I went to see a French film today. Despite being in a French-speaking city, I have done very little of it- my collegues are Anglophone, so are my friends, so are half of the patients. So I thought I should give French a chance.
The film was a documentary called Quebec sur Ordonnance (Quebec on Prescription). I'd heard people talking about it, and thought it sounded interesting, so off I went, to try and get through a foreign film without subtitles (The woman at the box office looked utterly perplexed when I asked if it had subtitles “Non….It’s in French. Why would it have subtitles?”)
The basic premise of the film was this: Drugs are baaaaaaaaaaaad (but the pharmaceutical industry is badder).
The themes of the film: Children on (prescription) drugs- bad, Old people on drugs-bad. Drug companies give doctors freebies- bad. Anyone can get antidepressants if they tell the GP they’re depressed (I hate these ‘set-ups’ using actors, it always seems a bit unfair).
The film was a documentary called Quebec sur Ordonnance (Quebec on Prescription). I'd heard people talking about it, and thought it sounded interesting, so off I went, to try and get through a foreign film without subtitles (The woman at the box office looked utterly perplexed when I asked if it had subtitles “Non….It’s in French. Why would it have subtitles?”)
The basic premise of the film was this: Drugs are baaaaaaaaaaaad (but the pharmaceutical industry is badder).
The themes of the film: Children on (prescription) drugs- bad, Old people on drugs-bad. Drug companies give doctors freebies- bad. Anyone can get antidepressants if they tell the GP they’re depressed (I hate these ‘set-ups’ using actors, it always seems a bit unfair).
A doctor made a mistake with a drug dose and my baby nearly died. A nurse made a mistake with a bag of fluid and my father did die. Prescription drugs bought on the street or the internet are very dodgy and may contain arsenic (this I agree is a Bad Thing). Psychiatric drugs-especially bad (Cue patient saying they take such-and-such for their ‘anxiety’- screen then shows it’s a big bad nasty antipsychotic and lists about 25 side effects).
All drugs are placebo effect anyway (Shopping centre experiment where people are given a placebo pill ‘to make them feel good’ and after 10 minutes they all agree they were sceptical, but it really did work) .
And finally , as the pharmaceutical industry only creates 4-5 new drugs a year, to make a profit they have to find new markets and so creates new diseases where there was none before, purely for their own financial gain (Which isn’t entirely untrue but their use of high cholesterol as an example was a bit odd).
The only point at which they came out in favour of medication was with a man, let’s call him Michel. Michel was chopping vegetables fifteen years ago when he heard a voice telling him to kill his father, which he then did (cue scary silhouette in background of man being stabbed), and has been in a secure unit ever since. Michel then showed us the two pills he took, one for his ‘anxiety’, the other for his sleep.
The only point at which they came out in favour of medication was with a man, let’s call him Michel. Michel was chopping vegetables fifteen years ago when he heard a voice telling him to kill his father, which he then did (cue scary silhouette in background of man being stabbed), and has been in a secure unit ever since. Michel then showed us the two pills he took, one for his ‘anxiety’, the other for his sleep.
“And what would happen if you stopped taking them?” said the commentator ominously.
“Oh, the doctors tell me I’d hear the same voices again,” Said Michel cheerfully.
The moral of this story: Most people don’t need to take psychiatric medication, except when it’s stopping them from killing people.
And people wonder why mental health has so much stigma surrounding it……
The moral of this story: Most people don’t need to take psychiatric medication, except when it’s stopping them from killing people.
And people wonder why mental health has so much stigma surrounding it……
* * *
In lighter news, my new favourite food is this:
What it lacks in nutritional value, it makes up in ridicoulosly artificial colouring.
I wonder which big pharma will soon be coming up with a pill to stop me getting hooked on it….
6 comments:
Surely, surely anyone sensible will see this and toss a little common sense in?
It's unhelpful for a film or any medium to have polarised, dichotomous portrayal that medication is either all Good or Bad.
If all Good then it saves us from schizophrenic killers (and thus the illness makes him a killer, and the treatment is a pill so if health services got it right there'd be no killing). Utterly falacious.
If all Bad then folk miss out on medication that can tide them through distress and enable them to effect meaningful changes in their lives to cope with the grim realities that got 'em distraught and overwhelmed.
But I guess it's not a snappy take on medication use to say it's great when used appropriately, it never has guaranteed success and invariably carries side effects and risks which must be balanced 'gainst the chance of benefit from it.
No, it's not really snappy at all.
Now I know why I'm a medic and not in the media :-)
Shrinky, if there is one thing I have learned from my years on the interweb and from grudgingly reading papers and watching the tellybox is that lots and lots of people have absolutely no common sense. And that lots of people have grudges against the medical profession. And that bad stuff is a lot easier to believe (and a lot more fun to write about) than good stuff. The media don't give a flying monkey's fuck-toss if their polarised nonsense is dangerous and ill-informed.
I'm rambling.
Mapley, when are you coming home?
As the saying goes, common sense is not that common...
Wow. What an eye-opener that film must have been. I want to see it too, actually.
And what on earth is that Billot thing? Some sort of cake/swiss roll?
It looks yummy.
Send me a box!
;)
It's a type of swiss roll covered in pink cream with dessicated coconut on top, and yes, it is yummy :-)
And as for wanting to see the film, you really don't....but if you insist, how good's your French?
I'm completely addicted to Billot Logs. I swear. <3
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