Eli Lilly in storm over Prozac evidence

[UpInArms]

http://news.ft.com/cms/s/903824a4-5a98-11d9-aa6e-00000e2511c8.html

Eli Lilly, the US drug company, suppressed evidence that Prozac, its best-selling antidepressant, could cause behavioural disturbances, according to allegations published on Thursday in the British Medical Journal.

The US Food and Drug Administration says it would review confidential Lilly documents handed over by the BMJ, which received them this month from an anonymous source. The reports and memos appear to suggest Lilly officials knew in the 1980s that Prozac had troubling side-effects and sought to minimise their likely adverse effect on prescribing.

The journal says the documents “went missing” 10 years ago during a controversial product liability lawsuit filed on behalf of victims of Joseph Wesbecker, who shot eight colleagues dead, wounded 12 more and then killed himself. Mr Wesbecker had a history of depression and was prescribed Prozac a month before the shootings.

One document, a clinical trial review dated November 1988, stated that 38 per cent of patients treated with Prozac but only 19 per cent of those given a placebo “reported new activation”.

The FDA recently warned that Prozac and similar antidepressants could cause “activation” stimulating agitation, panic attacks and aggression.

...more...

Here's some background on Wesbecker:

http://www.geocities.com/HotSprings/7776/PROZACBK.HTM

Everyone in Joseph Wesbecker's life disappointed him. His father died in an accident when Wesbecker was only a year old. His mother was not up to the challenges of parenting and placed him in an orphanage. His first marriage was destroyed in part by arguments over what to do about the kids: a younger son with scoliosis, an older son repeatedly arrested for exposing his genitals to strangers. A second marriage ended over hostility with stepchildren. At age 47, Wesbecker was alone.

If anything, Wesbecker's occupational life was even worse. He hated -- even feared -- his job. The high-speed printing facility in Louisville, Kentucky, where Wesbecker worked repeatedly put him "on the folder," a cramped space surrounded by switches. There, subjected to noise and vibration comparable to being inside a jet engine, he was responsible for operating seven three-story-high presses. Wesbecker's co-workers teased him for begging to be given less stressful duties, and his superiors made him work multiple shifts.

Several years earlier Wesbecker made vague threats about harming his second wife's first husband and her daughter. In 1988 he started buying guns: an AK-47 assault rifle, several semiautomatic pistols, hundreds of rounds of ammunition. Wesbecker told a friend he was acquiring weapons "in case he needed them for his bosses"; he told the union president that he "could come in and wipe the whole place out." Wesbecker's threats -- like Wesbecker himself -- were treated with disdain.

He fought against his descent into mental illness. He made twenty-one visits to a psychiatrist, Dr. Lee Coleman, who tried a succession of medications. On August 10, 1989, Coleman put Wesbecker on Prozac, the antidepressant manufactured by Eli Lilly and Company that had been approved as a prescription drug by the F.D.A. two years earlier. But there were some things about Prozac that Lilly never told the F.D.A. and, consequently, that Coleman did not know.

Coleman did not know Lilly had reason to believe that Prozac might exacerbate "suicidal ideation." Suicidal ideation is associated not only with suicide but with acts of violence generally. Since a significant percentage of people suffering from depression experience suicidal ideation, it could reasonably be expected that perhaps 8 percent of people taking an antidepressant like Prozac would already be obsessed with suicidal thoughts. If Prozac did in fact intensify suicidal ideation in some patients, it had the potential of increasing both suicide and externally directed violence in a significant number of people.

...more...

[ixion]

1. I could have told them that...

I've seen first hand the effect it has on people.

[Florida_Geek]

2. For many years I have been a member of

"The International Center for the Study of Psychiatry and Psychology"

While Peter R. Breggin, M.D., is more or less retired now, he has talked and published about the problems of SSRIs and has won many court cases.

http://www.breggin.com/

"The FDA is finally admitting that the newer antidepressants, especially the SSRIs
and Effexor (venlafaxine), cause suicide in children. I first drew these conclusions
about the SSRIs and began publishing them in 1994 in Talking Back to Prozac (Breggin
and Breggin, 1994). In addition, I reviewed and analyzed the entire literature shortly
before the February hearings (Breggin, 2003/2004). Ten years is a long time to wait for
official recognition of such important risks. The delay in recognition has much more to
do with organized deceptions than with science."

<<<cut>>>>
Overall, these FDA hearings are really more about deception than about science.
The FDA and the drug companies have colluded for years to hide the dangerousness of
the newer antidepressants in the treatment of children and adults.
In summarizing deceptive drug company practices, I will focus on Prozac and its
manufacturer, Eli Lilly. Much of the following information was developed in my role as
a medical expert in product liability suits against the manufacturer, beginning in the early
1990s when I was the scientific investigator and medical expert for the hundreds of
combined Prozac suits. All of the suits in which I have been involved have been settled.
In addition, I have similar information in regard to other SSRI manufacturers, but much
of that information has been sealed after settlements in various suits.


from http://www.breggin.com/fdapressconfsept142004.pdf

This new information has been well know by the drug companies for years.

[sherilocks]

11. I have Breggin's book, Toxic Psychiatry

It's an excellent book on the subject of treating mental illness.

Treating mental illness with pills is all about money. Drug companies make money, health insurers save money, but the patient often loses out on effective treatment. Worse, some patients escalate to violence and suicide while taking these drugs.

[Jackpine Radical]

215. See also Breggin's

Talking Back to Prozac. In it he details the whole sorry story of the research that led to FDA approval of Fluoxetine (Prozac).

[xultar]

3. Duh!!!! I had a friend who was on it who couldn't tolerate the behavorial

effects. She knew but was powerless against them.

WTF took them so long to figure that out?

[Kagemusha]

4. Vested financial interest, it would seem.

It takes incredible will to filter out selfishness to prevent organized accepted insanity. Every time I see another case like this, I understand a little more how the Nazis managed to pull off the Holocaust with so little internal opposition (albeit the internal opposition was being carted off to more ordinary concentration camps as much as possible too).

[PurityOfEssence]

5. Sanitizing life is hazardous

Drugs have side-effects. They shouldn't be taken unless severe intervention is necessary for some affliction.

Life is fraught with sadness, depression and pain, and to a great degree, it has to simply be addressed and worked through. No, this isn't a "get over it" screed, it's just a reminder that trying to "fix" everything often makes things worse.

The brain is a very complex thing, and even small chemical nudges can have huge repercussions. In the modern world, where everything can seemingly be remedied, we're really getting into some dangerous territory. It's like all the flap about various pain relievers of late: pain's there for a reason. Sure, have some demerol when somebody drops a pallet of bricks on your hand, but if you have a headache, try taking a damned nap. The more you ingest dangerous substances, the more you risk other problems cropping up.

[zanana]

8. Depression ranges from mild...

to morbid. I've always worked through mild bouts of depression; I think that most people do. However, severe depression does not even resemble "mild" depression. It leaves the person unable to function, and, in my case, terrified at being alive. A severely depressed person has to seek medication out of sheer despair. It's either find a medication that makes you feel a little less horrible or end your life. This is where the cruelty of the pharmaceutical companies comes in. They recognize this kind of desperation and prey upon people who have no other choice but to believe what their doctors tell them.
Whenever I hear someone talk about "working through" depression, I know positively that they have not been the victims of severe depression. It's not your fault. How could you possibly know? It's just that I've lived with the stigma all my life, and stigmas have to be crushed.

[Mr_Spock]

28. Thank you - Prozac saved me from a deep depression.

I didn't even want to live because it was just too painful. Prozac very quickly helped me get out of that depression and I have learned from the Prozac how to better regulate my life so as not to deplete my Seratonin levels going forward. I think it actually helped me to permanently "retrain" my brain. People promoting a "stigma" here are doing a disservice to all of us who have nearly been taken out by depression.

