CMV: Spreading medical disinformation on the Internet is the digital equivalent of "shouting 'FIRE!'' in a movie theater".

Despite the current health climate, this post is not directly related to a certain health outbreak, but rather pertaining to a general trend. For the past several years, I have been seeing outbreaks and health panics over misinformation and disinformation propagated throughout the web. It has been somewhat successful for these questionable sources when it comes to getting their agenda, whatever that may be, across to the masses. Basically, the Internet gives people a platform or "digital soapbox" to stand on in order to spew ideas to the masses in manners past generations would be envious over.

That said, some of this information can either be disproved by empirical research, or outright unable to be disproved due to the nature of the question, "does life begin at conception?", or "is there a God and an afterlife?", since those questions are unable to be adequately answered by the scientific method. Regardless of the matter, misinformation can spread online like wildfire thanks to the clickbait mentality many have when it comes to being easily evoked through loaded language. Basically, these hoax pushers, conspiracy theorists, and other malicious/questionable actors are taking advantage of psychological pain points just to get their beliefs and ideas across. It is so darn powerful.

Anyway, onto my view. I saw on various ex-mental patient forums about this alleged idea/phrase/headline/etc. that goes along the lines of this...

"The sexual side effects of SSRI and SNRI antidepressants can be permanent and irreversible to some, even after stopping the medication."

The thing with this statement is that it is very loaded and there are many other ideas to why sexual problems can occur after stopping a serotogenic antidepressant.

• Relapse of original condition (depression/anxiety).
• Hormonal imbalances
• Body image issues
• Sexual trauma
• Just feeling not in the mood or in a dry spell that is unrelated to discontinuing the SSRI/SNRI/MAOI/tricyclic.

Generally speaking, once the patient has been off the medication for a while and the problem persists, the healthcare provider is going to assume that it is being caused by something else because from their knowledge their has been no reliable casual links in an empirical study between long-term antidepressant use and persistent sexual dysfunction after stopping the medication.

However, that may not stop some people from raising that possibility. Many people who spew this controversial idea tend to be strongly against psychiatry, either for religious or secular reasons. However, the consequences of this questionable infoimraiton being pushed is that some people may panic and "stop their antidepressant 'cold turkey'", bad idea BTW, or not go on an antidepressant when in fact they may need it. This can result in mass amounts of people potentially dying from suicide from untreated depression/anxiety that could have been avoided with treatment. This hypothetical scenario can be compared to outbreaks of people dying from measles due to decreased herd immunity associated with less people getting vaccinated.

That's my view.

Despite the current health climate, this post is not directly related to a certain health outbreak, but rather pertaining to a general trend. For the past several years, I have been seeing outbreaks and health panics over misinformation and disinformation propagated throughout the web. It has been somewhat successful for these questionable sources when it comes to getting their agenda, whatever that may be, across to the masses. Basically, the Internet gives people a platform or "digital soapbox" to stand on in order to spew ideas to the masses in manners past generations would be envious over.That said, some of this information can either be disproved by empirical research, or outright unable to be disproved due to the nature of the question, "does life begin at conception?", or "is there a God and an afterlife?", since those questions are unable to be adequately answered by the scientific method. Regardless of the matter, misinformation can spread online like wildfire thanks to the clickbait mentality many have when it comes to being easily evoked through loaded language. Basically, these hoax pushers, conspiracy theorists, and other malicious/questionable actors are taking advantage of psychological pain points just to get their beliefs and ideas across. It is so darn powerful.Anyway, onto my view. I saw on various ex-mental patient forums about this alleged idea/phrase/headline/etc. that goes along the lines of this..."The sexual side effects of SSRI and SNRI antidepressants can be permanent and irreversible to some, even after stopping the medication."The thing with this statement is that it is very loaded and there are many other ideas to why sexual problems can occur after stopping a serotogenic antidepressant.Relapse of original condition (depression/anxiety).Hormonal imbalancesBody image issuesSexual traumaJust feeling not in the mood or in a dry spell that is unrelated to discontinuing the SSRI/SNRI/MAOI/tricyclic.Generally speaking, once the patient has been off the medication for a while and the problem persists, the healthcare provider is going to assume that it is being caused by something else because from their knowledge their has been no reliable casual links in an empirical study between long-term antidepressant use and persistent sexual dysfunction after stopping the medication.However, that may not stop some people from raising that possibility. Many people who spew this controversial idea tend to be strongly against psychiatry, either for religious or secular reasons. However, the consequences of this questionable infoimraiton being pushed is that some people may panic and "stop their antidepressant 'cold turkey'", bad idea BTW, or not go on an antidepressant when in fact they may need it. This can result in mass amounts of people potentially dying from suicide from untreated depression/anxiety that could have been avoided with treatment. This hypothetical scenario can be compared to outbreaks of people dying from measles due to decreased herd immunity associated with less people getting vaccinated.That's my view. https://ift.tt/eA8V8J https://ift.tt/3dHz6In