I have problems with big pharma.  It is becoming quite evident that the lack of government oversight, coupled with corporate greed, created an environment of drug pushing organizations more concerned about their bottom line than helping people. RealAge – the website that tells you how old you really are – is nothing more than a front for drug companies.

But while RealAge promotes better living through nonmedical solutions, the site makes its money by selling better living through drugs.

Pharmaceutical companies pay RealAge to compile test results of RealAge members and send them marketing messages by e-mail. The drug companies can even use RealAge answers to find people who show symptoms of a disease — and begin sending them messages about it even before the people have received a diagnosis from their doctors.

While few people would fill out a detailed questionnaire about their health and hand it over to a drug company looking for suggestions for new medications, that is essentially what RealAge is doing.

RealAge does have a privacy policy in place that states “we will share your personal data with third parties to fulfill the services that you have asked us to provide to you,” but what I would like to know is if one completely opts out of any service – beyond finding your “age” – what happens to that data?

This all seems very… suspect to me.

Beyond Meds and invincible summers both had this video up yesterday, and it raises some very good questions in my mind.

This video is of Dr. Peter Breggin, an American psychiatrist and author, who argues that the side effects of psychiatric medications usually outweigh the potential benefit the medications can provide. Obviously, his views go against the mainstream and can be seen as controversial by some.

Take a look…

Right off the bat, here are the questions that come to mind…

1. How do doctors say a person has a “chemical imbalance” if there is no way to test/measure for it before taking a medication?
2. Animal testing shows that drugs can change the brain chemistry, who is to say that the new chemistry is “right”?
3. Is depression, or “feeling hopeless about life”, simply a psychological or spiritual issue?
4. Do people who come off of antidepressants feel bad because off the depression or because of withdrawal because of the medication?
5. Can depression simply be solved by “finding the courage” to live?

As I see it, “depression”, just like any other behavior, is primarily caused by thoughts, by a person’s mind(set), which in it’s turn again is the result of this person’s life experience and conditioning.

Now. the question is whether you are your thoughts, or your mind, i.e. whether you are what the world has made you be. Or whether the true you maybe is something completely different from and far beyond that.