[SharonAnn]

84. And Paxil saved me from who knows what. I was so depressed

and Paxil and talk therapy really, really helped me.

I had been coping for almost two years but it kept getting worse and worse and i felt like there was no way out.

I took it for 3 years and went back on it again later for about 6 months.

I'm so grateful that it was available when i needed it and that it worked well for me.

I know that everyone has different responses to this type of medication but it was a godsend for me.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

117. Stigma.... like the one that the pharmcos have sold for decades about

supplements being nothing more than snake oil.... gotta love it.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=15172679
1: Prostaglandins Leukot Essent Fatty Acids. 2004 Jul;71(1):13-8. Related Articles, Links
Click here to read
In humans, the seasonal variation in poly-unsaturated fatty acids is related to the seasonal variation in violent suicide and serotonergic markers of violent suicide.

De Vriese SR, Christophe AB, Maes M.
Department of Internal Medicine, Division of Nutrition, Ghent University Hospital, Belgium.
BACKGROUND: Depression is accompanied by a depletion of n-3 poly-unsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs). There is also a negative correlation between suicide and fish-oil intake (rich in n-3 PUFAs) across different countries. Both depression and suicide show a seasonal variation and are related to disorders in the serotonergic system. AIMS: The present study was carried out to determine if there is a seasonal variation in the PUFA fractions in serum phospholipids and whether there are significant relationships between lowered n-3 PUFA status and the seasonal variation in the number of suicide deaths and serotonergic markers of suicide. METHODS: We took monthly blood samples during 1 calendar year from 23 healthy volunteers and analyzed the PUFA composition in serum phospholipids and related those data to the annual variation in the mean weekly number of suicides for Belgium and the Bmax <3H>-paroxetine binding to platelets in the same 23 subjects. RESULTS: Significant annual rhythms were detected in the long-chain PUFAs only, i.e. arachidonic acid (C20: 4n-6; AA), eicosapentaenoic acid (C20: 5n-3; EPA), and docosahexaenoic acid (C22: 6n-3; DHA). There was a significant correlation between the changes over the last 2 weeks in AA and EPA and the mean weekly number of violent, but not nonviolent, suicide deaths in Belgium. There was a significant correlation between the PUFAs, AA and DHA, and the Bmax <3H>-paroxetine binding to platelets. CONCLUSIONS: Our results show that there is a true seasonality in long-chain PUFAs, such as AA, EPA and DHA. The results suggest that the seasonality in PUFAs may be related to the incidence of violent suicide and the expression of the serotonin transporter complex. Copyright 2004 Elsevier Ltd.

PMID: 15172679

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=15279495
1: Naliwaiko K, Araujo RL, da Fonseca RV, Castilho JC, Andreatini R, Bellissimo MI, Oliveira BH, Martins EF, Curi R, Fernandes LC, Ferraz AC. Related Articles, Links
Abstract Effects of fish oil on the central nervous system: a new potential antidepressant?
Nutr Neurosci. 2004 Apr;7(2):91-9.
PMID: 15279495

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=15110732
5: Frasure-Smith N, Lesperance F, Julien P. Related Articles, Links
Abstract Major depression is associated with lower omega-3 fatty acid levels in patients with recent acute coronary syndromes.
Biol Psychiatry. 2004 May 1;55(9):891-6.
PMID: 15110732

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=15023646
8: Makrides M, Crowther CA, Gibson RA, Gibson RS, Skeaff CM. Related Articles, Links
Abstract Docosahexaenoic acid and post-partum depression - is there a link?
Asia Pac J Clin Nutr. 2003;12 Suppl:S37.
PMID: 15023646

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=14610651
Turner N, Else PL, Hulbert AJ. Related Articles, Links
Abstract Docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) content of membranes determines molecular activity of the sodium pump: implications for disease states and metabolism.
Naturwissenschaften. 2003 Nov;90(11):521-3. Epub 2003 Oct 10.
PMID: 14610651

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=12640327
12: Colin A, Reggers J, Castronovo V, Ansseau M. Related Articles, Links
Abstract
Encephale. 2003 Jan-Feb;29(1):49-58. Review. French.
PMID: 12640327

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=12480795
13: Simopoulos AP. Related Articles, Links
Free Full Text Omega-3 fatty acids in inflammation and autoimmune diseases.
J Am Coll Nutr. 2002 Dec;21(6):495-505. Review.
PMID: 12480795

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=12103448
15: Hibbeln JR. Related Articles, Links
Abstract Seafood consumption, the DHA content of mothers' milk and prevalence rates of postpartum depression: a cross-national, ecological analysis.
J Affect Disord. 2002 May;69(1-3):15-29.
PMID: 12103448

[stepnw1f]

201. Spock.... "Half-Time Pizza"?

Where in Boston is that?

BTW - Prozac works.

[Mr_Spock]

203. Half-time Pizza

This ass-wipe thought he was funny. Not.

[foo_bar]

211. Causeway St. by North Station

[ElectroPrincess]

212. As a student of Physiological Psychology the individual Psychiatrist and

his/her staff are RESPONSIBLE for the matching of THEIR particular patient with a specific anti-depressant. When the model is properly applied - patients may experience two or more medication changes/adjustments to serve their individual body chemistry and symptom alleviation requirements. Everyone reacts "a little to a whole lot" differently to prescription medication. Prozac may be "the ticket" for many, but also may cause disturbing side effects (irritability, nervousness, sleepiness, etc.) in others.

The main point here is the importance of the accurate MONITORING of *individual patients* on psycho-pharmaceuticals by the MENTAL HEALTH COMMUNITY. That requires a Psychiatrist inquiring - gleaning input from the Patient on NEW psychotropic medications on a weekly basis for up to 6 weeks.

Unfortunately, most peoples' insurance programs only offer quarterly medication management interview with a Psychiatrist. THIS is where the shrink's (blush) medical assistant(s) can serve a valuable role by weekly phone contact. Therefore, if/when a patient on a new antidepressant is experiencing disturbing symptoms that would warrant a change, the patient could be brought in and switched with minimal (but valuable) interaction with a Psychiatrist ... and thus not a great HIT to the cost of mental health care.

IMHO it's downright reckless to prescribe a patient an antidepressant and not follow-up by Phone CON at least once/week for at least 2 months.

It's not that difficult to accomplish but the motivation and money may not be there - but we ALL (the patient and society) pay dearly in the long run. :(

[shrike]

34. God, yes

I have dysthymia, chronic depression, which has morphed into full-blown major depression several times in my life. "working" through major depression, which I tried to do, is like becoming Sysyphus, the figure in Greek mythology who was doomed to roll a boulder up hill. He would push the boulder to the halfway point, and always, it would break away and roll back down the hill, forcing him to start all over again.

I take Prozac for my depression. The biggest I have with the drug is the fact that it seems to be passed out like candy. It is a psychotropic drug and should not be taken lightly.

I feel for this gentleman's struggle with the mental health system. Patients often have to be their own advocate within this system -- and are in no shape to do so.

[QC]

39. That was my experience as well. Don't these kneejerk condemnations

of antidepressants, that have characterized every discussion of the subject for as long as I have been here, get tiresome? They are nothing more than the same old "you've got to pull yourself out of this" bullshit so well known to everyone who has ever dealt with major depression, tarted up with a little intellectual windowdressing.

[Mr_Spock]

43. I'm extremely tired of the kneejerk condemnations and know-it-alls here

If you can't get progressives to support you then who can you get? What a bunch of selfish, self-centered ass holes we Americans appear to be! Makes me sick listening to the know-it-all ass holes on this post and the autism/Aspergers posts.

[shrike]

48. Yes, they surely do

People who've not been through it have no idea -- getting through major depression was worse than sitting beside my father's deathbed.

