All Scrubbed Up

GP's tend to deal with a lot of depression and anxiety (and I'm not talking about our own... who tends to us? Another question. Another post). Is there more depression and anxiety in the 21st century or are we just getting better at recognising it? The middle of the 20th century saw the rise in early recognition and treatment of psychiatric illnesses. In fact, most of the stigmas surrounding psychiatry, psychologists and psychological drugs were put to bed in the late 70's and early 80's. The rise of Freud and Mommy-consoling. They were heady days. Back to the present – something is definitely up. It feels like at least 1 out of every 3 patients I see is on some type of an antidepressant or mood stabiliser. I used to have a professor who joked that lithium should be put into the water. Quick, painless alleviation of most of our problems. Imagine a world where the traffic driver is too stoned to cut you off. Wait. They are stoned. And still cut us off? Well, I did say “m...

Now here's a scary story... The world's major drug companies have been accused of turning a blind eye to the multibillion-dollar trade in fake medicine that has resulted in an explosion of child malaria deaths in developing countries. According to the British Independent newspaper, the problem has been particularly acute in Africa, with anti-malarial drugs faked on an industrial scale. One of the world's leading experts on malaria, Prof Nick White of Oxford University, estimates that malaria causes more than one million deaths each year of which 90% are children. He said that counterfeit medicine was a major reason why malaria had become, over the past 30 years, Africa's biggest child killer, 'from an illness that used to be easily treated with medicines'. Some of the fake drugs contain no medicine at all, but others have tiny traces of the real ingredients - which leads to another, potentially bigger problem as it allows the malaria parasite to build up resist...

People. Myprodol is NOT some wonder drug. It is Panado, Brufen and a bit of codeine. Those are garden variety meds. It's. Not. Pethidine. Ooh. Pethidine. (Read more about Myprodol here )