Word: valium
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Many psychoactive drugs--including opiates, the Valium-type compounds and angel dust--mimic the action of neurotransmitters by binding to particular receptors and influencing the neuron's firing. Pharmacologists have acquired the tools to screen new drugs quickly, testing their affinity for particular receptors by cloning, or duplicating, the receptors and then designing molecules that bind to them. So refined are the new techniques that scientists now know of 14 different receptors for serotonin, the ubiquitous chemical messenger that plays a critical role in sleep, mood, depression and anxiety. They have also discerned five different receptor subtypes for dopamine...
...easy to see why. Storefront signs in Los Algodones advertise 28 tablets of Prozac for $31.60, vs. $69.95 in the U.S. The estrogen supplement Premarin costs $6.50 for 42 tablets, compared with $30. A bottle of 90 10-mg tablets of Valium retails for $8.75, instead...
...afterward, in Timberg's rendering, from a blind-side naivete about politics. McFarlane: a saintly self-diminisher, subverted by thoughts of his own unworthiness but cherishing immense ambitions. When McFarlane attempted suicide in 1987 under the strain of Iran-contra, it was by the strangely unmartial means of a Valium overdose...
Part of the problem, say Himmelstein and others, is that doctors do not get enough training in geriatrics. Over the past several years, researchers have documented that tranquilizers such as Valium and Seconal linger an exceptionally long time in older people's bodies because their kidneys and livers work slowly at eliminating the drugs. The buildup can lead to confusion and memory loss. Unfortunately, those symptoms may be dismissed as signs of aging rather than of drug...
...case for rowdy behavior. "They just felt I was being bad -- too loud, too physical, too everything." A rebellious tomboy with few friends, she saw a psychologist at age 10, "but nobody came up with a diagnosis." As a teenager she began prescribing her own medication: marijuana, Valium and, later, cocaine...