[RedSock]

49. amen

amen -- i have taken prozac (or paxil) for about 7-8 years now. for me (and tens of thousands of others), it is a godsend.

[donheld]

144. I have been on prozac for 10 years

it has had no bad effects like these articles are saying.

[Danieljay]

89. it not only saddens me..but

the judgment and condemnation around this issue astounds me. Many of these same people would protest for their right to assisted suicide drug cocktails and medical marijuana use but when it comes to anothers choice for perhaps life saving treatment for anxiety and depression, forget it.

I am both disgusted and saddened by the lack of objectiveness when it comes to anxiety, depression, and mental illness and a persons choice to use anti-depressants. Are these the same people that advocate treatment for the homeless and mentally ill? Unbelievable.

[PurityOfEssence]

165. How can you possibly read that from my post?

The very nature of my post recognizes the need for help in serious situations.

Those with severe troubles should be siding with those who want to cry out against the cheapening of problems. Too many people medicate at the first whiff of a problem; chemical intervention should be viewed with an awe and respect, and shouldn't be done unless the problem warrants it.

The body is a very delicate thing, and tampering with it usually has major repercussions. Hence, it shouldn't be fiddled with unless the problem is debilitating. We have a strange mindset these days that absolves us of any risk of residual effects. That's not how it works: everything has unforeseen consequences.

Not only do I not huff with the tough-guy crap of "snapping out of it", I have far too many personal experiences with those who tried to scrape by--and some who didn't--to ever take this lightly. My point is that this, like many other medications, is OVER-PRESCRIBED. It shouldn't be taken lightly.

Find some other oppressor; I don't fit the bill.

Jesus Fucking Christ, is any voice of caution a dismissal of other peoples' true pain? As I don't know all the details of your life, you don't know them about mine. Medication is a VERY EXTREME form of problem-solving; we've lulled ourselves into such a sunshiny view of life that the distinction between discomfort and pain is glossed over, and all can be solved with fearsome chemicals. Those with real problems should ally themselves with this point of view: sadness ISN'T depression. One can be lived with; the other can barely be survived at best.

The root cause of many of the pharmacological problems we face today is OVERMEDICATION. The sociological assumption that we should all be pain- and affliction-free cheapens life, and blurs the distinction between discomfort and agony. Drugs such as these anti-depressants should be VERY judiciously used, and even then, the risk is very great. The issue at hand is that if one's going to crash and burn, offering something that may have fearsome side-effects isn't such a bad choice; to do so when one is not so bad off isn't worth the risk.

In our haste to find a rosy world, we run untold risks. The FDA doesn't run adequate tests, and that's a statement I'd like to hear refuted.

Use caution.

In no way do I dismiss the existence of real psychological problems, and a simple reading of my initial post should show that.

Geez.

[Zhade]

198. Excellent post. I fully concur.

NT!

[Zhade]

197. Well, I have clinical depression and have worked through it.

I took Prozac, Effexor, you name it. And it did help - for a while.

The side effects, though...I'm glad I got off them. Now THIS news...!

Another example of corporations profiting over people. Sickening.

[Mr_Spock]

204. Yeah, me too.

I worked through my depression with the help of Prozac. It was sucha relief to be able to think clearly when I was on the Prozac - it helped me to work out many issues until the depression was gone and I too got tired of the side effects.

[QC]

40. Please tell us about your personal experiences with major depression.

That will enable us to decide whether or not this is just another "'get over it' screed."

[Guaranteed]

45. P.O.E. is absolutely correct.

These drugs should not be taken except in severe circumstances.

And don't start in with me about my experience.

[QC]

53. Yes, let's not "start in with" you about your experience!

No need for you to back up your "arguments" with any kind of evidence. The fact that *you* say something makes it gospel! :eyes:

The point is, of course, that whenever the subject of antidepressant medication comes up around here, the discussion takes the very same turn. People who have no idea what they are talking about feel perfectly free to lecture those of us who do on how we are weak and just need to "pull ourselves out of it," then the tinhatters start in with mind control conspiracy theories, and so on. It's as predictable as the sun rising in the east, and serves only to restigmatize the mentally ill, something one would think "progressives" would not want to do.

[Guaranteed]

60. I know EXACTLY what I'm talking about,

with the evidence being my personal and work experience and that of a number of friends and acquaintances.

Prozac is a drug that is as dangerous as it is powerful- to think that a quarter of the population of our country or more is on these anti-depressants is ridiculous. Mental illness is NOT that prevalent in our society.

For the record, I don't believe that anyone needs to "pull themselves out" of mild depression. However, I refuse to STIGMATIZE unhappy people as being mentally ill when in reality they are no different than anyone else. It's simply who they are, and these commercials trying to convince them that there's something wrong with them only make them feel worse. In fact, one could make the argument that that stigmatization IS the problem- that not being entirely happy with your life isn't a problem until someone tells you it is.

FURTHER, I know the difference between mild depression and the severe can't-even-get-out-of-bed-to-go-to-the-bathroom depression. Do us all a favor and don't distort what I'm saying to apply to that kind of very REAL depression, thanks.

[QC]

77. There's nothing wrong with someone asking you to back up an assertion.

I'm not sure why that makes you so angry. It's how people discuss things--no one should ever expect others to believe that something is so just because they say it is.

Besides that, the response that started this exchange wasn't addressed to you anyway.

If your point is that doctors overprescribe these medications, then any thinking person would agree. But when people blithely declare that the purpose of antidepressants is to "sanitize life," as did the post you were so eager to defend, then that is another point entirely, and one that anyone who has experienced major depression would object to.

[Mr_Spock]

86. I agree with you

I get so frustrated that I cannot even think of a response to these folks. The "throw the baby out with the bathwater" argument that many people make WRT to these drugs and other similar topics is SO self-serving and, for me, just adds to the stigma and frustration of being someone who actually has experienced a life-threatening depression.

[Eloriel]

186. EXCEPT, QC, that's nowhere near what has been said so far

And it absolutely amazes me that anyone would automatically (pre-emptively?) mischaracterize the posts that have been made so far in the way you and others have. Ridiculous in the extreme. NO ONE has made blanket "get over it" or "pull yourself out of it" comments at all, not even close.

The comment was made, which I agree with wholeheartedly, that not EVERY sad or bad or difficult or painful experience needs to be medicated. That's NOT the same as dismissing all serious depression out of hand, and those of you who are misinterpreting and mischaracterizing what HAS been said thusly probably have bigger problems than your damn depression.

I happen to have two personal friends who are longterm users of medication for depression. In the one case, it may or may not be necessary, I don't know. But in the other case, I know for a fact that my friend simply chooses NOT to deal with some of the traumas and pain she endured as a child and young adult -- that she prefers to numb herself against the psychic trauma. She's too old for that. She's wasted big parts of all of her life and at her own hand greatly diminished what was possible for her life. I also fault the medical and psychological people she's consulted as well. I remember a several year stint with a therapist. They came nowhere near her central issues. I'm not even sure they did as much as dance around them. They did, of course, amuse and busy themselves with other matters and if that satisfied my friend, well, it was her dime, wasn't it? But I suspect she simply did a cunning job on the therapist so she could avoid the hard work, and I think the therapist was useless for allowing that.

I happen to believe it's wrong to spend your entire adult life medicating yourself away from dealing with your psychological issues -- IF that's what one is doing. Life isn't intended to be medicated. Bad, sometimes horrible, things happen to and there are ways to triumph over them in many if not most cases which in and of itself doesn't preclude medication on a temporary, emergency basis.

Now before anyone and seizes upon what I've said to try to equate it as dismissive "pull yourself out of it crap," nothing I've said addresses the kind of serious and chronic depression which isn't specifically related to experiences in one's life. None of us here can sort out who needs medication forever for real and who is using it as a crutch -- but there ARE people who use medication for depression and anxiety as a crutch instead of dealing with their problems, and those of you who want to jump on those of us who dared mention that are not doing your cause any favors.

