Allan Young makes an observation concerning the publication of the DSM III in his book The Harmony of Illusions. He says that
the small working group which produced this diagnostic text represented not the psychoanalytic or even psychiatric communities but research
and clinical technicians. He further suggests that this small working group worked at their task not so much to improve the science of caring for
patients' mental and emotional states but to concretize the criteria for diagnosis. And to this end they where manifesting what the insurance
companies felt was necessary for the continued recognition of psychology in context to social services and health insurance plans; in a word,
economics.
In our seminar on this text Sarah R. pointed out that with the publication of the DSM IV everyone can now feel secure in the fact that they
too have earned the 'right' to a disability for a traumatic mental disorder. This isn't to say that there aren't legitimate cases of neurosis caused by
these traumatic events. What it does say though is that the drive to make psychology a more exact science has backfired in a viscous way. Giving
us all a potential or latent neurotic diagnoses, where if we can patiently wait long enough for the traumatic event, recurring dream, or suppressed
(fictional) memory to surface, it will send us into an endless spiral of classification and reclassification. All of which is enhanced/convoluted with
medications gleefully developed by the pharmaceutical companies for the benefit of our mental hygiene and their bottom line. To say that this
was their desired intention would be a disservice to objectivity, but to say that there wasn't a motivational factor which included this economic
critique is also a form of blindness to the real nature of our social systems.
"The miracles of modern medicine, by interfering with natural immunity, in
the long run give riseto more illnesses then they prevent. Those suffering hereditary illnesses, which were formally fatal in childhood
or adolescence, can now prolong their life indefinitely, propagating any number of defective offspring."
– William S. Burroughs, Blade Runner
On the surface this might appear simply a reiteration of the eugenic line of reasoning, which as we move closer and closer to the completion of the
Human Genome Project may give rise to compulsory sterilization under the guise of public safety and national responsibility. Many might not
realize that mental patients in America were routinely sterilized in the first part of this century before the mythic ubermensch of Aryan racism
discredited the science of eugenics. What is more important about this quote though is that it predates the public disclosure of the HIV/AIDS
immunovirus. A disease created largely by our need to 'fix things', while being held to the model of symptomatic medicine which aggressively
treats symptoms and largely ignores the causal roots.
But by far the most frightening aspect of this medicalization of our lives can be seen within the connection between the medical industry (AMA),
the government (FDA) and the big business of drug and insurance companies. The sprawling medical preserves look more and more like prisons
which cure/rehabilitate as often as their procedures kill/incarcerate. A very moving story about yet another AIDS death on This American Life
mentioned that the majority of patients who die in ICU (Intensive Care Units) die not from the etiological event that brought them there, but from
infections contracted while in the hands of 'trained health care professionals'. These bureaucracies reach into each and every life from conception
until death, and in the end the bodies that they perform their feats of technology assisted experimentation on are only dollar signs and black ink
on their bottom lines.
This collusion between doctors ready to prescribe anti-depressants to children in order to solve the drug companies need to do research, or the
AMA and FDA turning a blind eye to this potentially dangerous precedent is a ripe subject for the piercing gaze of the satiric eye. In the same
way the FDA's refusal to allow drugs on the market, which enhance health or promote cognitive enhancement is criminal. But the reason for this
is obvious to the careful observer; it would cut into the profit margins of the doctors, the hospitals, the drug companies, and the health insurance
industry. And in this era of heightened economic awareness, one can't slaughter that large a cash cow.
Another example of this monetary focus of medicine is the attempt by the FDA for several years running to list 'vitamin supplements' especially
preventative anti-oxidants as drugs. They have also adopted a policy to curtail the use of herbal remedies and force them into the category of
prescribed medicines, in order to stem the growing resurgence in 'alternative' medicine. The only reason these attempts have failed is because
Orrin Hatch, the senator from Utah, whose state is the home of most of the major 'supplement' companies, has routinely blocked this legislation
and galvanized public opposition. The attempt to increase the FDA's mandate last year generated the largest volume of mail received by Congress
on a single issue. It of course doesn't help the FDA's case when it is reported that their agents have gone into health food stores and removed
products off of shelves without compensation or legal precedent. But we are talking about the same FDA that burned Wilhelm Reich's writings
and research in the 1950's in a scene reminiscent of say Nazi Germany on the charge he claimed his 'orgone box' cured cancer. He died in prison
on a contempt charge in the suit the FDA brought against him.
William S. Burroughs' Blade Runner: A Movie addresses many of these ideas about the danger of government and big business being
primary care givers in our society. His text was written prior to the release of the DSM III and prior to public awareness of the HIV/AIDS
immunovirus. None the less it addresses the later specifically and the former is approached in relation to a sprawling leprosorium, which takes
up most of the Gulf Coast states. It addresses in a harsh and ciritical way the outcome of allowing money to be the primary motivator in health
care issues. His satiric take on the mind of America is still without comparison, and applicable to our time and place in the evolving nightmare
from which we are trying to wake.