The Mad Market

Antidepressants are the third largest prescription drug market in the US. Antipsychotics are the sixth. Together, drugs made to treat mental problems are the largest class of drugs in the United States. And they are also the fastet growing.A slew of corporations are racing to take advantage of the mad market. A psychiatric patient may be forgen for assuming that the treatment he/she is on was created and sold soely for the benefit of curing the mental anguish of mankind. But such a view is nieve. The big pharmasuticals are in this market for the profit to be made, and this reality should be accepted by every psychiatric patient exploring the option of drug treatment. Every phase of a drugs life--particually the marketing phase--is affected by this drive for profit in a twenty billion dollar industry. The informed consumor should be wise to to the marketing tactics used by the drug makers, particually the television adverts as they don't allow the oppuntunity to read the product label as the magazine and internet ads do. And please always remember that despite the medical setting, even medical treatment is a market, and as with any market: buyer beware.