Antidepressants Called "The American Burka"

allow pilots to munch Valiums (or whatever) when flying:

Second, the writers are sympathetic to women! How can you read otherwise? They say that these women need rest and extra nutrition after the depleting experience of pregnancy. The doctors who prescribe anti-depressants are the one's lacking sympathy for women . . . which is the criticism this article makes.

I assure you that anti-depressants don't make you walk around clicking your heels with a bluebird on your shoulder. It's really insulting that the authors of this article blame women for being spoiled little princess' who just can't "cope".

Sometimes coping means recongizing that you have a problem and getting help.

Here are some facts that should send up a big red flag about the over prescribing of these medications: Women make up 50 percent of the U.S. population yet account for 79 percent of the prescriptions for antidepressant drugs. One out of three doctor’s visits by women involves an antidepressant prescription. Antidepressant use during pregnancy has increased from 5.7 percent in 1999 to 13.4 percent in 2003. Currently there is a class action suit against the makers of the antidepressant Paxil alleging that the drug taken during pregnancy causes heart valve birth defects. The current meta-studies indicate that anti-depressant drugs don’t work for the vast majority of people they are prescribed for and cause a host of unpleasant side-effects including loss of sex drive and weight gain. Because these drugs mostly do not get to the root of the problem, doctors keep increasing dosages and adding drugs onto the first prescribed medication creating a numbing chemical burka. This chemical burka is robbing our country of the women’s voice of sanity that it desperately needs.

They use the burka as a image, saying that just as Muslim women are shielded from the world by their burkas

our women have a choice their women don't

Merry Andrew wrote:

allow pilots to munch Valiums (or whatever) when flying:

that's a lie, can't your READ?

Beginning Monday, pilots with mild to moderate depression will be allowed to fly while taking antidepressants if they can demonstrate they have been satisfactorily treated for at least 12 months.

Under the new policy, the FAA will, on a case-by-case basis, issue special medical certificates to pilots who take one of four antidepressants: fluoxetine (Prozac), sertraline (Zoloft), citalopram (Celexa) and escitalopram (Lexapro).

All four drugs can be used safely without side effects, the FAA said, and other medications will be considered as the agency gains experience and data under its new policy.

yeah so what's wrong with THAT, you can't read either?

really? when a person goes in for a problem and they are told that popping these little beauties is THE answer they dont have a lot of choice. The only choice is between pursuing treatment and not.

You always blindly follow your doctor's treatment plan?

Poor little you, to be so weak minded.