Pill to erase bad memories

[Steve_A]

Hi Everybody,

Finally it's arrived. There is a pill to erase emotion....

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...-identity.html

Pill to erase bad memories: Ethical furore over drugs 'that threaten human identity' By David Derbyshire

A drug which appears to erase painful memories has been developed by scientists.

The astonishing treatment could help sufferers of post-traumatic stress disorder and those whose lives are plagued by hurtful recurrent memories.

But British experts said the breakthrough raises disturbing ethical questions about what makes us human.

They also warned it could have damaging psychological consequences, preventing those who take it from learning from their mistakes

Dr Daniel Sokol, a lecturer in medical ethics at St George's, University of London, said: 'Removing bad memories is not like removing a wart or a mole. It will change our personal identity since who we are is linked to our memories.

Click the link for more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...-identity.html

Best regards,

Steve

[alyscat]

Hmmm, probably cheaper than ECT, which we already have, and which does change the personality - somewhat.

I'll be surprised if these ever make the market, for a number of reasons. 1) How can one selectively remove a specific memory? 2) how much of the components would have to be manufactured outside the country?

Since I personally think we're going to be seeing fewer and fewer non-local items available (see the Baltic Dry Index) - just ramping up for this may make it a non-starter.
JMHO
alys

[Steve_A]

Hi alysat,

Too late it already has reached the market. It is currently used for blood pressure problems.

Although I can't remember the name, some doctor on the TV (Fox News) mentioned it and told the reporter that he already uses it to treat high blood pressure.

Best regards,

Steve

Originally Posted by alyscat

Hmmm, probably cheaper than ECT, which we already have, and which does change the personality - somewhat.

I'll be surprised if these ever make the market, for a number of reasons. 1) How can one selectively remove a specific memory? 2) how much of the components would have to be manufactured outside the country?

Since I personally think we're going to be seeing fewer and fewer non-local items available (see the Baltic Dry Index) - just ramping up for this may make it a non-starter.
JMHO
alys

[alyscat]

Well, I wonder if all his HBP patients no longer have bad memories LOL.

If we do get into a "shortages" situation, like in the last depression, has anyone considered what will happen if meds fall in that category? Most of the vitamins we take here in the US come from China, as I understand it, as well as other pharmaceuticals.

alys

[Czymra]

The test that verifies its efficiency seems ridiculous to me. As we all know by now, the results are a given taken the stance of observation.
On a less metaphysical level though, the way the experiment is set up is questionable. What is the association between spiders pictures, electronic shocks and sudden sound?
Sure all may induce fear but I find it hard to conclude that the reaction time is altered by looking at spiders.
On another note, who can guarantee that pictures of spiders and electrical shocks at all manifest a 'bad memory'. Is this supposed to be a spider bite? Or do you suddenly feel uneasy about pictures of spiders?

I have the feeling that this is something that you pump soldiers full of to make them less emotional in general, because what really is being tampered with and what the actual effects are is so vague it's ridiculous.

[Jacqui D]

Totally disagree with this idea as been mentioned by everyone here what are they turning us into!

Read this article from my local paper just the other day, apparently this is in the area of Kent in England, same area i live.
It seems electric shock treatment is on the up!

Why Kent though i can not say.
Are we a county of insane, over excited, maybe depressed, suicidal, group of numbskull idiots! lol!!
This type of treatment is Dickensian i can't understand why it still exists.







Electric shock brain therapy 'on the increase'
The use of a controversial psychiatric treatment that sends high-voltage currents of electricity through the brain is on the rise in Kent.

Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) is mainly use to treat patients with severe depression when they have not responded to other forms of treatment.

Anti-psychiatry Scientology organisation the Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR) claimed the use of the therapy in Kent and Medway has risen 68 per cent over the last five years.

Kent and Medway NHS and Social Care Partnership Trust, which is responsible for mental health in the county, confirmed it had received a Freedom of Information request from the CCHR but said there had been only a “slight increase” in the use of ECT.

Marie Dodd, the trust’s director of operations, said: “The delivery of ECT is undertaken in line with Nice [National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence] guidelines.

“It is used to gain fast and short-term improvement of severe symptoms after all other treatment options have failed, or when the situation is thought to be life-threatening, including when people have stopped eating or drinking as a result of their depression.

“This practice is not unusual and is line with the rest of the NHS. Nice follows a rigorous programme of evidence evaluation in researching and appraising treatments.

“We do not support people scaremongering about a nationally approved and safe treatment as this may potentially discourage people, who could benefit from this treatment, from accepting it as part of their care.”