Finally, don't be so defensive about YOUR use of medication for depression -- you raise more questions thereby than you quash, if the truth be known.

[ElectroPrincess]

213. I disagree. And who would determine what constitutes

"severe circumstances?" You OR Nurse Kratchet? <TEASE! Don't get angry, just havin' some fun with your avatar>

[conflictgirl]

105. You weren't addressing me, but I'll speak up

I remember my depression beginning as a kid. My parents (who were very anti-medicine and anti-doctor in general) took me to a psychiatrist when I was four. Attempted suicide three times in my life. I have been officially diagnosed with dysthymia, periodically with double depression - major depression on top of the dysthymia. I also usually get SAD as well. I have a whole lifetime of dealing with depression. I have taken antidepressants. I have tried almost all of them. I was on Wellbutrin for a few years; that one worked the best for me. I finally stopped taking it when it became clear that I was gradually becoming more agitated and paranoid, but it took my spouse pointing it out to me for me to be able to see it. My spouse didn't advise me to quit the meds, by the way, but that was my own decision. I am far happier OFF the medication, believe it or not. But I didn't just quit the meds and hope everything would be okay. I am taking fish oil, eating a better diet, seeing friends more often, and doing yoga. I do light therapy in the winter. I'm not saying these would solve everyone's depression. I do think that diet, exercise, and an active network of social support IS crucial though, because I think poor diet, lack of exercise, and isolation are factors that exacerbate natural tendencies toward depression.

Look, I understand why people take meds for depression. Because I did too, I can't just tell people with depression to "get over it". But I think that the extremely high rate of depression in our society is related to many, many factors, and taking meds may make it easier to ignore those factors but it doesn't solve the problem. Just as I've managed my depression with meds, I've also managed it without meds. The choices aren't be medicated and be happy, or be unmedicated and be suicidal. There are indeed more options, and the people who are telling "us" (ie society at large, psy docs, pharmaceutical companies) that we need drugs to fix the problem have a vested interest in keeping the factors in place that lead to a high rate of depression.

[shrike]

124. I tried diet, exercise, et. al for years

Didn't do a damned thing. It's nice that it worked for you, but meds were all that worked for me. I have dysthymia with periodic major depression.

I don't know that it's society as much that causes depression. It's an old, old illness -- wouldn't surprise me if true depression (I'm not talking about the sadness you feel after losing a job or relationship) were organic.

[conflictgirl]

170. Then how would you explain the increase in depression?

According to almost everything I've ever read on the subject, the depression rate has increased 10-fold since 1945. Note, that's not referring to the number of people on medication. I really don't believe that an increase of that magnitude can be explained by better screening techniques or public awareness. Suicide is the 8th leading cause of death for all Americans, and the suicide rate for people 15-24 tripled between 1950-1980. I'm sure some cases of depression are organic, but if all of them were, why has the rate increased so dramatically? Why do more cases of suicide occur among soldiers, and during times like the Great Depression?

I'm glad some people feel they're helped by antidepressants, but I don't think the pharmaceutical companies are acting altruistically.

[shrike]

176. The medical community never acts altruistically

As I've said, depression is as old as time. Winston Churchill had a great term for it: he called it "the black dog."

[conflictgirl]

178. I agree - I said I think some cases are organic

I'm NOT looking to ban SSRI's or medications that people feel are helping them. But I do think they have serious enough side effects that doctors should be more careful about prescribing them and our government shouldn't be limiting the liability of the pharm companies.

It bothers me that in these threads, its implied that people who are skeptical of the drug companies are saying mental illness isn't real or that nobody should have drugs to treat it. I think that most of us are just saying that there can be other solutions, and we as a society should be looking more at the root causes of the increase in cases of depression.

[shrike]

179. SSRIs should be taken seriously

Because they are serious drugs. No one would pass out heart medication because it "might" help your problem. SSRIs should be prescribed in the same way.

[Eloriel]

189. I think most of us are saying

there can be other solutions FOR SOME PEOPLE (than medication or medication alone or medication forever).

[shrike]

177. I suspect that people in "the old days" were told to snap out of it

Mental illness was a source of shame, so it was kept hidden; depression was a weakness in one's character, not an illness. And that attitude still exists today; from the looks of things, people on this board have experienced it.

And there is a difference between situational depression and despair, between a run of bad luck that threatens to push one over the edge and the complete inability to be happy despite the fact that life is good, the birds are singing and all's right with the world.

I do agree that some people are probably either overmedicated or receiving the wrong kind of medication altogether. As I've said in my other posts, proper diagnosis, treatment and follow-up are key.

[PurityOfEssence]

168. two of my closest friends, and the person I thought was my life mate

One of the former is dead by his own hand. The other of the former is bi-polar, and SEEMS to be under control, but only with a great wife, a good support group, and serious medication. Okay? Am I deep enough for you now? Do these ribbons of experience pass muster with you?

The latter is hovering on the shores of society and has been for years. She mercifully has enough of a support system to intervene at crucial times, and she's been elaborately medicated for years. Much of these meds were and are the right thing, but I question a few of the others.

No, it wasn't me; I've been mercifully blessed with some innate buoyancy. I don't take that lightly: as a fairly healthy liberal, I feel a great debt to my fellow beings, and try to be there for people.

Don't hold the rest of the world ransom for your pain; we're not all cloistered moralists. Trying to be a decent person has great hazards, but slagging people for railing against knee-jerk overmedication does not grant one the moral high ground. Not only did I not dismiss those with debilitating clinical depression as layabouts and noaccounts, I was very specific about stating that chemical means should only be used in extreme situations. The happy and quick fixing of problems is endemic in our culture: we're the "get rich quick" people of the earth; that's why deficits don't matter and immediate gratification is king.

Anti-depressants have great value to society, but overusing them will cause much trouble. Recent revelations have shown that they have very serious side-effects, so great caution should be used.

Do you want important medications to be so widely mis-prescribed that they're made unavailable to those who need them? That's what'll happen.

That's the future: take two Jesuses and call me in the morning.

You do not have a "lock" on human understanding when dealing with people you don't know, and to presume such is arrogance.

[VegasWolf]

181. Yea, I had that innate buyoncy myself, I was never depressed other

than normal issues that one could easily work through.
After nearly dying of a heart attack which kept
me in the hospital for a long time, and all of the medicines
that I have to take, I suddenly started developing panic
attacks. Paxil has been a major help to me.

[PurityOfEssence]

182. What's your point?

I don't dismiss the value of drugs for intervention in serious situations, nor have I intimated that I do. I DO think that we overmedicate ourselves.

No, I'm not strutting my superiority; I know full well that any of us can succumb to unseen ailments at any time. That's part of the reason I'm so careful about tampering with this delicate mechanism.

There's a cumulative effect to tampering with our bodies, whether by recreational drug/alcohol use, bad habits, prescribed drugs, bad emotional habits or bad nutrition. The point is to only do it when you need to, and to keep the threshold of "need" fairly reasonable.

The more you tamper, the more you need to tamper. Some peoples' systems are pretty out of whack, but many aren't. Extreme caution should be exercised whenever putting something in one's body, and that's what seems to be lost in this society: we take painkillers for a slash on the arm that necessitates stitches, take a pain reliever for mere sore feet (not debilitating agony), take a pain reliever for a headache that's caused by low blood sugar, take cold remedies when our body wants to rid itself of icky substances. The truth of drugs is that that they have side-effects, and to presume that one fully understands all the ramifications is silly. We are VERY complex organisms; a little adjustment here provides a BIG and unexpected reaction there.

