Posted on 01/16/2008 4:45:17 PM PST by shrinkermd
Numerous unpublished studies submitted to the Food and Drug Administration by pharmaceutical companies have found that many popular antidepressants have little or no effect on patients, according to a new review of the previously hidden findings.
A total of 74 studies involving a dozen anti-depressants and 12,564 patients were registered with the FDA from 1987 through 2004. The FDA deemed 38 of the studies to be positive. All but one of those studies was published, the researchers said.
The other 36 were found to have negative or questionable results by the FDA. Most of those studies -- 22 out of 36 -- were not published. Of the 14 that were published, the researchers said at least 11 of those studies mischaracterized the results and presented a negative study as positive.
[Conclusion,]..."There is a view that these drugs are effective all the time," he said. "I would say they only work 40% to 50% of the time, and they would say, 'What are you talking about? I have never seen a negative study.'" Dr. Turner, from his time reviewing studies at the FDA, said he knew there were negative studies that hadn't been published.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
Excellent post and comment. Thank you.
Well that's a downer.
on the serious side, having listed to my mother who was a special education teacher for 30 years, the anti-depressants are a very missunderstood lot and over prescribed, but I feel that way with most meds. The pharmaceutical industry has made popping pills too easy.
I know of at least one person who’s life has literally been saved by anti-depressants. Just saying.
I was going through something bad at one time and therapists seemed too eager to try the meds instead of working with me. I had to help myself in the end.
I was maybe minutes away from death at some points and still refused to get on meds. It took years to figure out the root cause but the depression went away once I did.
I think the cause isn't always clear to a depressed person.
I take Deplin. Works great. www.deplin.com. You take it when your regular SSRI isn’t working well. Deplin helps the SSRI work better. Awesome.
Antidepressants have their place in treating depression but it’s not like taking an aspirin for an occasional headache.
Having suffered from a few serious bouts of depression myself and having family members who have also suffered, I know for one thing, they take a while to build up in the system. It’s not like you take one and “feel” instantly better and I suspect that some people (and some doctors), looking for a quick fix give up on them too soon.
But contrary to the ads on TV, simply taking a pill won’t instantly change your life or the external issues that can sometimes lead almost anyone to suffer from something more serious than the occasional case of the blues. They alone also can’t change your thinking patterns.
I believe that serious and reoccurring depression is a complex disorder; part physical brain chemistry and possibly hereditary (and that’s how antidepressants can help) and also part environmental and a learned response and behavior.
I finally found a very good, non BS therapist who was from the school of cognitive therapy. Rather than just listening to me talk and talk and talk, he challenged me and my assumptions and how I often chose to view negative events in my life. For instance if I said something like “the people I love the most always desert me and let me down”, he’d challenge me to think about that and prove to him if that statement was really true. When I was really challenged to think about it, I could see how that statement wasn’t really true at all and while “some” people in my life had let me down, there were an equal or greater number of people who had stood by me. Instead of accepting the former statement as the absolute truth, I learned to view things more realistically and realize that, yes “some” people have and will let me down but not “all” people have or will.
It was a lot of hard work and the work was something that I had to do for myself, not something a pill or a therapist could do for me alone.
Ah, but we docs go according to anecdotal studies.
I used these medicine mainly for menopausal depression not severe mental illness.
Usually I started with diet, relaxation, vitamine/minerals and counselling. About half did fine. The others I often suggested low dose anti depressant.
About half these patients felt better able to cope with antidepressants.
Those who didn’t often had issues (unresolved sexual abuse, abusive husband or bad marriage, bipolar illness, physical illness) and about half of them improved when we worked on these problems.
Some people, alas, nothing helped.
Now, “placebo effect” probably accounts for half of this improvement.
The problem is that the advertisements and articles suggested drugs as first line: When you work for an HMO and have fifteen minutes a patient, it’s easier to give a pill than to spend 45 minutes talking.
And a lot of articles suggest over prescription: Prozac 60 mg daily for premenstrual tension. Bull. Most of my patients took 20 mg, and often they just took it one week a month (which worked, even though it’s not supposed to work).
Having suffered from “female problems” and not liking to take medicine, I was sympathetic to taking pills, but did not view them as a cure all.
PA, thanks for the link. I’ll check it out.
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