She said the decision to give ECT to a patient was made on a case-by-case basis and is delivered at one of the trust’s three centres in Dartford, Maidstone or Ashford.

Research shows many patients find the treatment helpful but others can experience emotional and physical side-effects.

Paul Farmer, chief executive of the mental health charity Mind, said: “Mind has found that people’s experiences of ECT vary enormously.

“When we conducted a survey of people who have received ECT we found that 84 per cent experienced side-effects such as memory loss, difficultly concentrating, headaches and dizziness.

“Having said this, some people do find it helpful in alleviating feelings of depression and others have credited it with saving their lives.

“These people should not be prevented from choosing this treatment, but anyone opting for ECT must always be fully informed about the procedure and potential for negative side effects.”

The trust’s information leaflet for patients on ECT explains how the electricity is given under a general anaesthetic and with a muscle-relaxing drug so there is little movement of the body.

While the patient is unconscious two padded electrodes are placed on the temples and a series of brief high-voltage elective pulses, about 60 to 70 a second, for three to five seconds, which causes a seizure or fit.

As a treatment ECT has existed since the 1930s and although it is now given under Nice guidelines and is never given ‘unmodified’ or without anaesthetic and muscle-relaxants in the UK or the US it has picked up negative connotations.

Its use is featured in Ken Kesey’s novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, which later became an award-winning film with Jack Nicholson, where it is dangerous, inhumane and overused, and more recently to similar effect in Clint Eastwood’s Changeling.

“ECT is an invasive and irreversible procedure,” Mr Farmer said. “It should only ever be used as a last resort for cases of extreme depression, when every other treatment has been tried.

“Even then, it should never be given without fully informed consent except in an emergency.”

Mind’s information leaflet on ECT states that the emotional and psychological effects are under-estimated and under-researched.

In a 2001 survey for the charity a woman from Surrey said: “ECT was done to me, not done for me.

“That’s the total sense of how it felt. It paralleled sexual abuse, which I experienced as a child, someone doing something to my body against my will.”

But in the same survey another woman, from Staffordshire, said: “If I had not received ECT I would be dead by now.”

There is no clear explanation for how ECT works but it is known to adjust the levels of brain chemicals involved in mood regulation, such as serotonin and noradrenaline, and to enhance the activity of dopamine.

[THE eXchanger]

bad memories, are keys in your timeline
that you must, process

using drugs to dull the brain,
would NOT process karmic things,
that go along with the bad memories

there is no easy way out !!!

release/forgive/ and, put light onto a problem, and, solve it,
that is the only thing, that truly works

also--when bad things occur, it is only because,
whatever happened to you, you did to someone else,
sad, but true --however, once you complete a monad sequence successfully,
you never need to go through it again

there are 101 different types of monads or eXchanges

killed / killer
robbed / robber
abused / abusor
etc.,

[futureyes]

my spidey senses tell me this is scary ... a tangled web of numbing our selves within illusion ...
once caught in it ... not much chance of freeing our selves from it ...
erasing bad memories sure ...
erasing our selves ... scary ...
in the wrong hands ... this could be a frightening ...
big red flags ... stay clear of web ahead ...
just my sense ...
globally ...

[alyscat]

Don't know whether ECT's up or whether we've just got more bipolar people utilizing it for debilitating depression, or whether it's now more acceptable to talk about it. They've improved the technique over the years to determine what is the best dose and it's used with supportive meds (this is the mental health professional coming out in me LOL), and heck, even Carrie Fisher, in her latest book, is on it and speaks favorably of it.

That said, why are so many of us depressed? A lot of people just mask it with alcohol and other "allowable" drugs. I truly don't think mankind was meant to be this way. What is happening within our genes and/or physical and/or emotional system that pushes us in this direction?

thoughts to ponder

alys

[rhythm]

THIS IS ONE OF THOSE TIMES WHEN
I CANT BELIVE WHAT I SEE
STRANGE AND DISTURBING TO SAY THE LEAST
ZOMBIES AND ROBOTS VILLE eh!!!
O!pleeze enough already !!!!.......

[burgundia]

i just hope the same ingriedients won't be added to our food.

