{"id":6868,"date":"2011-04-05T13:02:27","date_gmt":"2011-04-05T17:02:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/?p=6868"},"modified":"2011-04-05T13:36:22","modified_gmt":"2011-04-05T17:36:22","slug":"a-slow-learner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/2011\/04\/05\/a-slow-learner\/","title":{"rendered":"a slow learner…"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

As a child, I noticed that we had an odd book on our shelf – Mein Kampf<\/font><\/strong> by Adolf Hitler. When I got old enough to know what the book was about, I asked my Mom why she had it. She said she bought it  during the war to find out what Hitler said that got a whole country to go crazy, but she kept it for me. She said that when I was older, she hoped I’d read it to understand what had happened, so it would never happen again. Later in my youth, I did read it. What I understood even back then was Hitler’s trick [and my mother’s wisdom]. There was something wrong in Germany, Hitler could feel it. As that theme built, against his own resistance to the idea, he gradually had to accept the inescapable conclusion that the something wrong was the Jews. And then the book turned monsterous as he outlined what he had in mind to do about that. You know the rest of the story. Decades later, as a Psychiatry Resident, I read it again – this time as a treatise on Paranoia written from the inside. And over the years as a Psychiatrist, when I hear a patient stringing together cherry-picked events aiming towards some conspiracy theory [becoming paranoid], in my mind I’ve thought of them as having the Hitler feeling<\/em> – "There’s something wrong and it’s dawning on me what it is."<\/p>\n

I’ve only really had the Hitler feeling<\/em> once myself – not that long ago. It was in September 2002 when the entire Bush Administration hit the airways one Sunday talking about Iraq and Saddam Hussein’s WMDs – the immediate danger right around the corner. I didn’t believe it. I thought it was a trick, and when I expressed my concerns, I got slammed as a non-patriot. Unfortunately, it was a trick. I was right that time – too right. It’s not a good thing, being right about a conspiracy theory. It makes you think you have some kind of keen intuition – fanning the flames of narcissism that hide inside us all.<\/p>\n

So now I’ve got that Hitler feeling again. I think the Pharmaceutical Industry is trying to get rid of Psychiatrists and get the treatment of the mentally ill into the hands of Primary Care Physicians who will prescribe a lot more of their products.<\/font><\/strong> There I’ve said it out loud. I feel better already. Beside the fact that this has already happened, what little clues have I cherry-picked to make me think such a thing? Well, I thought it when I read that Drs. Nemeroff and Schatzberg had signed on to a industry-funded, ghost-written book, called Recognition and Treatment of Psychiatric Disorders: A Psychopharmacology Handbook for Primary Care<\/font><\/strong> [a worthy cause…<\/a><\/strong><\/u>].<\/p>\n


cover revised<\/sup><\/p>\n

And I thought it when I read some articles by a Dr. Trivedi in Texas about simple computer algorithms to direct treatment of Depression [evidence-based medicine I…<\/a><\/strong><\/u>].<\/p>\n

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Then recently, I thought it when I read about Eli Lilly’s Viva Zyprexa campaign  because they said it outright in some of their suggested sales pitches [Zyprexa<\/font>: the other early years…<\/a><\/strong>]:<\/p>\n

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Now I’m reviewing the NIMH funded STAR*D<\/font><\/strong> study on the treatment of depression [a thirty-five million dollar misunderstanding…<\/a><\/u><\/strong>], and I’m feeling it again. Here’s Dr. Rush, first author on STAR*D<\/font><\/strong> [along with a Dr. Trivedi]: <\/div>\n