「うつは心の薬害。」英語版準備中！

英語版の出版に向けて、鋭意努力中です。タイトルは、Sample One of Depressing Mattersとなっています。若干海外向けに必要な補足は付けることにしましたが、内容は基本的に同じです。

KDPでは、現在の日本語版も実は海外で売られています。つまり、言語さえ変更すれば、まったく同じ手続きで全世界に向けて情報発信ができるのです。アマゾンさんに深く感謝いたします。

翻訳には相当時間がかかりそうです。英語版のイントロダクションから、タイトルについての説明部分をペーストします。

＜Introduction for English version＞

～Hello, from JAPAN～

I would like to say hello to many kinds of people in the world. Hello to all the patients who suffer from antidepressants and other mental medicines. Hello, to the families of those patients. Hello, to all psychiatrists with at least slightest conscience. Hello, to psychologists, pharmaceutists, therapists, volunteers…etc.

This is a self-translated English version of my book, “Depression is Heart’s Drug Disaster.” For those who are out of Japan, it is a necessary piece of information to understand this Japanese title that the marketing copy that GSK effectively used in Japan for Paxil was, “Depression is heart’s flu.” I dubbed it, hoping that this title would effectively be communicated by overwriting the credibility of the original.

For the English version, I needed to change the titles, as this dubbing cannot work outside Japan. The words, “Sample One,” were soon picked up from the Introduction, as they convey the essence of my stance in the book. “Depression is Heart’s Drug Disaster” is not just about accusation. It is how I lived through the issues, even with some sense of humor.

Then came, “of Depressing Matters.” Here, “matters” firstly mean physical objects, which are drugs, such as antidepressants and other pills in the context of my book. Antidepressants can ironically be pro-depressants in the long-term, and are “depressing matters.” Furthermore, it looks like that this long-term effect is chronic, which is so “depressing” to the patients and their family. Matters in English secondly mean more abstract, non-physical things such as deeds, conducts, actions, practices, or phenomenon. The more I learned the caused of the drug disaster, the more “depressing” the findings are. Why in the first place pharmaceutical companies started this? How leading American psychiatrists are involved? Why FDA or MHLW (Japanese counterpart) could not stop it? How Japanese academic societies reacted? Why psychiatrists in practice do not question? All the answers for these questions are so primitively awkward and very much “depressing.”

However, a book to sell should not only be depressing. No one would buy and read it. This is probably the reason why I frequently employed the sense of humor. Humor is not superficial means to laugh at what is happening. It should deliver profound power to solve issues and live with hopes and relieves.