[judykott]

I wonder if this is the same blood pressure medicine they put my mother on. Years ago she tried to wean herself off of all the medications that the doctors had put her. In the 70's it was common for doctors to use prescriptions for everything, well I guess that is not so different form today. She got herself off of many of them but she could not get off the blood pressure one as decreaseing the dosage soon caused her to have constant hallucinations of guess what spiders coming out of the walls, for some reason that seemed to be the hallucination that that particular drug causes when you try to get off it. It was very frightening for her. She could not stop taking it and it eventually lead to her cycle of going back on endless prescriptions

You have to ask yourself why are they finding a disease in everything that needs prompt medication to "cure" you.

[judykott]

A food chemist that I met retired after finding out that many of the things that can now slip under seasoning or spices are addictive drugs and have mind altering effects. Remember when cigarettes were loaded with addictive substances, now they just find new ones and call them seasonings or preservatives when that is not their purpose. Best not to eat processed food. Unfortuneately they are now trying to get laws to irradiate and do other things to fresh whole foods to effect those who try to go the whole food route.

[Delphi]

Why are so many of us depressed? Oh Alyscat what a rant I could write about that! But primarily I think it's because so many of us have to live against natural rhythms, and out of contact with the natural world, in order either to serve the capitalist system or to minimise its effects with the consequent marginalisation.

i don't have enough knowledge of pharmaceuticals to know if statins are the same as the drugs involved in erasing painful memories, but some users of statins report mental fogginess and forgetfulness.

love to all

[Jacqui D]

We're just all lab rats anyway, they do what they want.
We're controlled, watched, examined under the eyes of control.

Sorry to sound defeatest here but that's how i feel, even with all you lovely people on this site, we haven't made much process in changing anything have we?

Nothing altered as far as i can see, there are still those who believe and those who don't, we may have awakened a few on the way but no real change yet!
The days are becoming harder to live with all the doom and gloom and i seem to be a Groundhog day mode, if you have never seen the movie A guy relives day after day and he can not get out of it.

[futureyes]

Originally Posted by Jacqui D

We're just all lab rats anyway, they do what they want.
We're controlled, watched, examined under the eyes of control.

Sorry to sound defeatest here but that's how i feel, even with all you lovely people on this site, we haven't made much process in changing anything have we?

Nothing altered as far as i can see, there are still those who believe and those who don't, we may have awakened a few on the way but no real change yet!
The days are becoming harder to live with all the doom and gloom and i seem to be a Groundhog day mode, if you have never seen the movie A guy relives day after day and he can not get out of it.

i love that movie jacqui d ...

but guess what ... he makes his way through it doesn't he ... finally!

just as we will make our way through this as well ... finally!

this go round is so much different than previous ones ...

you may not see changes jacqui ... but they ARE occuring ...

we humans are short on patience and that has added to not moving forward in the past ... we want to see it to believe it and then we afford the situation more patience ...

what about if we can't "see" it ... can we still "trust" it ...

every change is a significant one ... less apparent ones initially ... those are the ones we "feel" within us ... this then amplifies exponentially outwardly ...

THEN we'll start "seeing" the changes ...

the biggest part of this shift jacqui is in the now ... in this very moment ... this is our most significant hurdle ...

can we TRUST by what we feel ... not having to see it right now ...

i believe we can ...

this hasn't much to do with the topic at hand ... sorry ... felt to write ...

[Czymra]

If you want to see a film that is directly about these topics watch Requiem for a Dream.
But DON'T jump off the balcony afterwards. The pain eases with time.

[THE eXchanger]

remember, as long as you can feel pain in your heart,
you KNOW, you still have a heart
and, can access it !!!

[David]

Whew!

Finally

A pill to erase all those one night stands in college where you wake up in the morning and realize what had happened.


Seriously though....we are all here to learn from mistakes. Even the ones others make. To remove them will deny progression from your self and others.

Everything happens for a reason, we are all here for one thing or another. No one here can convince another of the truth until that is found for yourself.

Forgiveness is a virtue.

[vipassana]

I think this medication is a bad idea. In the early 90's when I quit alcohol due to addiction I would have jumped at the chance to take this to erase my bad memories. Today I'm grateful for my experiences and my ongoing fascinating life journey.....for me it's all about learning.

I like this poem by Portia Nelson because I think it expresses life learning well:-

"Autobiography in five chapters" by Portia Nelson:
1) I walk down the street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I fall in. I am lost...I am hopeless.
It isn't my fault.
It takes forever to find a way out.

2) I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I pretend I don't see it. I fall in again.
I can't believe I'm in the same place. But it isn't my fault.
It still takes a long time to get out.

3) I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I see it is there. I still fall in...it's a habit
My eyes are open; I know where I am; it is my fault.
I get out immediately.

4) I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk
I walk around it.

5) I walk down another street.