A molecule of journalism? Or two on the lack thereof?

I found this article interesting because of it is relevance to a topic I've recently been introduced to: the hyping of drug use on mentally ill patients and the influence of the pharmaceutical industry on psychiatry. The writing however, is nothing to brag about.

The author does a good job in presenting an informative lay-description of how dopamine works. She also does good by quoting a researcher on the effects of dopamine-targeting drugs, lending the piece an authoritative feel, but her questions only touch on the dopaminergic effects--as if nothing else is altered. What about the negative side effects? What else do these drugs do to the brain, and in turn, the bodily functions it governs?

This is a huge part of the problem today; the widespread ignorance (or is it that information has been intentionally withheld?) about the physiological changes in the brain, and consequently, bodily functions gone awry, resulting from nonchalant pill-prescribing and pill popping.

Maybe this has to do with that I've just finished reading Mad In America, but one of the things that bothered me about this article is the lack of reference to the drugs'--Prozac, Ritalin and Adderall-- horrific side-effects. There is also no reference to long-term studies, no actual digging for facts, merely stating what she's been told by 'the experts'. Then again, it is a tricky situation, who can you believe, who would your editor consider a reliable source, a 'crazy' or a doctor/psychiatrist/person of authority?

"In the emerging view, discussed in part at the Society for Neuroscience meeting last week in Chicago, dopamine is less about pleasure and reward than about drive and motivation"
If they were off about the criteria for diagnosis, how many people have been misdiagnosed, and consequently, permanently damaged--and probably worse off than they would have been had they not popped that first pill.

"An impoverishment of prefrontal dopamine is thought to contribute to schizophrenia." Does the data tell this story? Or do the pharma-money-rich psychiatrists? It's irking to read this allusion to an already widespread falsity. Way to worsen the situation.