When you're dealing with a minor problem, the act of medicating it often causes all sorts of other problems that may not manifest themselves for a long time. When dealing with a major problem, use specific and targeted substances, and beware of the consequences. When the condiion is dire, it's probably a good idea, but it's all very risky.

If people who don't really need such drugs use them, the inevitable side-effects will be amplified by the sampling. What's the cost-benefit issue here? If one is incapacitated by a condition that can be nullified by a drug, the drug is worth most of the side-effects. But if one is merely annoyed by such symptoms, those side-effects are not worth the price of comfort. Worse still, the overuse of the drug will bring to light various pitfalls that might cause the drug to be withdrawn from the market.

Who gives a fuck if a drug causes organ damage in people with hypertension? Don't give it to people with high blood pressure. But if the drug is widely and foolishly over-prescribed, such perils may force it to be withdrawn completely. Overmedication is the problem with this, and it's a pervasive problem with our overall mindset.

The primary litmus test is this: SERIOUS need. I still stand by my premise that we lower the bar to a ridiculous degree, and this, coupled with the profit motive in American "medicine" combines to have us overmedicated and reaching for false hopes.

[Guaranteed]

183. Damn good.

So well said. Thank you.

[VegasWolf]

187. So, what's YOUR point? You said that you have no objection

to someone using the drugs in situations. Fine, then
you launch into a rant about people overmedicating. Fine.
They do. You act so pious. Grow up. Or do yoou just love
being up their on stage?

[PurityOfEssence]

190. Just consider me another of your oppressors; it's much tidier that way

Impugning one's maturity is an act of dismissal, usually used by the sanctimonious. Since that smacked of passive-aggressiveness on my part, I'll put it more bluntly: you're encountering a view that enrages you, so you tar it with an accusation of sociopathy. Your move is an attempt to slag those who differ with you, hoping to get the crowd to demonize the fiends who rattle your worldview.

Paint me as darkly as you wish, but when doing so with shrillness, accept the heat you'll get from other inferiors. Many of us can't measure up to you. From our adolescent shame, we lash out with our infernal disobedience; accept that: we inferiors simply don't know our place.

[VegasWolf]

192. LOL. That's okay. I really have

zero consideratiion for what you say. You completely
misunderstood my points and somehow turn it around. I
don't think your natural buoyancy is as floatable as you seem to believe.

I'll try one more time, given that you seem to have a comprehension
problem. I stated that for some people these drugs are vital.
You agreed. I stated that in some cases people are over medicated.
You agreed. So, why are you attacking? Since your arguments
seem so sophistic and trivial, I am at a complete loss as to
what YOUR point is? You do have an advanced degree I assume?

[PurityOfEssence]

209. Tell me more, O wondrous one

You waste much time on lecturing those you dismiss.

Victimhood is most tiresome when the attacker squeals as if assaulted. Apparently, one must never return the fire you initiate.

I brought up the value of these drugs for certain people before you did, so it's not like you brilliantly contradicted my statement and then I acquiesced. Bash and smear as you please, but this wasn't meant as a pissy flame war to establish some kind of superiority.

Thanks for the snotty reminder of my primitive attempts at understanding, and don't knot yourself up so much aching to best those you've long since relegated to pathetic inferiority; such ravings wrack the soul with time. As for credential sparring, I'll leave you to whatever claim of sanctification you need. Whether degrees are the sign of puffery, or lack of them the proof of idiocy, you're far too conscious of stature for mere rational discourse to sway.

Bummer, huh?

[VegasWolf]

210. No, not really!! It is not stature, but mere IQ. Sorry, but you

use a hundred words where ten would suffice. But,
you show great promise, grasshopper!

[Eloriel]

191. Why are you so defensive about YOUR use of these drugs?

There was no piousness, no pontification, not even a rant, really -- just a good essay that may or may not apply to YOU. Her points were actually very clear, IMO. Well-made, accurate, qualified so as not to be applied where the points actually don't apply. what's YOUR beef with this? Again, why are you so defensive that you take offense where it either doesn't apply to you or needn't?

"Grow up?" You might follow your own advice here.

Or not.

[VegasWolf]

194. Unlike you, I don't see any special significance in the above

assertions. it's pretty straight forward to me. Some
people need it, fine, other's overuse. It doesn't take a lot
of words to say THAT.

With esoteric statements like "Who gives a fuck if a drug causes organ damage in people with hypertension?" I find the discourse
lacking in elegance.

[Mr_Spock]

205. If you let them, they will intellectualize you into submission

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!! I think I invented a new word. :D

[VegasWolf]

206. LOL. Damn, another good noun turned into a verb!!! n/t

[vs the introvore]

208. but chemically-altering the brain is ubiquitous.

and let's just say, if i may, "drugs have effects." but i really dig this particular iteration of yours, "chemical nudges can have huge repercussions." i can almost feel it!

[foo_bar]

6. it's impossible to quantify, absent a coherent science of psychology

There's plenty of knee-jerk anecdotes from both sides, from "Prozac saved my life!" to "Prozac made me torture furry woodlands creatures!" The truth is somewhere in between, natch: SSRIs aren't great for everything, as the manufacturers suggest, nor are they universally intolerable, as the anecdotal victims contend.

As so-called monopolar depression is itself a fuzzy classification prone to a differential diagnosis with bipolar depression (for which anti-depressants tend to exacerbate suicidality), it's all a subjective crap shoot not unlike the recreational psychotropics ("Pot saved my life!" vs "Pot turned me into a drooling troglodyte!") While I recognize the marketing of SSRIs as evil incarnate, I've also seen people (anecdotally) benefit from these drugs.

So the problem is twofold: doctors who misdiagnose or misprescribe based on marketing literature, and doctors who don't. It would be helpful if the science could first define "depression" beyond a 12-point questionnaire, and the literal effect of serotonin reuptake thereon, but humans are notoriously prone to shooting first and asking questions later.

[AngryWhiteLiberal]

81. Here, here...dead on, my educated friend.

Medications should be (and used to be) developed to treat a pre-existing problem, not the current trend to invent problems to make a market for a new drug. The recent outbreak of "Adult ADD" is one prime example of this market-driven psychobabble.

Regards,
JB

[Psephos]

120. You're obviously not someone who has ADD

I, OTOH, am. I resent you and your kind tagging it "psychobabble."

ADD is not a disorder at all, just a different way of allocating attention compared to the norm. I consider it a gift, but then I make my living in a creative field, and as almost any ADD "sufferer" will tell you, ADD is a powerful creativity enhancer.

The drugs used for ADD help us focus attention on things we'd rather not be doing, but have to, given the structure of our culture and its emphasis upon documentation and routine.

[AngryWhiteLiberal]

154. Bipolar Disorder is a creativity enhancer, as well...but, I don't want it

TRUE ADD (that with a biochemical and neuroanatomical basis) only accounts for about 15% of all cases. The remainder are something else, in which poor attentional control is a symptom.

Adult ADD is being manufactured as a pervasive problem by the drug industry. Sure there are some adults who have suffered since childhood with the problem, but these people are few and far between.

JB

[Psephos]

171. No question that there is some slop in the diagnoses

But since when did anything human fit neatly in a pigeonhole, anyway?

You seem like a thoughtful person, and I'm glad to have the opportunity to exchange views. If I seem a bit passionate about this, please don't take it as a mark of disrepect.

