The Los Angeles-based not-for-profit pointed out that any diagnosis of mental disorder, as listed in the American Psychiatric Association's book "Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders" (DSM), cannot be detected or confirmed by any physical or neurobiological test, brain scan, or X-ray, the way medical diseases can. These diagnoses are always subjective, the watchdog noted. "This holds true whether the diagnosis comes from a practitioner or a mental health app. And the 'treatment' for any mental health disorder diagnosis, is nearly always psychiatric drugs." Psychiatrist Allen Frances, the former DSM-IV Task Force Chairman, agrees with this, emphasizing that there are no objective tests in psychiatry that say definitively that someone does or does not have a mental disorder. "There is no definition of mental disorder. It's bull–. I mean, you just can't define it," Frances said. As more people utilize mobile and computer applications – often because they are more convenient and "private" – they often do not have an inkling that manipulation is more rampant online; they are resorting to "consulting" these apps even when it comes to their mental health. Software developers, who are not even in the medical field, are taking advantage of this trend. Albert Fox Cahn, the founder and executive director of the New York-based civil rights and privacy group Surveillance Technology Oversight Project, recently told Insider of his own experience with AI-generated advertising and the mental health app, Cerebral. According to him, he encountered targeted ads on Instagram for the stimulant Adderall, promising an easy path to obtaining the ADHD drug through the said app. As per Cahn, this new trend of aggressive, data-driven marketing for habit-forming drugs draws parallels to the OxyContin crisis. In this case, targeted marketing led to widespread opioid addiction. So the anti-surveillance advocate, as well as the CCHR, called for the ban of targeted ads for dangerous drugs to prevent the same catastrophe from happening. "Above all, we need rules that ban targeted ads for drugs that can get patients hooked. The United States and New Zealand are the only countries in the world that allow direct-to-consumer marketing for prescription drugs. No matter what safeguards are in place, as long as companies can combine them, habit-forming medications and AI ad targeting will make a deadly cocktail," he stressed. According to IQVia's Total Patient Tracker Database (formerly IMS Health), 76,940,157 Americans are already prescribed psychiatric drugs, which carry 409 drug regulatory warnings citing dangerous side effects, including dependence, addiction, and a host of serious adverse reactions.Mental Health Apps & AI-Targeted Ads for Psychiatric Drugs Should Raise Alarm—The mental health app industry has surged with around 10,000-20,000 available, offering everything from assessment to treatment & potentially debilitating psychiatric drugs https://t.co/CT1YYPmt8k
— CCHR Int (@CCHRInt) July 27, 2023
US border crisis persists: Thousands of migrants continue to cross daily despite summer heat
By Arsenio Toledo // Share
Debunking McGill's "dirty dozen" hit piece: Flawed sources, pharma ties, and biased reporting
By newseditors // Share
Your lyin' eyes: Corporate media panics with 'fact checks' over Biden's obvious decline
By newseditors // Share