AP Seminar

2018

A Shifting Focus: The Medical Field and Its Drug Addiction

Word Count: 2046

Introduction

Let’s pretend for a moment that you are an 18 year old male living in the United States.

You are a senior in high school, and you have had it pretty rough up to this point. Your family

has been poor as long as you have been alive, and you have two siblings, both younger than you.

Your mother and father are divorced, and you live with your father, who is abusive and an

alcoholic. One day, you wake up, and at that moment you feel like Alice when she went through

the looking glass. Your head feels fuzzy, and you look up, only to see a dark shadow slowly

pulling itself out of the ceiling and stretching itself towards you, cackling horribly the whole

time. You can’t help yourself but to cry out. Your father comes in, turns on the light and

demands to know what the matter is. You tell him of your roof phantom, and he just laughs, as

there is obviously nothing there. The hallucinations and voices continue, and you finally decide

to go to a psychiatrist. After describing your everyday existence, he tells you that you have

schizophrenia, and prescribes a virtual drug soup for you to take to annul your various

symptoms. Now, let’s change the scenario a bit. We’ll pretend that because your family is so

poor, you can’t afford to go to a psychiatrist. The voices get worse, and you stop speaking to

family and friends, and one day the voices tell you that your English teacher is really a demon,

and they tell you to take your father’s rifle to school in case he tries anything funny. You obey,

of course, because the voices are just looking out for you. While your English teacher is

lecturing, the voices keep screaming to “Just shoot him! We know that you can feel his evil eyes

on you too!” Finally, you give in and end up like Kip Kinkle, the shooter at Thurston High, and

Dylan Klebold one of the shooters at Columbine High, who are currently incarcerated for their
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crimes. Now, this may seem like an exaggeration, but 21 million people worldwide exhibit

schizophrenia, from mild to extreme, and a percent of those indeed become school shooters, and

roughly fifty percent of school shooters are schizophrenics (Langman). Schizophrenia is a

serious condition that has no cure, or known cause at this date. As far as our current research

shows, schizophrenia is not specific to any race, sex or any ethnicity. In males, the condition

manifests itself at an average age of 18, and 25 in women. Schizophrenia is more prevalent in

women after 30 (Hawkes). There are a variety of drugs that can be prescribed to nullify the

symptoms of the disorder, but these in and of themselves present problems. The issue here is

threefold: studies done to find a cause aren’t thorough and point to an unreasonable conclusion;

drugs are prescribed without research towards a cause; and lastly, the drugs themselves have side

effects that either mirror schizophrenic symptoms or cause whole other disorders. Each of these

issues will be elaborated on in turn.

Studies Done by Pharmaceutical Companies

Most studies conducted on the treatment of schizophrenia are funded by pharmaceutical

companies, and they consistently find that whatever the causal factor may be, the best treatment

is some medication or another. Sadly, this is to be expected, as funding comes from a particular

company, and any unfavorable research is discarded in exchange for studies that push the

company’s agenda. Such studies overwhelmingly gloss over the cause of the disorder in favor of

collecting data on the drug’s effectiveness. However, this method does not yield itself to

productive research, as the drugs cannot be altered to fix the cause instead of the symptoms. As

far as studies done by outside sources goes, schizophrenia is painted in an entirely different light.
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The stark difference is evident, as independently funded studies highlight probable causes such

as lack of serotonin, poverty, child abuse, place of birth and number of siblings. Some of these

may seem improbable, but there is substantial evidence to back each of these as probable causes

of the disorder. For example, John Read from the University of Auckland conducted extensive

research on the basis that schizophrenia is concentrated heavily in the lower socioeconomic

classes. He states that, “. . . the momentum of the ‘medical model’ was so great that the

heightened vulnerability to stress, which everyone agreed lay at the core of psychosis, was

decreed to be biological in origin (usually genetic but with some attention to perinatal factors).