The statistic you cite depends upon whom one relies as an authority. I've seen no consensus in the literature; no surprise there, as diagnosis is a matter of judgment, and the best judgment is informed empirically. I neither doubt nor believe your figure, as it's dependent upon whatever the definition of "true" ADD might be...a matter of far more concern to academics than to those who actually exhibit the "symptoms" (such a loaded word). Who cares whether it's "true" ADD or Brand X Imitation ADD? Some people have trouble focusing on things that don't interest them, and that can cause extraordinary problems in a society that runs on hyperdocumentation and the ability to take care of mindless details. Far less often appreciated is that when the mind is freed from the slavery of the mundane, it can instead pursue new ways of seeing, and plug ideas and perceptions together in novel and exciting ways. Evolution placed and maintained a propensity for some people to have ADD in our genome so that we would have a supply of creative thinkers, who could dream up new ways of solving problems. Leonardo was a classic case of ADD, and suffered all kinds of slander and trouble in his time because of it. We tend to forget all that, and remember only what he created.

I do agree with you that the pharmaceutical companies would love to see more diagnoses of ADD, and sell more drugs. Is this really a revelation? Burger King would love to sell more Whoppers. GM would love to sell more cars. Both are selling products that can kill you. I harbor no illusions about why the drug companies exist. They exist to sell drugs. It's up to me to decide whether I want to take them. I sure as shit am not going to depend upon someone else to tell me whether I should or shouldn't.

In ADD, things that are easy for most people are hard, and things that hard for most people are easy. The drugs (in my case, Adderal) can be transformative. I vastly prefer not taking the meds, but when I need the ability to endure drudgery and take care of boring but crucial tasks they are priceless.

As in my earlier post, I will emphasize that I do not consider ADD a "disorder." I consider it a gift, and I would choose it again if given the choice. I am glad to have the meds available if/when I have to put up with the bullshit (ranging from parking tickets to tax forms to appointments scheduled on fifteen-minute intervals) our whacked-out culture demands of those it considers responsible and mature. I am glad there are companies that will sell those drugs to me. I know those companies couldn't care less about me personally, but since I care about me, I would just as soon trust my welfare to my own good intentions instead of someone else's.

[AngryWhiteLiberal]

219. I respect your right to chose how to use your "gift" and to live your life

As with most psychiatric diagnoses, they can truly only be called "disorders" if they result in impaired functioning and/or a risk to self or others. If you view your ADD as beneficial and it does not cause risk to others or yourself, then by conventional reasoning in psychiatry...you are not disordered.

Coincidentially, art and psychiatric entities are a personal interest of mine; most notably manic-depression and the visual arts (e.g., Van Gogh, Gauguin, Schele, etc.). Hundertwasser is another interesting case of psychiatric disorder and artistic creativity, though his problem was more on the psychotic disorder spectrum.

Regards,
JB

[Mr_Spock]

167. Yeah, and thank god for those ADD/ADHD meds too

Keeps my daughter from being kicked out of school and traumatizing her for life. Just like Lexapro keeps her from saying she's gonna run in front of a car and kill herself.

[Psephos]

173. Mr_Spock knows the difference between theory and practice n/t

[Danieljay]

96. here! here! Cheers to you! Well said! EOM

[CountAllVotes]

7. Prozac is a bizarre drug

I think you'd be better off taking a hit of LSD or something personally. I took this drug ONCE and fell into a deep only to awaken screaming after thinking I was being attacked by some man in a bank. It was ultra-freaky and a distorted dream.

I've never taken Prozac since and the other SSRIs I've taken have had a similar effect on me. :wtf:

How they manage to keep these drugs legal and FDA approved is beyond my comprehension.

To think they are giving these these drugs to children is absolutely amazing to me. If they can thwart such responses in adults, why would a child not have a similar or even more extreme experience?

RECALL PROZAC AND AND SSRI DRUGS ASAP! THEY ARE NOT 'SAFE' whatever that means these days! :mad:

[The Flaming Red Head]

12. I had a family member on Prozac throw a frozen turkey at me

during a Thanksgiving holiday years ago. I ducked and it bounced off a wall and the family member left and didn't come back for dinner and we cooked the turkey anyway. It was delicious and made for an incredibly tender bird.

So I guess the Prozac actually made the meal more enjoyable that year.

[allalone]

52. why blame the prozac

I had a coworker that threw a cooked turkey at his gramdma on Christmas. He was drunk. so?

[Mr_Spock]

93. I had a stone cold sober coworker throw a chair at me.

I ducked. :D

[Danieljay]

95. I had a friend throw pliers at me once..

and he wasn't taking a thing. I forgave him, besides...he missed. Lets ban life.

[Florida_Geek]

13. In my case the child was 9 yo

and did not need anything but was force by Florida DCF to be on the pills to "help" her with her mother's drinking problem.

[Ariana Celeste]

66. I hear that.

Throughout my teens I suffered from deep depression, and was obsessed with suicide. I cut myself frequently.
My school counselor called my mother one day and told her she should take me to some therapist or get me on meds.
Tried Prozac. More than once.

My dad died before I was born. My older brother died when I was 9, the same year that somebody burned my house down, and my mother divorced the man I knew as my father figure. She proceeded to move in with a drunk, who treated her, my little brother, and myself like shit.

The meds didn't help me. I was still obsessed with death and suicide, and continued cutting myself. I became involved with other drugs and drank every chance I could.

What helped me? Getting the hell away from people who treated me like shit, that's what.

I agree that these drugs should not be given out to everyone. ESPECIALLY kids. More often than not, these depressed kids are dealing with addicted parents, alcoholics, abuse. THAT is what needs to be taken care of. Abuse will depress ANY kid.

These people are not saying that NO ONE needs meds. In many cases, anti-depressants and anti-psychotics are *very* helpful indeed. But in just as many cases, there are other options. We live in a time where people are too quick to resort to medications instead of dealing with what the real problem is.

In my case, I lost someone who was very very important to me, my big brother. And instead of being given the love I needed to get through that pain, I had an alcoholic step father that (The night I found out my brother died) told me that crying isn't going to fix anything and I need to go to my room because he doesn't want to hear it. From that day forward he started treating me like a pissant. THAT was my problem. That's something medication cannot fix, unless the dosage is so high enough that not only do you not feel depressed, but you are in another world entirely mentally.

[Danieljay]

94. it didn't work for you so recall it?

That makes about as much sense as a pro-lifer saying they are against abortion so lets outlaw it for everyone. Are we not talking about "choice" here?

Thanks to anti-psychotics...my dear mother-in-law is still alive. Thanks to SSRI's, I have my life back.

[HuckleB]

108. I'm allergic to penicillin! You'd be crazy to take that stuff!

:hi:

[Danieljay]

111. penicillin should DEFINITELY be recalled!

hello back at ya! This is crazy talk, here! I think this is a prime example of whats wrong with the democratic party. There are too many on the left with "pet" agendas, that are so entrenched we can't come together on anything of substance to defeat those on the right! The left then comes across as out of touch with the mainstream, which is not really the case at all. Like a friend and mentor once told me... "a radical, is a radical, is a radical.."

thanks for your posts.....

[Mr_Spock]

140. "There are so many ... with "pet" agendas"

Hallelujah!! And these lovely people don't give two shits if they throw their fellow compatriots under the bus just to make a point for their little "pet" projects.

Posts like this one make me want to form a third party. Who are these self-serving ass-holes who keep posting in these threads? With friends like this, who need an enema :D!!

[conflictgirl]

175. Chimpy would be really happy with that attitude!

Pledge allegiance to the pharmaceutical companies. How dare anyone question them?

[Mr_Spock]

184. What's your point?

What are you attempting to say with your post? It could easily be taken by me as a provocation because I benefited from a drug made by a major pharmaceutical company, or I could agree because I despise the greedy pharmaceutical companies. Please tell me your not throwing me under the bus because the drug worked like a miracle for me...

[Eloriel]

193. You and several others

are SO overreacting to some posts that it absolutely amazes me. Back up, chill a bit, and RE-READ the posts. None of them that I've seen say ANYthing like you and others imagine. Why are you having such a difficult time actually reading what's there?

