Pill Popping Culture

IN 2005, the House of Commons health committee accused drug companies of fostering a pill-popping culture under which medicines were used to resolve every problem - but especially mild depression.
In a report, the MPs said the pharmaceutical industry was acting as a "disease-monger", classing as many people as possible as "abnormal" and therefore in need of drugs.
"This process has led to an unhealthy over-reliance on, and over-use of, medicines. It also diverts resources and priorities from more significant diseases and health problems," the committee said.
A great deal of this was because patients complaining of mild depression were increasingly being prescribed anti-depressants, rather than being made aware that "unhappiness is part of the spectrum of human experience, not a medical condition".
The MPs said: "Inappropriate prescription of medicines by GPs is of particular concern." Some doctors had prescribed anti-depressants on a grand scale, many of them linked with high rates of suicide.
This article: http://news.scotsman.com/health.cfm?id=1808152006