Not politicians, yet. But the public, absolutely. There are too many people who don't know what SSRIs do, don't understand antidepressants, and have unrealistic expectations of them. (It reminds me of some folks and guns, to be honest.) Even UtopiaTexasG19's comment about "feel good drugs" is misleading as hell, although he might not have meant it to be.
SSRIs don't medicate mood like earlier antidepressants (say, Valium) do. As I understand it (and I am NOT a doctor or pharmacist), they fix a specific chemical trigger in the brain instead of applying a "chemical cosh" to many or all of the hormones associated with emotions. In other words, they treat the actual problem to at least some extent instead of simply suppressing or altering symptoms.
They're also relatively new (less than 20 years in use). People are different. Some drugs that save my life (I'm diabetic) would probably hurt or kill a number of you if you took them, especially in the doses that I do. Penicillin has saved millions of people, but it almost killed my father, who was allergic to it. *No drug* is going to be good for everybody, or always do exactly what the doctor wants it to do and nothing else. That doesn't mean you ban the drug, though! It means you learn what it can do, learn how to administer it, learn what doses and treatment protocols to use, and learn who is better off not taking it at all. That's true of SSRIs as much as any other drug.
Black and white thinking is a scourge. :/ Like drugs in the wrong bloodstream, guns in the wrong hands are a very bad idea. Even the most rabidly pro-gun people (looking into the other room at my husband) support keeping them out of the hands of people who are malicious, enraged and out of control, or are known to have mood swings that lead to unpredictable violence. That doesn't mean you ban the drugs, and it shouldn't mean that you ban the guns. You *learn where the problem lies* and fix that.
Rant over. For today.
