Sticker shock it to me Honey, cut your credit card in half (but buy your antidepressants with it first)… Ever noticed how even mild extremes of behavior are being labeled as some type of "disorder" nowadays? Well, it's a shameless trick - and the latest entry on this ever-growing list is (can you believe this?): Compulsive Shopping Disorder, or CSD. This makes the people we used to call "spendthrifts" out to be suffering from a horrible disease. Apparently, these addicts to QVC (the shopping network), factory outlets, and the local mall just can't stop themselves from whipping out the plastic for everything under the sun - even things they don't want, researchers say. But there's hope for these poor souls! Drug makers are coming to the rescue, with… You guessed it: They've found yet another use for antidepressants - the modern equivalent to the snake-oil cure-all elixirs of the Victorian age. It seems there just isn't enough profit for the drug giants in today's over-prescription of these hazardous drugs for mere depression. They've got to capitalize on the markets opened up by new "disorders," so people will have yet another reason to take their drugs. But here's the million-dollar question: How do these flavor-of-the-month ailments permeate the mainstream's consciousness? It's because of the tremendous influence of drug companies over what our doctors think - and what they diagnose. Here's proof… Currently, CSD is not classified in standard psychiatric manuals alongside other "impulse control" disorders (compulsive gambling, kleptomania, etc). So how is it becoming a rapidly growing diagnosis in the medical community? Because of high-profile "trials" like the one Forest Laboratories just concluded for their pair of SSRI antidepressant drugs, Celexa and Lexapro. The research, conducted at California's Stanford University, concluded that more than half of test subjects showed a measurable improvement in their ability to control their spending habits after seven weeks on the drugs. More importantly, the study yielded the conclusion that as much as 8 percent OF THE POPULATION is afflicted with CSD… That's right - according to them, every 12th person you see goes shopping so much they NEED TO BE MEDICATED. And this isn't the only "trial" of this type that Forest has sponsored - not by a long shot. Why? Because each additional study boosts exposure in the medical community for not only the drug - but for the DISEASE ITSELF. This "buzz" makes doctors perceive behaviors formerly considered "normal" in their patients as being borderline or afflicted with the new condition (even if it's fictional). Once that happens, physicians reach for their prescription pads, and voila - sales, profits, bonuses, cigars, and yachts for all the drug company fat cats. Shameless as it is, drug companies are using their research as a marketing tool, creating a groundswell of awareness and support among doctors for both the "disorders" and the drugs used to treat them. From a bottom-line standpoint, it's brilliant, but from my viewpoint, it's horrifying. ********************************************* How the government makes millions selling your intellectual property Nowadays, medical research is no longer a tedious, library-only proposition. With a little pointing-and-clicking, most anyone can self-educate about any disease under the sun - and every conceivable treatment option for it. This is great for the alternative health field, since the Internet is often the only forum in which new or "unproven" treatments can escape the stranglehold that conventional pill-and scalpel medicine puts on the flow of medical information. But with every brave new world of technology - especially relatively unregulated realms like the Internet - there comes a certain amount of risk. What I mean is that much of the "research" you may discover online is nothing more than marketing - skewed or biased data designed to create in you a desire for some product or another. The good news is that there are literally tens of thousands of bona-fide, credible medical articles available on the Internet - and because they're the result of federally funded studies, your tax dollars have already paid for them… The bad news is that your government has sold the publication rights to the bulk of these studies to offshore publishers-who then make BILLIONS PER YEAR selling them back to American citizens just like you! Yes, you read that correctly: The Capitol Crooks are stealing your bought-and-paid-for medical research and selling it for big bucks. To see these potentially lifesaving studies, your only option in many cases is to BUY them from foreign capitalists who profit from your search for alternatives to the corrupt system that sold them off in the first place! Outrageous, isn't it? I don't know what's worse: The notion that our government is auctioning off what should be everyone's intellectual "property," or that they've made it as difficult and costly as possible to discover alternatives to the medical establishment's invasive, profit-driven pill-and-scalpel brand of medicine. Could there be a correlation, perhaps? Nah… More and more often, as conventional medicine fails to cure (or even help) sick people across the country, folks in need are turning to the Internet for help. Wouldn't it be nice if they could get the lifesaving solutions they've already paid for-without having to shell out for them all over again?
Then again, when do you ever get what you've paid for from government?
Always giving you your money's worth,
William Campbell Douglass II, MD | 
