They make it to the market because the conditions they "treat" (using the word loosely), are in many cases even worse than this.

Ever seen a schizophrenic in the midst of a relapse? That's a level of fear beyond anything you'll ever witness in a Hollywood movie, and it doesn't come in nice, easy to bear waves...it's constant, unending terror. Nobody with the slightest compassion would wish that on their worst enemy.

A -chance- of severe side effects as a trade-off for a chance to ameliorate these conditions is a no-brainer. I just wish psychiatrists would stop pretending they are scientists in any way...treating people by trial and error just isn't science.

then again, some people would pay extra for the side effects.

Pay extra for high blood sugar, permanent muscle spasms, coma or death? o_O?!

yeeeeah, don't think that joke makes nearly as much sense as you hoped.. = /

>> ^chicchorea:

then again, some people would pay extra for the side effects.

When it comes to psychiatric diseases, there really is no good way to treat them. Almost every single drug we give has side-effects that can be lifethreatening, but, as @Stormsinger said, it's a calculated risk taken by the doctor to treat a disease that we're not really able to treat.

There are different schools of thought when it comes to the treatment of psychiatric patients, and right now the predominant one is medication (it used to be a labotomy). Unfortunately this is not an exact science because consciousness is so intangible and I'd argue almost immeasurable.

So as I do agree with the first part of what Stormsinger said, I'm compelled to disagree with the second part because this is the only way that we can really tell if these drugs/methods work or not. That's the unfortunate part of medicine, where theory can only take you so far and you need clinical trials to test hypothesis. Maybe one day in the future this will not be necessary, but so far it's the best we've got.

meeeeeh...perhaps I don't have invested near that which you perceive...therefore...
>> ^GenjiKilpatrick:

Pay extra for high blood sugar, permanent muscle spasms, coma or death? o_O?!
yeeeeah, don't think that joke makes nearly as much sense as you hoped.. = /
>> ^chicchorea:
then again, some people would pay extra for the side effects.

Actually, Abilify is the safest atypical antipsychotic med we have, the worst being Clozaril. It's so safe that it's generally last-line because it has the least efficacy as well.