This ignored the fact that Zubin and Spring had clearly stated that there is such a thing as

‘acquired vulnerability’ and that this can be ‘due to the influence of trauma, specific diseases,

perinatal complications, family experiences, adolescent peer interactions, and other life events

that either enhance or inhibit the development of subsequent disorder.’” In this instance, Read is

referring to the work of Joseph Zubin of Columbia University and Bonnie Spring from Harvard

University. In their article “Vulnerability: A New View of Schizophrenia”, they discuss the

aforementioned items and their validity as causal factors. Read also expresses the idea that, “...it

must be noted that, as is the case for the other mental health problems briefly discussed at the

outset of this paper, other social factors (many themselves related to poverty) are now known to

have a causal role, or to be significant risk factors, for psychosis. These include (often after

controlling for family history of ‘schizophrenia’ or psychosis): mother’s health, nutrition and

stress during pregnancy; urban birth and urban living; being the product of an unwanted

pregnancy; early loss of parents via death or abandonment; separation of parents; witnessing

interparental violence; dysfunctional parenting (often intergenerational) – particularly

affectionless over-control; childhood sexual, physical and emotional abuse; childhood emotional

or physical neglect; insecure attachment in childhood; bullying; war trauma; rape or physical

assaults as an adult; being a refugee; racist and other forms of discrimination; and heavy

marijuana use, especially early in adolescence.The relationship between poverty and

‘schizophrenia’, therefore, is best understood as being the result of the greater exposure to a

range of risk factors, in both childhood and adulthood, which are disproportionately experienced

by poorer people.” This establishes poverty as one of the main causes of schizophrenia, as well

as proving the existence of other causal factors and their importance to the development of the

condition. None of these causes are even mentioned in many pharmaceutical run studies, as the

cause is not nearly as important to them as turning a profit.

Drugs Prescribed

This leads me to my next issue: the drugs that companies create and prescribe have the

potential to do more harm than good. According to a study conducted by professors Martin

Harrow and Thomas H. Jobe, “...From an alternate perspective, the reduction in relapses and low

relapse rate, after 6–10 months, could indicate a medicine-generated psychosis in the first 6–10

months, which then recedes. Using this perspective, the first 6–10 month increase in relapses

after withdrawal may be influenced by biological conditions generated by the previous

continuous use of antipsychotics, with this interacting with schizophrenia patients’ underlying

greater vulnerability to psychopathology. The discontinuation effect includes the potential of

medication-generated buildup, prior to discontinuation, of supersensitive dopamine receptors, or

the buildup of excess dopamine receptors, or super-sensitive psychosis, as indicated by multiple

studies by Seeman and others of dopamine-blocking agents using animal models.” Professors

Jobe and Harrow are claiming that contrary to the common belief in the medical field, the drugs

themselves may be causing the psychotic relapse, and once these have been completely removed

from the patient’s system, the body has a chance to heal and go back towards a normal,

functioning human being with small potential for relapse. According to Krishna R. Patel, Jessica

Cherian, Kunj Gohil, and Dylan Atkinson, “hyperprolactinemia can occur in up to 87% of

patients treated with risperidone or paliperidone, possibly leading to sexual dysfunction,

decreased libido, menstrual irregularities, or gynecomastia. Weight gain is another important side

effect in patients receiving antipsychotic drugs. Along with hyperprolactinemia and weight gain,

antipsychotic drugs also can increase the risks of diabetes mellitus and cardiovascular-related

mortality. Orthostatic hypotension can occur in up to 75% of patients treated with an

antipsychotic agent. Electrocardiographic changes, especially QTc prolongation, can occur in

some patients treated with antipsychotics, including thioridazine, clozapine, iloperidone, and

ziprasidone. Although some studies have shown that the risk of sudden cardiac death in patients

treated with FGAs or SGAs is nearly twice that in individuals who do not use antipsychotic

medications, more recent findings suggest that both types of drugs have similar cardiac mortality

risks. Akathisia (often accompanied by dysphoria) occurs in 20% to 40% of patients treated with

high-potency FGAs, such as haloperidol and fluphenazine. Pseudoparkinsonism has occurred in

patients receiving antipsychotic therapy. The incidence of this disorder has ranged from 15% to

36% in patients treated with FGAs. The risk of tardive dyskinesia has ranged from as low as

0.5% to as high as 62% during treatment with FGAs and is increased in elderly patients. All

patients treated with antipsychotic agents are at increased risk of seizures. Poikilothermia (the
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inability to maintain a constant internal body temperature independent of external temperatures)

can be a serious side effect of antipsychotic medications. Neuroleptic malignant syndrome