NO ONE has criticized you or anyone else here for taking the drugs you need. NO one. The worst that's been said, and everyone seems to agree with it (if pushed), is that there is overmedication going on and not everyone who's on these drugs needs to be. I think there's some general agreement that the pharmaceuticals aren't particularly altruistic, AND that the drugs can be dangerous (any drugs, actually), but I'm not pushing the issue here.

Just chill a minute and read more slowly before taking extreme offense for things that simply aren't even THERE.

[Mr_Spock]

199. You obviously had an agenda when you read the posts.

You go back and read the posts. There were many pointed barbs thrown. Who asked you anyway. Go away.

[conflictgirl]

196. Sorry, I was being sarcastic

I think medications have their place. But I am surprised by the defensiveness toward those who are questioning the pharmaceutical industry, the way these meds are being prescribed, and the concern over the FDA's approval processes. One reason I consider myself liberal is because I don't blindly trust authority. I'm not saying you or anyone else is blindly trusting authority either, just that I'm surprised that such questioning on this topic seems to be cause for such outrage.

I don't read anyone here as diminishing those who need or use the medications. I have personal knowledge of the stigmas attached to mental illness, so I understand if that issue is motivating some of the reactions here. But I don't think that merely questioning the causes of mental illness and the standard treatment protocol constitutes a personal attack on anyone.

[Mr_Spock]

200. I'll take some time and summarize the "questioning" in a post tomorrow.

There are over 180 posts here and I have read all of them - perhaps you think some of the jabs were meant as sarcasm like yours - yours seemed like you were looking to provoke me. Whatever, everybody is so good at taking a step back and apologizing after poking a stick in someones eye over and over and then saying "oh, I was just kidding". Sorry, I'm not buying it - there are deep and entrenched prejudices here and I'm not going to allow a couple of do gooders to jump in at the last minute and try to pretend that all the previous discussions were something they weren't. The discussions were rapid and heated and for you to but in at this point is nothing less than annoying. Mind your own business.

[HuckleB]

225. Who isn't questioning them?

I think the issue is the sweeping condemnations of the drugs, the companies, psychiatry, medicine, health care, etc... Every poster here has clearly questioned all of these things, and continues to do so. However, some have chosen not to look at the complete answers, not to understand the mixed results, the grays of life. They've chosen to condemn with very little knowledge. That's dangerous, IMHO. And that's what the real issue is on this board.

[Chico Man]

9. Behavioral disturbances? Well, we should just invent another drug!

Oh, what a world it would be if human behavior was never disturbing...

[Eurobabe]

10. I believe there is an underlying hormonal or metabolic

condition causing 'mood problems.' It sure would be nice if the medical community would investigate this avenue instead of pushing high-priced AD pills on anyone who feels depressed or anxious.

[CountAllVotes]

15. you are right

These drugs are often prescribed to women - pre/post-menopausal women. They do nothing to me but cause me to become highly agitated and sweaty. However, they apparently do eliminate many of the symptoms associated with 'that time of the month' for many women.

?

:kick:

[davsand]

30. I think a lot of that is done by Docs who don't have a clue.

I'm not beating up on Docs, but I really think a lot of these treatment decisions are made with a total lack of understanding--both of the actual illness AND of the drugs' side effects.

I recently made a small trip into the pharmacopeia with insomnia and it was a LOT like falling into a deep hole. My insomnia was not long term (I TOLD the Doc this) it was stress related and was most likely going to be ending within an identifiable period of time. All I wanted was to be able to get some sleep.

First we had to discuss my mental state. OK--I accept that depression probably can be a factor in insomnia for some folks, however, I also know that I was not feeling depressed about anything other than the lack of sleep. I was bone tired and I wanted to go to bed and sleep--that is all.

We actually discussed anti-depressants as treatment ideas for insomnia. I kept on explaining that all I wanted was to get some sleep--I didn't need anti-depressants. Finally the Doc quit pushing the anti-depressant thing and wrote a scrip for about 10 days worth of Ambian (a sleeping tablet.)

Days one and two after I took the Ambian were great. I felt good--I had finally had some sleep!

Day three, I started having really disturbing thoughts--visions for lack of a better way to describe it. To give an example, I drove past a dead animal on the road and suddenly I had this image of my daughter dead and someone scrubbing her blood off the street...

I not only was freaked out by it, but just unable to stop crying. I had to pull the car over.

I drove the rest of the way home and told my husband about it and went off on a huge crying jag just talking about it. THEN the panic attacks hit.

WAVE after WAVE of utter panic and terror. All I wanted to do was run away--except I couldn't. I was sitting at my computer (just like I am now) and I'd feel like I was getting hit with a big shot of adrenaline. The only thing I can compare it to would be acid that is cut with something (they used strychnine sometimes in the old days and it felt a lot like this did.)

I knew it was not really me--that it was a drug reaction. Had I not known that, however, I would have completely lost it. As it was, I felt I was completely out of control. I asked my husband to keep an eye on me and told him what I thought was going on. I did not take
any more of the Ambian that night.

I was in the Doc's office the next day, and the Doc acted like I was really odd to be having that kind of response to the Ambian. I might have accepted that except for the fact that I'd done some reading on the subject and found out that my response was not typical, but it was also one reported by several other folks.

I think a lot of consumers never bother to read about the drugs they take, and I think they don't discuss stuff with their Doc. It might be a pill that your Doc gives you, but that doesn't make it safe, and it doesn't mean it is guaranteed to work the way they expect it to.


Laura

[shrike]

37. Amen

They are passing them out like candy. This stuff is serious shit with heavy-duty consequences. A patient should be medicated only after other methods have failed and even then, the patient should be monitored closely. Instead, docs give you the pill and tell you to go home. I sometimes wonder if it's laziness.

BTW, I take prozac (see my other posts) and credit it for turning my life around.

[Eurobabe]

59. ditto for me too, and I think it is my cortisol is too high

this was causing autonomic nervous system short circuit. I had early waking pattern for two months, that ended in a trip to the ER with heart symptoms. I think it is hormonal (cortisol being a hormone). Will find out more next week as I get moved to a new state.

No one looks at how the body protects itself as a WHOLE system, they would rather pull out symptoms to treat piecemeal -- that way pharma makes a whole lot more money.

[mountainvue]

106. They turned me into a feelingless

zombie.

[KittyWampus]

14. What This Country Needs Is Tort Reform.

We must protect business from frivolous lawsuits (sarcasm).

[gratuitous]

25. Finally a voice advocating reason!

See, EVERYONE knows that some drugs can have unfortunate side effects on certain members of the population. Did you know that some people can't tolerate aspirin -- and it's sold right over the counter in stores all over the United States!

Just because the manufacturer knew that some of its customers were dying from its product, its only obligation is to its shareholders. You can't expect business and investors to lose money just because some people are dying, can you? People die all the time! I suppose you hippies figure that if everyone was broke, nobody would die. Why do you all hate America so much?

* * *

Damn, the "tobacco industry defense" just sounds lamer and lamer with each passing year, doesn't it?

[Stevepol]

16. Anti-depressants are a hoax perpetrated on the American people.

An article in Mother Jones, I believe last year, investigated the original clinical tests used to certify or verify the effectiveness of the 5 or 6 major anti-depressants sold in the US at the time, and still being sold and used. This article noted that the original tests did not really show the drugs were effective in reducing or diminishing depression. The slight improvements noted in the drug group over the control group could be explained by factors other than the drugs themselves. For example, these drugs are known to be sleep-inducing and thus those taking the drugs rather than the placebo would be expected to sleep more. But the method of measuring whether the drugs were effective was a self-rated questionnaire and people who are depressed will report that they are improved if they sleep more. The drug-group rated itself above the placebo-group in only about half of the studies and in those the difference was only slight and could easily be explained by other factors like the sleep factor. In about half of the studies used to prove the effectiveness of the drugs, the placebo was equally effective in reducing depression. It's my guess that these anti-depressants are a hoax perpetrated on the American people, just as most drugs are now. The DEA and the drug companies are colluding to make money and keep people in the dark about drugs and their effect on people and society.

