The Mental Health Pharma-conspiracy

The deeper Morgellonites are pushing this story

(http://www.reutershealth.com/archive/2006/04/21/eline/links/20060421elin004.html)

The implication being that many doctors and psychiatrist are in league with the pharmacutical industry – and have a vested interest in diagnosing things as psyciatric disorders so that Big Pharma can sell more psychopharmalogical drugs.

This is about as likely as the clothing manufacturers being in cahoots with the dry-cleaning cartels by labeling their garments “dry-clean only”, when you know perfectly well they’ll do just fine in the laundry.

The question to ask (and I’m borrowing here, Seinfelt I believe) is “how would that even work?”

When your doctor suggests perhaps a component of your disorder is mental, then does he get some kind of kickback from Big P? How much might that be? How does that money get to him?

Doctors get paid a lot already. What portion of their income comes from these psych-referral kickbacks?

How does the accounting work? Follow the money. In all the decades of auditing of various health industries – has there been one shred of evidence of such a kickback scheme?

It must be more subtle – the Doctors get paid by insurance companies that get paid by the consumers, who get high premiums because the price of psych drugs is so high. Doctors keep over-prescribing them, so everyone makes money.

Consider though, how would that even work? The individual doctor will get paid regardless. If he writes needless prescriptions, he does not get paid more. He’s taking a risk of getting caught. So it’s better for the individual doctor to get paid as normal, and let others take the risk.

So there HAS to be a kickback scheme involved.

But nobody has ever produced one shred of evidence of any financial irregularities.

And don’t point at that Reuters story above – read it first, it explains why they have “links”. Their links are most tenuous, and quite innocent looking. Heck, I have links just because I own share in SPY, which includes some pharma companies. Most of you dear readers, if you have a 401K, or other retirement account, will have some shares in a mutual fund that also invest in Pharma. Are you involved?

How would that even work?