Via a Facebook friend, I learned about a shockingly totalitarian idea: adding the psychiatric drug Lithium to the water supply ostensibly to prevent suicide:
For decades, it’s been the gold-standard treatment for the most distressing of mental health disorders: mania, schizophrenia, and major depression.
But now, lithium – the third element of of the periodic table and an essential constituent of soil, oceans, and every living organism – is being heralded by some experts as the next fluoride; an additive with such therapeutic potential, it should be ingested by millions of Americans every time they pour a glass of drinking water.
It’s a provocative prospect that research suggests might reduce rates of suicide, violent crime, and hard drug use.
I agree with the observation of this Freeper:
This slithering suggestion that putting lithium in the water supply could be good for us is framed thusly: “lithium’s capacity to instill mass mental resilience”
Resilience? Is that what we call chemically pacified people?
That sounds about right. A British psychiatrist quoted in The Daily says the drug dampens impulsivity (which would probably make people more, er, “resilient” according shrink jingo), but he allows that might be bad:
“Lithium certainly dampens impulsivity, which would explain how it reduces suicide rates,” [Dr. Allan] Young said. “But at a population level, what if that impulsivity was being directed in a healthy way — the person jumping onto the subway tracks to save a life.”
The kind of public policy experts who would advocate mass dosing of the populace with Lithium don’t want people jumping onto tracks to save lives, as they are against any form of self help, autonomy, or initiative. All the more reason to drug the public!
Shocking though this Lithium idea may be, it is not new. A piece from last year discused — and rejected — the wildly communitarian idea that “Lithium, a psychotropic drug used to level out the manic and depressive swings associated with bipolar disorder, could do for suicide what fluoride did for cavities.”
Takeaway
Over 34,000 people in the US commit suicide each year, making it the fourth leading cause of death among Americans aged 18 to 65. If lithium were added to all US drinking water—and the effect were the same as in Texas’s highest-lithium regions—the national suicide rate would drop to 20,831, saving over 13,000 lives.
Why We Should Reject This
Lithium is a much more powerful substance than fluoride, with far greater potential side effects. Critics say that drugging the water is a massive infringement and equate this use of pharmaceuticals to something out of Aldous Huxley’s dystopic classic “Brave New World.”
Robert Carton, a former senior scientist for the EPA, argues that the government’s fortifying drinking water with any substance, even fluoride, violates people’s fundamental right—codified in the Nuremburg Code—to give informed consent to any medical intervention. “All ethical codes for the protection of individuals who are subject to medical procedures,” Carton wrote in the International Journal of Occupational and Environmental Health, “whether research or routine medical treatment, endorse the basic requirement for voluntary informed consent.”
The idea that because Lithium helps prevent suicide in some, it should be given to everyone, is so shocking that I cannot believe it has uttered by serious people. I don’t doubt that Lithium might prevent suicide. So might a strait jacket.
Does this mean we should all be forced to wear strait jackets?
Forgive my rhetorical question. Not only are the inmates running the asylum, but they want to share their meds with the rest of us — whether we want it or not.
For decades, it’s been the gold-standard treatment for the most distressing of mental health disorders: mania, schizophrenia, and major depression.
But now, lithium – the third element of of the periodic table and an essential constituent of soil, oceans, and every living organism – is being heralded by some experts as the next fluoride; an additive with such therapeutic potential, it should be ingested by millions of Americans every time they pour a glass of drinking water.
It’s a provocative prospect that research suggests might reduce rates of suicide, violent crime, and hard drug use.
Comments
10 responses to “Communitarianism on steroids”
Wow. “I do not hold with that. I aim to misbehave.”
Time to buy into or start a company that produces light-metal filters for domestic water use. Maybe a convenient tablet that chemically precipitates out the lithium.
Really what will happen? People will avoid clean tap water in favour of rain water perhaps, or other sources. Public health will worsen in many ways outweighing any supposed psychiatric benefit. If you can’t trust your water supply any more because some government nutjob is trying to control your mood then a lot of other diseases are going to flourish.
And really… medicating hundreds of millions of people to save the lives of 13000 who should be getting proper help anyway? I bet that 13000 is based on some FDA model as well, so the actual reduction would be far less.
This is just wrong…
Glad, I’m already on a private well…
SDN, nice Serenity play!
Just watched part of the movie Equilibrium last night and at one point I thought, “That’s a little far fetched.” If you haven’t seen it, the movie is about a fascistic society where everyone is forced to take meds to subdue emotions which the “Father” has deemed to be the cause of strife and war. And then Eric posts this about someone wanting to put lithium in our water. Everyday I find the world getting a little bit more insane.
Sure, it’s all fun and games till the Reavers are eating you alive.
“Everyday I find the world getting a little bit more insane.”
See, exactly why lithium is needed in your water supply.
Lithium is already in some natural water supplies.
That’s how it’s positive effects were discovered – those areas with natural lithium had lower suicide and depression rates than those that did not at a statistically significant degree.
On the other hand, acne was more widespread and people had fewer orgasms.
“people had fewer orgasms”
That would be depressing…
I had heard 20 years ago that the Aussies put it in their beer, water being not so much drunk in their country, whereas they drank beer like it was, well, water…
Wikipedia has some fascinating information about the toxicity of lithium when taken in excessive quantities, and apparently exhibit a “narrow thereaputic/toxic ratio,” meaning that doses in the water so small that no one got an excessive dose would do little if anything, and doses high enough to have “theraputic” effects would insure that people with low body weight who drank a lot of water would experience the listed side-effects of lithium poisoning: acne, weight gain, delirium, seizures, permanent neurological damage, death, etc.
More to the point, I think that I shall decide for myself whether I want to consume psychoactive drugs, thank you very much.