sense for other reasons. As time goes on and more data becomes available, how and to whom these drugs are prescribed will be adjusted.
No doubt drug companies want to sell their drugs like any other business wants to sell their products but the best way for them to do that is to make drugs that work and are relatively safe. I don't see how ads are going to make doctors prescribe stuff that doesn't work or isn't safe.
so you believe the drug industry spends $30 billion dollars a year trying to influence physicians and patients without an impact?
I don't think that sort of money gets spent without an expectation of a return, I am 100% sure they have reams of data about the effectiveness of their marketing campaigns.
I consider long term to be greater than 10 years, they prescribe these things to children for long periods without any idea what will happen when they are older.
Drugs working or being relatively safe are secondary concerns at best over profit. The only thing that is advertised as much as drugs is class action suits for injuries caused by drugs that the FDA approved.