Almost half of Americans are taking at least one prescription drug; one in six are taking three or more. These statistics, released by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in December 2004, show just how much Americans believe that medicine will save them from cholesterol, heart disease, diabetes, depression and other ailments.
Use of antidepressants among adults has tripled in the past decade. Today, one in 10 women takes an antidepressant. More than one third of women visiting the doctor in 2002 walked away with a prescription for an antidepressant.
The number of kids taking psychiatric drugs multiplied too. Three times as many children were taking antidepressants in 2002 than were in the mid-1990s. Boys taking stimulants (used to treat add) doubled in the same period.
Aren’t we missing something?
American culture is glutted with the idea that problems can be fixed quickly and labor free—and pharmaceuticals promise just that. But people aren’t looking at the causes of problems—at their family relationships, their diet, etc. Changing is too hard. It’s too inconvenient. It is much easier to believe that a pill will do the trick.
For more on this subject, see “Will Pills Solve Our Ills?” in our November 2003 issue.