by ceebs
Mon Sep 27th, 2010 at 07:44:45 PM EST
Over the last few years we saw a huge increase in the prescribing of Antidepressants. The theory is that the downturn has caused a large increase in those effected by depression, and then a shortage of trained people capable of giving talking based therapies, so GP's chose serotonin inhibitor based antidepressants as an alternative.
Antidepressant use soars as the recession bites | Society | The Observer
Fears the recession is affecting the mental health of the nation appear to be borne out by new figures that show prescriptions of antidepressants are soaring.
Last year in England there were 2.1m more prescriptions of antidepressants than in 2007, leading to concerns that doctors are increasingly supplying the drugs as a "quick fix" without attempting to address the underlying cause of the problems. In total, 36m prescriptions were given out, an increase of 24% over the past five years.
We now have an analysis of the moral and social effects of these drugs printed in New Scientist
Antidepressants make people less likely to harm others - health - 27 September 2010 - New Scientist
Would you push someone in front of a train if that would save five others? Probably not if you're on an antidepressant that raises your serotonin levels. Increased serotonin makes us less willing to hurt or punish other people, even if it's for the "greater good", a study has found.
To test the effect of antidepressants on moral judgements, Molly Crockett and her team at the University of Cambridge presented 24 healthy volunteers with a moral dilemma while they were under the influence of the antidepressant citalopram - a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI), which increases brain serotonin levels.
The interesting piece in this article is the following
Antidepressants make people less likely to harm others - health - 27 September 2010 - New Scientist
People with raised levels of serotonin were more likely to accept a stingy offer, rather than punishing the other player's greed by refusing it.
So my question is, With such a large part of the voting public taking these drugs, could this have a noticeable affect on people s voting habits? With further examination, could it turn out that the Tea Party is actually a medical artifact of doctors prescribing patterns?
