Why are so many Americans, especially young ones, depressed, bipolar, overweight, gender-stressed and "on the spectrum"?

Explanations range from endocrine disrupters, forever chemicals and plastics in the environment and food to electromagnetic fields from cell phones and microwaves to helicopter parents. That's before we get to Covid's forced 5-year social isolation and fetal and childhood exposure to prescription drugs. (For example, SSRI antidepressants contribute to bipolar diagnoses according to some research).

Certainly ADHD (once called minimal brain dysfunction) and bipolar disorder (once called manic depression) always existed as did gender identity disorders. What is new are contaminants and plastics in processed food, endocrine disputers in laundry and dish detergents (the latter has oral entries) and the tsunami of psychiatric drugs and drug cocktails prescribed to so many children and adults. (Even found in water ways)

What else is new are helicopter parents treating kids for "behavioral disorders" they only learned about from Direct-to-Consumer (DTC) advertising and the drugmaker-funded medical system (and driving their kids the six blocks to school.) Advertising works.

Disorders Make Pharma Money

If you have noted how many are overweight (Exhibit A: this weekend's Lollapalooza) and on prescribed drug cocktails it is not your imagination. Almost a quarter of Gen Zers, born between 1997 and 2012, are overweight or obese and almost a half are on mental drugs. Almost 65 percent of US adults take one or more prescription medication.

At the risk of stating the obvious, obesity leads to prescription drugs and prescription drugs often lead to more drugs and "cocktails" to manage side effects. Keeping people fat and unhappy makes so much money for industry that some––hopefully they are conspiracists––think the current demographic's health malaise was deliberately caused to sell GLP-1 fat drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy.

Sickness Markets

According to financial analyses, the ADHD "market" (or "space" as marketers call it) is 14.3 billion with the Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) coming up the rear. Several glossy magazines like ADDitude Magazine ("get it"?) capitalize on the millions of people who like the identity and belonging of an "illness" like ADHD even if that "illness" can't be verified by scans or lab or blood tests and relies on a clinical opinion and self-diagnosis.

And ASD? A Washington DC bus driver recently stopped the vehicle, to the chagrin of her riders, to ask young bus boarders how she could get a "This Is What Autism Looks Like" T-Shirt like they were wearing.

What about the market for GnRH agonist "puberty blockers" like the injected Lupron and implanted Supprelin? The former is reported to cost about $1,200 per month without insurance while the latter costs up to $18,000 a year.

Ignored Side Effects

When you listen to the warnings on DTC ads you realize that Pharma markets prescription drugs that can cause conditions as bad or worse that those they are intended to treat. Some say the list of risks is hypnotic and actually sells drugs. Are today's unwell and sympomatic people the result of such drugs they took––or their mother took?

And antidepressants prescribed to as much as a fourth of the US population? The drugs are addictive––when people try to quit they get electrical brain zaps and more––and Pharma calls the addictiveness a "discontinuation syndrome."

Conclusion

Pharma can't be blamed for Big Chem's endocrine disrupters, forever chemicals and plastics that have polluted our bodies and water ways. It isn't directly involved in Big Food's high fructose corn syrup (HFCS), dyes and preservatives, pesticides, herbicides, red tides and fish kills. (Though it is involved in the use of tons of antibiotics in livestock to make them gain weight more quickly and the resulting drug resistance)

Still, while the public and public health professionals debate the causes of our national health malaise, Pharma doesn't mind the distraction as it continues its "you may be at risk" hypochondria-selling ads. END

New Book Interview!

A New Interview about Big Food Big Pharma Big Lies, Rosenberg’s FDA expose, on Lois Lindstrom's The Bookman's Corner.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4mDBRZukUIk