Posted by Nick K. on May 26, 2006, at 17:43:02
In reply to Re: Cymbalta withdrawal - Publicity some phone #'s, posted by gapsgal on May 26, 2006, at 14:40:14
This is great. I'm glad people are motivated to take action to make their experience and opinion known regarding this issue. I am one of these people and I am working on my own contribution to this effort as well. Thanks to gapsgal and secretme especially, for standing out.
I'd like to deliver my 2 cents:
I have been relatively naive/ignorant in terms of business and marketing, until recently. I am in the process of forming an e-commerce supplement/herbal retail endeavor, and consequently, I have been learning about pharmaceutical marketing and, unfortunately, about the desperate greed, dishonesty, and deception involved in most of these companies trying to push their products for sale to the public as quickly as possible. Practices involving manipulated test results and "financially influenced" research scientists are all too common.
To my dismay, and from a profit perspective, it has become painfully obvious that the anti-depressant industry, especially as of recently (effexor/cymbalta), is essentially an extremely advanced and intelligent scheme designed to "hook" as many people as possible into paying (or having insurance companies pay) in many cases $200 or more per month for medication that costs, at the most, a dollar or two to manufacture. The difficulties of withdrawal are of benefit to these companies (and perhaps an intentional side-effect), because it means the customer cannot comfortably abstain from intake, therefore they continue to pay (directly or indirectly) for the product and billion dollar profits continue to rise. In theory, the invariable side-effect of significantly decreased libido and sex drive could also be an intentional side-effect, with the hopes that those suffering from depression won't be compelled to reproduce, thus promoting "natural selection".Many of us are being taken advantage of in horrible ways, and what's more is that we don't even realize it.
poster:Nick K.
thread:466069
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/wdrawl/20060505/msgs/649027.html