Independent UK: Antidepressant drugs don't work – official study

[marmar]

Antidepressant drugs don't work – official study


By Jeremy Laurance, Health Editor
Tuesday, 26 February 2008


They are among the biggest-selling drugs of all time, the "happiness pills" that supposedly lift the moods of those who suffer depression and are taken by millions of people in the UK every year.

But one of the largest studies of modern antidepressant drugs has found that they have no clinically significant effect. In other words, they don't work.

The finding will send shock waves through the medical profession and patients and raises serious questions about the regulation of the multinational pharmaceutical industry, which was accused yesterday of withholding data on the drugs.

It also came as Alan Johnson, the Health Secretary, announced that 3,600 therapists are to be trained during the next three years to provide nationwide access through the GP service to "talking treatments" for depression, instead of drugs, in a £170m scheme. The popularity of the new generation of antidepressants, which include the best known brands Prozac and Seroxat, soared after they were launched in the late 1980s, heavily promoted by drug companies as safer and leading to fewer side-effects than the older tricyclic antidepressants.

The publication in 1994 of Listening to Prozac by Peter Kramer, in which he suggested anyone with too little "joy juice" might give themselves a dose of the "mood brightener" Prozac , lifted sales into the stratosphere.

In the UK, an estimated 3.5 million people take the drugs, collectively known as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), in any one year and 29 million prescriptions were issued in 2004. Prozac, the best known of the SSRIs made by Eli Lilly, was the world's fastest-selling drug until it was overtaken by Viagra. ......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-wellbeing/health-news/antidepressant-drugs-udontu-work-ndash-official-study-787264.html

[villager]

1. don't they work at making people bonkers, and more suicidal?

n/t

[Mythsaje]

2. Well, from what I've seen, they sure as fuck do SOMETHING.

And it ain't always good.

[Adsos Letter]

3. No, it isn't always good...but you can't tell me they don't work for some people....

I have had an ongoing battle with depression for 25 years...talk therapy, exercise, diet, the works...the medication is the ONLY thing that lifts my severe clinical depression.

But that's just me.

[Hekate]

7. Me too. Many members on my Mom's side of the family seem to fall off a cliff in mid-life...

It's a long story, but we are talking about otherwise productive intelligent people. The ones who don't have social anxiety disorder, agoraphobia, panic attacks, and/or depression seem to become alcoholics. My sister suffers from social anxiety disorder, I've had depression and panic attacks, my son got suicidal at one point in his 20s, my niece cut herself in her teens....

I don't think placebos would help much. Talk-therapy does, and I believe in it, but it's a long-term thing and expensive.

Thank you, Wellbutrin. We do what we can.

Hekate

[GOPBasher]

4. They've worked very well for me.

I'm not on them now, because I can't afford them, even though I have health insurance. However, when I'm on them, they definitely work.

[bananas]

5. Here's the link for the paper

http://medicine.plosjournals.org/perlserv/?request=get-document&doi=10.1371/journal.pmed.0050045

Initial Severity and Antidepressant Benefits: A Meta-Analysis of Data Submitted to the Food and Drug Administration

Irving Kirsch1*, Brett J. Deacon2, Tania B. Huedo-Medina3, Alan Scoboria4, Thomas J. Moore5, Blair T. Johnson3

<snip>

Conclusions

Drug–placebo differences in antidepressant efficacy increase as a function of baseline severity, but are relatively small even for severely depressed patients. The relationship between initial severity and antidepressant efficacy is attributable to decreased responsiveness to placebo among very severely depressed patients, rather than to increased responsiveness to medication.

<snip>

[sepulveda]

6. he's revving his engines

has tom cruise heard about this?!?!? :)

actually, it's travolta that would rev his (jet) engines i think.