I’ve been reading The Antidepressant Solution and Prozac Backlash — both by Joseph Glenmullen, clinical instructor in psychiatry at Harvard Medical School — and I highly recommend both. Oddly, the news is starting to reflect my reading list:

>> Your brain on drug commercials? Current TV’s Sarah Haskins shows you how taking drugs can make your life perfect, aside from a few side effects. (via Utne)

>> Big Pharma feels your pain? In Slate, Robert Burton argues Big Pharma hasn’t come close to “authenticating” that fibromyalgia’s an organic condition — yet are relentlessly pushing a physical disease model of fibromyalgia to sell drugs:

If a patient believes that there is something “wrong with my brain,” the effects can be disastrous…. If negative expectation (the belief that you are more sensitive to pain than others because of a condition that has altered your pain perception) plays a significant role in the production of fibromyalgia symptoms, Pfizer runs the risk of creating or augmenting the very symptoms it is trying to treat. Talk about a vicious feedback loop!

>> Smurfs don’t do drugs?! Since when? SlateV highlights a “freaky, animated anti-drug film Cartoon All-Stars to the Rescue (1990)” featuring Bugs Bunny, Miss Piggy, Winnie the Pooh, and other eminent cartoon drug experts.

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