White Folks Get Prozac

It seems counterintuitive that your race and status might affect the medical treatment you get but unfortunately that might be the reality here. Recent studies have shown that white patients and those with private health insurance were more likely to receive the newest drugs available, opposed to minorities and those using Medicaid or Medicare who would receive the cheaper, less effective method of treatment. Rates of antidepressant use has increased significantly over the pass couple decades but use increased more in whites than in blacks or Hispanics. A study found that in 2008 11 percent of white patients with depression were being prescribed meds and only 4 percent of Hispanic and black patients with the same condition were prescribed meds.

Are white people are just more depressed than other races or is the doctors’ ties to the healthcare system have influence over the treatment of patients? According to David Sclar, a professor of health policy, the answer to this question is “we don’t know.” Sclar says that to get the evidence to answer this question would be difficult because people don’t feel comfortable talking about these issues in a controlled experiment.

Free Heroin to Battle Addiction

It seems counterintuitive to give a drug addict drugs, but in Vancouver Canada there doing just that. In Vancouver drugs come in by the boat and those drugs include pure heroin. To try and deal with this problem Vancouver set up a place for addicts to get clean needles and shoot up under the supervision of nurses. They figure if you’re going to do it you might as well do it safely. Not only are they supplying the equipment for the addicts but they are also giving them some of the best heroin around.

By giving the addicts the heroin it acts as a treatment for them. The patients that go to the clinics to get the heroin say they prefer it because it’s better than them having to “break into your car or hurt you” for them to get a fix. There are people that oppose this whole idea saying that by giving the addicts free heroine, you are giving up on them. In and interview with two addicts that go to the clinic they both said they have no intentions on quitting heroin.

The Marshmallow Test

It seems counterintuitive that an experiment with marshmallows and cookies would be so influential but Walter Mischel’s test was. In the 1960’s he gave kids a choice of a snack, a cookie, a pretzel stick, or a marshmallow. Once they picked one they could eat it or wait 15 minutes and get another snack. From this experiment Mischel could determine who would do better in life with school and relationships because of their patience or lack of patience.

Another study by Celeste Kidd showed that Mischel’s study wasn’t so accurate after all. She determined that his experiment missed out on an important factor, trust. Kidd then conducted her own experiment where she included trust. After doing so, she conducted Mischel’s experiment and the results were very different. Kidd concluded that kids will wait for something if they actually think there is something to wait for.