America's alleged health watchdogs have stepped up to the plate in dubious fashion. The Food and Drug Administration has asked manufacturers of popular anti-depressants known as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, or SSRIs, to strengthen suicide warnings on their labels. This campaign appears to take steps to protect the public, at least from suicide, but has failed to curb a larger assault on Americans.

The effects of poor diagnoses and over-prescribing of medications have been as detrimental as the SSRIs themselves. The fallout: Powerful pharmaceutical companies continue to rake in billions.

SSRI anti-depressants are dispensed like Chex Mix at a tavern on a Saturday night. Americans have been painstakingly primed for pharmaceutical exploitation, thanks to the drug industries, media, the American Medical Association and the FDA. Physicians adorn waiting rooms with medication propaganda like pubs touting Miller Genuine Draft two-fers on Tuesday. TV commercials popularize depression, reducing a complex condition to an animated, morose "bubble" that no longer appreciates the simple beauty of a butterfly. At last count, about 70 percent of my spam e-mails promoted SSRIs, leaving sex products and low-interest home mortgages in the dust. Popular magazines thrive from selling full-page spreads, accompanied by obligatory clinical test results written in jargon that sends statisticians running for reference books.

Americans have been seduced by a slick, well-conceived marketing ploy. Everyone, at times, feels sad, anxious, strung out, overworked, misunderstood and simply indifferent and uninspired. In a society that seems to be on a cataclysmic tailspin toward the self-absorbed, SSRIs are touted to cure all: depression, sleeping and eating disorders, anxiety and social phobias.

A new species of primary care physician has evolved. Armed with a mini-arsenal of samples left by pharmaceutical company representatives, he greets a patient who reports feeling off-center ever since the final episode of "Sex in the City." Under the subliminal control of strategically placed SSRI pamphlets, the question is asked: "Is it right for me?" The physician elucidates the complex chemical imbalance, then whips out a prescription pad and a pen emblazoned with a drug manufacturer's logo. "Side effects? You've got nothing to worry about. Here, take these clinical test results home with you."

SSRIs have established a cultural double-standard. It's no surprise that teenagers cast a doubtful eye when warned about gateway drugs and alcohol from parents who dose up on SSRIs. These same parents seek out pharmaceutical relief for their unruly, oppositionally defiant teenagers. At best, this simply substitutes an SSRI or other FDA-approved drugs for illicit ones; at worst, parents inflict pharmaceutical propaganda into the lifestyles of vulnerable teenagers. A pill-popping parent is a poor model for a skeptical teenager trying to make sense out of a culture in which parents divorce with acrimony, competition for college admission is daunting and the safety and future of our nation teeters like a hanging chad on an election ballot.

At center stage of this circus is the FDA, watching in the wings as untrained medical professionals parade as experts in treating behavior problems, many functioning as marketers with medical degrees. Pharmaceutical companies care little about physician competency, only that they have a license to prescribe medications.

Left unchecked, the reliance on SSRIs to solve minor complaints keeps us from closely examining where the problems come from, and how to deal with them effectively. If the diagnoses of depression, anxiety and obsessive-compulsive disorder are on the rise, it's an artifact of these rules of engagement: SSRIs are prescribed only when there is an alleged diagnosis - not necessarily an accurate one. Many people who undergo proper diagnoses benefit from prescription drugs, but too many others are misdiagnosed and are taking SSRIs for no good reason.

The FDA should take precautions to protect Americans from more than SSRIs. It's time to rein in pharmaceutical companies from exploiting the public, and demand competency-based criteria for medical professionals prescribing SSRIs.

Jeff Kupfer is a licensed psychologist from Superior, CO. Originally published in The Denver Post as a guest commentary on April 09, 2004.

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