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How Could Drug Companies be so Evil?

According to the first comprehensive scientific review to include all available studies, including negative data that have long been withheld from public scrutiny by the pharmaceutical industry, four popular antidepressants being used to treat thousands of depressed American children are unsafe, ineffective or both. Those antidepressants are:

• Paxil
• Zoloft
• Effexor
• Celexa

This is damning evidence of the drug companies' patent disregard for the safety of humans and focus on profits. GlaxoSmithKline was found to be concealing evidence that shows that these drugs do not benefit children in any way and only increase their risk of killing themselves. This was confirmed in an article in the Canadian Medical Journal.

Fortunately, the British medical journals are far more responsive than the American ones. The Lancet’s editorial states:

• Research on SSRIs in children is marked by confusion, manipulation, and institutional failure.
• In a global medical culture where evidence-based practice is seen as the gold standard for care, these failings are a disaster.
• How confident is society that similar failings will not occur on a larger scale in the future?
• Changes are required at every level of the global health-care infrastructure
• Despite these findings, the FDA continues to support these worthless antidepressants by claiming the failed trials don’t necessarily mean the drugs are ineffective. Data has also confirmed that taking SSRIs weren’t any better for you than taking a placebo.

Folks, if this doesn't make you fighting mad, what will?

Just sit down and think about it for a moment. Drug companies do the research and learn that the drugs don't work, yet are willing to sell and market them to children even when it is clear that they are causing many children to commit suicide.

Unpublished studies of venlafaxine suggested the drug increased suicide-related events such as suicidal thoughts or attempts by 14 times compared with placebo. This is reprehensible and despicable behavior equivalent to any third-world dictator.

How can anyone possibly support this approach?

Rather than risking the potentially deadly side effects of these drugs, I recommend the following three steps.

• Omega-3 oils, specifically fish oil, is probably the single most important nutrient for a child with depression to take.

• Next they should only drink water as their beverage, taking care to avoid fruit juices, soda and milk.

• Restrict sugars and grains, which cause insulin levels to be elevated.

Popping pills is rarely the answer to helping children suffering from depression; it is only a temporary Band-Aid. In order to truly help these children, we need to focus on finding the underlying cause of the problem, then search for ways to treat it.