Introduction to Prozac | Discovery of Prozac | Structure and How it Works | How Prozac Affected History | How History Affected Prozac
There were over 23 million prescriptions of Prozac filled last year. The pharmaceutical companies control the research and results of the drugs tested, and are therefore in control of the information about the drug that is available to the public. Prozac is highly advertised because, according to many, there is a push to get people to use and buy it. This is the basis of the main debate surrounding Prozac: that the pharmaceutical companies are “selling diseases” in to create a market for their drugs. The people who earn money when Prozac is sold are the same people who publish information about Prozac and conduct and report the information from its trials. Many people believe that pharmaceutical companies are no longer concerned with helping people out, and just concerned with making money.
The social environment has switched from the Freudian world of talk therapy to our technologically advanced culture that looks to biology to solve its problems. In the past, psychodynamic and psychoanalytic therapy were the two main methods of treating patients. Both methods aimed to delve into the unconscious in oder to discover what was ailing a patient. The Thalidomide scare of the 1950s spurred a change in the way that drugs were created and prescribed. Drugs were now only to be used for people who has legitimate diseases, which inevitably led to an an extreme increase in the occurance of psychological diseases. In the 1950s, 50 out of every million people were diagnosed with depression; now that statistic has risen to 100,000 out of one million.
Essentially, the new way in which we have come to think about psychological diseases has led to the prolific use of Prozac. Our society has bred the perfect atmosphere for the use of Prozac. The common idea that popping pills can solve all of life’s problems and our society’s knack for easy solutions cannot be denied as a factor contributing to the prolific use of Prozac.
Also our society now has become one that requires Prozac. In the past, people were more healthy and less stressed. But now our culture is so face-paced that no one is satisfied with their lives and are always striving for more. This has created a niche for the use of Prozac because it is now necessary.
