Medication Madness Book Review In partial fulfillment of the requirement of
N3335
December 02, 2011
Online RN- BSN

Medication Madness I chose to review “Medication Madness” by Peter R.Breggin, M.D. First of all I was attracted to this book by the name medication madness which made me to be curious to know what the book is all about. Madness, we know is a state of mental imbalance and when attributed to medication, it calls for interest. I came to understand that medication madness is an extreme expression of medication spellbinding leading to people to behave in ways that they would otherwise reject as hazardous or wrong (Breggin, 2008, p.19) .This book motivated me because it has elements of factual information, according to the author Bregggin, who is a psychiatrist that the stories are “true stories”. Breggin establishes reflection on the physical impairment due to drugs. In overall I was thrilled by the standard of effective educative communication by the author.
Topic of interest: Medication Spellbinding One of the things that made the greatest impression on me is the word medication spell binding which “describes how drugs mask or hide their harmful mental and emotional effects from the people who are taking them” (Breggin, p.18). I always think that anti psychotic or antidepressant drugs are given to have a positive tranquil effect on patients not knowing that it could cause suicidality or make one violent without being aware of the consequences. The spell binding effect can be exhibited in different ways ranging from being easily angered, irritable, indifferent, less focused, anxiety, suicidal, and depression (Breggin p.19). Consider this man, Mr. Harry Henderson, whom According to Breggin (2008 ) was well, and doing fine with his business but undergoing some stress, for which he was started on Prozac after consulting his doctor and this medication turned his life around completely. Mr. Harry began to look for gun to kill his wife and self. He went as far as assaulting a police officer in other to achieve his aim and at the end he failed to grasp the enormity of what he had done. However when the medication was stopped his look and output improved (pp5-12).This actually made me to start thinking about some of these killings we hear about on the news all the time, such as shooting of oneself after killing the entire family or going on shooting rampage. Now I know it could be the effect of medication spell bound because certain things are not done under normalcy.
Marketing Myth Inclusively I was impressed by what Breggin said about marketing myth. “The drug advocates claim that the drugs can only unmask pre existing psychiatric disturbances rather than cause it.” (p.282). Breggin asserted that it is not true, and from the cases he discussed , I could see that people with no apparent maniac tendencies can also be driven into mania by the drugs , just like Mr. Harry who had none of the risk factors (p.8). However, whatever the case may be, Breggin deemed that the primary thing is to take care of the primary problem instead of giving psychiatric drugs that will cause them more harm than good. I was watching the news few days ago on channel 13 and it was relaying about foster kids being prescribed with a lot of antipsychotic drugs and one of the kids said “after taking the drugs I feel like I am carrying a thousand blocks on my head” I believe that these kids should benefit more from discipline and community resources like counseling instead of starting them on all these medication that will mess up there health and life.
Corroboration /Contradiction
In this article “what you need to know about depression medication” by Smith, M. Robinson, L., & Segal, J. (2011). These authors claim that most mental experts agree that when depression is severe, medication can be helpful-even life saving; however researchers show antidepressant fall short for many people. They also went further to say that in some people antidepressant will cause an increase, rather than a decrease in depression, and with it an increased risk of suicide .I could understand that these authors were neutral in the use of anti depressant. They did not out rightly condemn it like Breggin did and they believe that in as much as the dangers are particularly true of children and young adults that anyone on antidepressant should be closely monitored.
Another article appears on FDA~S consumer updates (2009) it is written that in October 2004, FDA directed manufacturers to add a boxed warning to the labeling of all antidepressant medication to alert the public about the risk of suicide thinking attempt by children and adolescents taking antidepressant. This actually corroborates with what Breggin wrote. However Breggin affirmed that the current black box is remarkably strong but the FDA deleted an even the strong declaration from its original proposed warning; “A causal role for antidepressants in inducing suicidality has been established in pediatric patients” and by deleting it they were serving the interest of the pharmaceutical industry (p.44).
Practice/Application
The information gathered from this book will personally affect me because I have a 4yr old son whom I have been thinking may have attention deficit due to his hyperactivity but I was scared of taking him to the doctor because I do not want him to be on medication . Now that I have read this book I became scarier and I would rather enforce discipline and counseling if severe rather than expose him to these drugs, hopefully he will outgrow it. Professionally the information gained from this book will enable me to closely monitor my patients on those antidepressants and other drugs that can cause medication spell binding; for early detection of mood alteration and possible intervention according to nursing code of ethics and hospital policy.
References
Breggin, P. (2008) Medication Madness. A Psychiatrist Exposes the Dangers of Mood Altering Medications New York: Saint Martin`s Press.

Food and Drug Administration, Consumers update (2009) Understanding Antidepressant Medications. Retrieved December 4, 2011, from http://www.fda.gov/ForConsumers/ConsumerUpdates/ucm095980.htm

Smith, M., Robinson, L., & Segal, J. (2011) what you need to know about antidepressant medications.” Retrieved December 4, 2011. From http://helpguide.org/mental/medications_depression.htm