Over the years, a repeating theme in these sort of conversations is the feeling that side effects of AI drugs are either underplayed or dismissed as being extremely uncommon. I think this is very unfair and verges on being unethical.
Yes, the drug companies list the 'less serious' side effects: dizziness, hair loss, muscle and joint pain, fatigue, sleeplessness etc. But then they mitigate the information by saying the majority of users do not have 'serious' side effects. You know, strokes, heart attacks, depressions, fractures due to loss of bone density and other great stuff. What isn't said is how terribly common the suite of miseries that accompanies the drugs really are.
Would we still take it? Quite probably. It's the absence of true informed consent that pisses me off. Then your general misery is discounted as being unusual, passing, all in your head and we don't want to frighten people away from the best chance of survival on offer. Humph.
It brings to mind the attitudes to post natal depression that proliferated until pretty recently. It was rare, uncommon, passing, all in your head, you will get over it and we don't discuss it because we don't want you to worry. As if you could talk yourself into wanting to harm yourself or your child.. How patronizing and destructive was that?