(NMS) is a rare but life-threatening side effect of antipsychotic drug therapy, occurring in 0.5%

to 1.0% of patients treated with FGAs.” All of these are found to be side effects of drugs that

treat schizophrenia. This wide range of resulting disorders indicates that there is something huge

that we are missing here. If our medicine is so imprecise that our drugs cause such a wide range

of problems, then it is obvious we need to look into the causes of the disorder and eliminate

those, instead of making the lives of those who take the drugs more miserable by assaulting their

immune systems with medicines to give them incurable disorders for the rest of their lives. This

is a prime example of racketeering in the medical field. The creators of these drugs understand

that their supposed cures cause other conditions, and yet they are still allowed to market them to

the public. They do not warn extensively of these side effects, because when patients begin to

exhibit them, they need more medications to take care of those symptoms as well, and

pharmaceutical companies continue to profit. The pharmaceutical industry has created its own

vicious cycle of profit and degradation of the human existence through prescription drugs.

Conclusion

The research referenced here is of a more controversial sort, and it is to my great surprise

that it is not more widely published and lauded for its merit. If we want the medical field to

advance in any way, then we must not allow our studies to be bought by companies whose only

goal is to push agendas that make them a tidy profit. We should not allow our studies to be

bought period. We must make a stand against prescription drugs and work towards prevention of
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issues that cause disorders, instead of trying to fix their symptoms. With a concerted effort on

behalf of the people who suffer disorders daily, we can make a change in our society to push us

forward into a future without disease. But first we must recognise that no all conditions have

biological causes, especially psychosomatic ones like schizophrenia. Most mental disorders are

caused by child trauma or poverty and other social factors. If we focus on promoting the general

wellness of our nation, then we will never go wrong. One day, we may be back at the point of

advancement of our ancestors, but for now we need to focus on fixing our bloated, monopolized

economy and rectifying our view of disorders in society. There’s no such thing as a magic pill,

and there never will be. Instead, we need to focus on dedicated, unbiased research towards a

cause, which in turn will lead to a cure. As this is an iterative process, we will need to continue

this way for many years, however, the end goal of a disease free society is worth all the sacrifice

in between.
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Works Cited

Byrne, Majella, et al. “Parental Socio-Economic Status and Risk of First Admission With

Schizophrenia: A Danish National Register Based Study.” ​Social Psychiatry & Psychiatric

Epidemiology.​ Feb 2004, Vol. 39 Issue 2, p87-96. 10p.

http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=pbh&AN=12650177&site=ehost-liv

e​ Accessed 29 Apr. 2018.

Jobe, Thomas H. and Harrow, Martin. “Does Long-Term Treatment of Schizophrenia With

Antipsychotic Medications Facilitate Recovery?” ​Schizophr Bull. ​2013 Sep; 39(5): 962–965.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3756791/​. Accessed 29 Apr. 2018.

Langman, Peter. “Rampage School Shooters: A Typology.” ​Aggression & Violent Behavior​. Jan

2009, Vol. 14 Issue 1, p79-86. 8p.

http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&AN=36195644&site=ehost-liv

e​ Accessed 29 Apr. 2018.

Moloney, James Clark. “Some Simple Cultural Factors in the Etiology of Schizophrenia.” ​Child

Development​. Sep 1950, Vol. 22 Issue 3, p163. 21p.

http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=pbh&AN=8541100&site=ehost-live

Accessed 29 Apr. 2018.

Muller, Robert T. “Biased Publication Standards Hinder Schizophrenia Research.”​ Psychology

Today​, 21 Sept. 2016,

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/talking-about-trauma/201609/biased-publication-

standards-hinder-schizophrenia-research

Patel, Krishna R, et al. “Schizophrenia: Overview and Treatment Options.” ​P& T.​ 2014 Sep;

39(9): 638–645. ​https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4159061/​ Accessed 29 Apr.

2018

Read, John. “Can Poverty Drive You Mad? 'Schizophrenia', Socio-Economic Status and the Case

for Primary Prevention.” ​New Zealand Journal of Psychology​. Jul 2010, Vol. 39 Issue 2,

p7-19. 13p.

http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=pbh&AN=74248004&site=ehost-liv

e​ Accessed 29 Apr. 2018.

“Schizophrenia Facts and Statistics.”​ Schizophrenia.com​, 31 Dec. 2010,

http://www.schizophrenia.com/szfacts.htm​.

Walker, Elaine, et al. “Schizophrenia: Etiology and Course.” ​Annual Review of Psychology​.

2004, Vol. 55, p401-430, 30p.

http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ssf&AN=510331040&site=ehost-liv

e​ Accessed 29 Apr. 2018