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Anxiety Disorders Discoverable by Blood Test
Tomer Yaffe writes to tell us that researchers at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem have discovered a technique to diagnose anxiety disorders with a simple blood test. From the article: "The researchers hope that the anxiety blood test will soon make its way into hospitals and E.R. rooms and give doctors and psychiatrists a quick and precise tool for examining, and eventually treating, these disorders." The team has also set their sights on depression, hoping for a similar technique to detect these types of disorders as well.
"Mental illness" is not generally not "illness" in any meaningful sense of the word. First, some background. In economics, choices are said to be based upon a person's preferences and his constraints. Preferences are what you want, in the order you want them; constraints are anything that stops you from getting what you really want. Normal illnesses can be described purely as constraints. No matter what you want, you can't will yourself to stop sneezing, or de-AIDS yourself, for example. So those are constraints. To understand the difference, you can apply the "gun-to-the-head" test. Ask: if you pointed a gun at the person and credibly told him you would kill him if he didn't stop, and he still couldn't, it's a constraint. If he could, it's a preference.
Mental illnesses are generally not constraints, but preferences. ADD doesn't need constraints to explain it: the person just has a high preference for variety and a low preference for monotony. A person who habitually steals doesn't have kleptomania; he just likes stealing. You could stop him with a gun.
Now, let's talk about this blood test. What does it prove? If we could tell who was a Catholic by a blood test, would that mean Catholicism is a mental illness? No, the "anxiety" label is a moral judgment. Anxiety is "bad", so it must be attributable to something physiological; no rational person would think that way, right? In exactly the same way, homosexuality was an "illness" because of a moral judgment. Would the discovery of a "gay gene" change this? If you need a better example, think about delusions. You're said to have the mental illness of delusions if you hold systematically biased beliefs. Yet the same standard specifically excludes religion. Now, whatever religion you are, you must believe some other religion's views are systematically biased. But they're arbitrarily excluded, because psychiatrists don't want to offend religious people. When attitudes change, so does what counts as a delusion, just as homosexuality got lobbed of the list.
Just my two cents.
Rank my idea: http://www.sinceslicedbread.com/node/531
Right, like nobody would pay $25 for a Britney Spears CD, right? And no rational person would borrow money at interest, sell his labor at a price such that the employer makes a profit, or respect the property rights of people richer than they are. Don't let your disdain for other people's values cloud your judgment.
"Hey, if I could convince people I get panic attacks, they would lower their expectations of me."
Are you claiming no one thinks that way? When there are incentives, people take advantage of them. That you would find such a tradeoff ridiculous doesn't mean it doesn't happen. A hundred years ago people would find it inconceivable that women would have children out of wedlock for the welfare payments, using your exact reasoning.
Rank my idea: http://www.sinceslicedbread.com/node/531
As a pharmacy Tech, dr's perscribe too damn many pills of all forms. I especially get tired of dealing with nut jobs who take: an ssri, a benzodiazepine, at least one form of amphetamine(ritalin,adderall,concerta),at least one mood stabilizer, and narcotic pain relievers.
These people are not getting better, they are being injured. There is no cure for anxiety in a pill. I wonder if they are crazy from a damaged brain, or from the unnatural substances being pumped into them by their "healers." Of course the best part of their overmedication is that hard working individuals are paying for it. Idiots and crazies never have money, always medicaid. I don't see how they could ever become productive while doped up. And I absolutely doubt the abilities of a doctor who speaks to a patient for only an hour a week then gives a few pills.
Why not use your meager hour to teach idiots to use their natural ability. Stop injuring people. SSRI's flood serotonin, lowering the number of receptor locations in synapses. SNRI's also have the negative effect. Stimulants, same problem. Giving tranquelizers just avoids dealing with the problem. But please, my taxes aren't high enough yet. I want to see every american taking at leat 2,000 dollars worth of pills a year on me. But I suppose medicaid pays all the dorctors as well.