Text 23428, 80 rader
Skriven 2006-10-03 18:02:57 av John Hull (1:123/789.0)
  Kommentar till text 23411 av MIMI GALLANDT (1:275/311)
Ärende: Pat Buchanan
====================
MIMI GALLANDT -> JOHN HULL wrote:
 MG> John Hull wrote:

 JH>> MIMI GALLANDT -> VERN HUMPHREY wrote:
 MG>>> VERN HUMPHREY wrote:

 GB>>>>>> You bet pharmcos go doctor shopping, that is why their
 GB>>>>>> advertising budget far exceeds their R&D costs. They put up
 GB>>>>>> huge, expensive getaways for Doctors in exotic locales and
 GB>>>>>> grease them there.

 SD>>>>> And that's why some of these medications cost $8 a PILL.  It's
 SD>>>>> part of the reason why we have so many homeless mentally ill
 SD>>>>> people around-they simply can't afford the medication that is
 SD>>>>> readily available and would help them become "normal" enough
 SD>>>>> to function as a member of mainstream society.

 VH>>>> A woman froze to death sitting on a bus stop bench in front of
 VH>>>> Housing and Urban Development.  The Secretary of HUD, Henry
 VH>>>> Cisenros, was outraged and promised to do something about it.

 VH>>>> Then the penny dropped.  The woman had a plastic wallet around
 VH>>>> her neck -- with $300 in cash and a reservation for the night
 VH>>>> in a shelter.  She also had a family that was out looking for
 VH>>>> her.  She was on medication, but she stopped taking it and
 VH>>>> wandered away.

 VH>>>> That's not uncommon -- people go unmedicated not because they
 VH>>>> can't get the medications, but because they don't LIKE taking
 VH>>>> them.

 MG>>> I'm only mentioning this because it's germane to the subject. I
 MG>>> have clinical depression that was brought on by the stroke 11
 MG>>> years ago. I take the drugs because I sleep better and thinking
 MG>>> of all the ways you can off yourself isn't one of my favorite
 MG>>> pastimes. :) Apparently, though I am the exception to the rule.
 MG>>> Many mentally ill people (like schizophrenics and those with
 MG>>> bi-polar disorder) take their pills until the crisis passes and
 MG>>> then figure they're "cured" and stop taking their meds. That's
 MG>>> very common and psychotic people end up on the streets because
 MG>>> they can't hold jobs or function in any "normal" way. This is
 MG>>> something that really pisses me off; a large part of San Diego's
 MG>>> economy comes directly from the military and yet 65% of San
 MG> Diego's home
 MG>>> less people are vets (many of them Vietnam vets). I find that
 MG>>> just outrageous, it seems to me that there ought to be a way
 MG>>> that the county could give back to these guys (and gals) who
 MG>>> have given so much to us. But, I rant...

 JH>> Mimi, I worked in the Vet Center on 6th for several years back in the
 JH>> 80's.  We saw thousands of vets who came in for counseling, job
 JH>> placement services, all kinds of veteran issues, etc.  The vast
 JH>> majority of those vets who are homeless are that way because they
 JH>> want it that way.  They are drug and alcohol abusers, not mentally
 JH>> ill.  My boss there tried to help most of them at that time and got
 JH>> nowhere.  They would clean up for awhile and seem to be on the return
 MG> ro
 JH>> ad, but nearly all went back to their substance abuse after varying
 JH>> amounts of time. They may be vets, but their time in the military
 JH>> only delayed their crash and burn by a few years.

 MG> I didn't know that. I've always been interested in the human mind and
 MG> what causes people to do certain things, I wonder why some people just
 MG> seem determined to throw their lives away.

Its all personalities.  Some people are addictive, some are weak-willed, some
can't deal with authority, some are lazy, etc.  Some are a combination of
those.  Another major factor was what kind of support structure they had back
in the world.  For example, the kids that ran the streets, were street smart,
generally handled combat in Nam better than those who came from suburban,
loving, two-parent families.  But it was the ones with that close knit family
background who handled PTSD and got through the problems much better.  I've got
a thick book on the shelf that was a ground-breaking study of Post Traumatic
Stress and Substance Abuse Among Vietnam Combat Veterans.  My boss at the VC
did it for his doctoral thesis.  I crunched all the clinical data for him so it
could be processed by the big mainframe at the VA Hospital in La Jolla. We used
detailed data on over 5000 Vietnam combat vets.  Its scary stuff.

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