[Nimrod]

27. I believe you are right in 99% of cases

What about the other 1% you ask? "Real" drugs that have lasting and horrid neurological side effects. I'm living proof.

I was prescribed Effexor for three months. Now almost a year later I still stutter, have extremely poor physical coordination, and experience random spells of cognitive dissonance, anxiety attacks, and short term memory loss. None of these conditions existed before my being treated for depression. Any or all of these may prove to be permanent.

I REALLY hope the pharmacorps enjoyed the money they got from me.

[shrike]

35. It wasn't a hoax on me

See my post above. It was the only thing that truly helped me.

[AngryWhiteLiberal]

79. As a licensed clinical psych...you don't know what you're talking about.

While some of the SSRIs show reduced effectiveness, what's the alternative smart-guy??? Just suffer through suicidal ideation, paralyzing apathy, and familial discord secondary to major depression?

Drugs should NOT be the only method to combat depression, but until Americans decide to put a higher priority on psychotherapy and counseling, it's the best thing we have right now.

Scientifically speaking, the best treatment for major depression is a combination of anti-depressant medication and intensive cognitive-behavior therapy. Insurance companies have no problem paying for the former, but tend to only fund 3-4 months worth of the latter.

JB (Ph.D. - clinical psychology / behavioral neurology)

[Stevepol]

123. I was merely paraphrasing the Mother Jones article.

Look it up. A psychiatrist in NY I believe used the FOIA to get access to the clinical trials used by the FDA to approve the drugs and discovered that the clinical trials were not at all convincing. What's the alternative? Actually, when it comes to a "psychological" problem, by definition the thing to take or do is what you "think" will help you. If you think chanting OM every hour on the hour or meditating or getting a penicillin shot will do the trick, then by all means do it. Since the problem is "psychological" to begin with, your choice of treatment should be determined by your own belief as to what will help. I personally believe that cognitive therapy is usually the best approach. I only have a master's in psychology (a doctorate in English) so I'm not well acquainted with the chemical factors involved. I have a strong aversion to drugs in general since I believe my Dad's Alzheimer's is directly traceable to his over-medication following a mild hear attack. I distrust drugs for other reasons as well (the venality of the drug companies, e.g.), but I have no objection to people doing anything they "think" will help them. I just don't believe the evidence is there that the drugs are doing much. The mind of the patient is doing a great deal.

[Mr_Spock]

155. Even the St. Johns Wort study I read about showed a high response

to the herb!! I liked Prozac better because it didn't leave my stomach quite at tight. It saved my life but I know you don't care because you have an issue with drugs. I respect that, just don't kill me because you believe in a different approach. I and many other would personally attack the person who took a drug from us that saved our lives. I called it a "miracle" as it was happening and even though that was years ago, I can still remember how freeing it was to be pulled out of the horrible and debilitating depression. Yes, the mind of this patient did a great deal, AFTER the Prozac freed me from the viscious clamp that the chemical imballance had on me. I was able to free myself, but not without the help of Prozac.

[sherilocks]

126. I agree with you

about the need for combined treatment for depression; therapy and, if necessary, meds. Also, the insurance companies do make if more difficult to get reimbursements for mental health treatment. However, as I see it, some patients are also resistant to psychotherapy and would rather take a pill than go through the rigors of self-discovery and ultimate relief.

I used to have severe bouts of depression. I went through a few years of psychotherapy, which included a few years of wrestling with my health insuror. I also tried meds. One, Wellbutrin, mixed with something else prescribed by a psychiatrist, gave me a seizure. Others turned me into a zombie and whatever side of my brain it is that controls creativity stopped functioning. Another took away my short term memory. The meds didn't work, the psychotherapy did.

In the long haul, my insurance company has saved money, and I am depression free. I do use full spectrum lightbulbs and walk or excercise every day as a precautionary measure. But I no longer have problems with severe depression.

[Mr_Spock]

146. THANK YOU!!! Everybody read this post

You've said it as good as anybody in this horrid thread where the suffering have to defend themselves against the self-serving people and their "pet" issue of the day.

[Dem2theMax]

99. I'd be dead without my 'hoax.'

As for sleep, hahahaha. What's that? My 'hoax' doesn't help me sleep. But it does keep me alive. Me thinks you should do some more reading. Find some boards where people are talking about their meds and symptoms. It's amazing what the right medication can do for a person.

Hoax? LMAO.

[bleedingheart]

17. This is why I won't medicate my son

people have advocated giving him all sorts of medications to deal with his Aspergers Syndrome, specifically the depression aspects...but I have refused due this type of information

[Mr_Spock]

29. My daughter no longer wants to run in front of a car due to Lexapro

Concerta & Lexapro have helped her SO much with very minimal side effects. I'm glad she is still in mainstream schools - she would have been kicked out by now otherwise. We have so far been able to minimize the embarrassing and stigmatizing situations for her. I cross my fingers every day but it's been SO much less stressful for her and us due to the drugs/therapy.

[DianeG5385]

32. Back when my autistic son was 8 or9 he was prescribed Prozac

for behavior issues such as aggression and elopement. I had resisted medicating him and had an aide come in to my home to work on his behaviors, but was made to feel guilty so I tried it. He was on it exactly two weeks! He became manic and even more uncontrollable so it was clear it did not work for him! Since then he has been off all medications, is now 13, and his behavior has improved tremedously using other behavior management techniques. I think allowing him to mature naturally without medication was a better answer.

I know this doesn't work in every case but seems to be better for him.

[Guaranteed]

46. Yup, I had the mania, too.

Was flying high, WAY too high, for about a month, before the *massive* anxiety attacks started. The "curl up into a ball and think you're gonna die" kind.

[shrike]

47. Are you bipolar, by any chance?

I know it's none of my business, but if the depressive cycle is mistaken for major depression, the patient inevitably morphs into full-blown mania.

A big problem is misdiagnosis, I think. Doctor says, "well, he's feeling low, we'll give him some Prozac." I know a man who was put on Zoloft and experienced a manic episode -- turns out he had an organic nerve disorder that was causing his problems. If the doctor had done his job and done a full work-up, explored all the possibilities, this wouldn't have happened.

As I said on an earlier post, these drugs are dispensed much too easily. They can be life-saving under the right circumstances, but under the wrong ones they can cause the kinds of problems people on this thread have been talking about.

[Guaranteed]

51. No, not really.

I was just a high-schooler with the typical problems that go along with being one of the smartest kids. Prozac was the third of five anti-depressants my shrink put me on over the course of about six years.

[shrike]

63. Wow

No wonder you don't like antidepressants.

In my other posts, I've described my opinions about Prozac, particularly with regards to a sometimes clueless medical community.

[Guaranteed]

67. Well, the worst part is that I didn't really need them.

I've been off of them for over six years, now, and I'm fine. Not the happiest person in the world, of course, but who is? It's just part of who I am.

[shrike]

69. Then you didn't need them

If you're able to function, and you're not constantly plagued by thoughts of suicide, as I was, then you were misdiagnosed. This is what I mean about medical professionals not doing their homework before dispensing a psychotropic drug.

[emad]

18. Journal hands over Prozac papers : BBC

Confidential papers on anti-depressant drug Prozac that went missing during a murder case have been handed to the US drug regulator by a UK medical journal.

The documents, belonging to Eli Lilly, the makers of Prozac, included details of clinical trials of the drug, the British Medical Journal said.

The documents reportedly went missing after the relatives of the victims of Joseph Wesbecker started legal action.

Mr Wesbecker, who was on Prozac, shot eight people dead in 1989 in the US.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/4135185.stm

[IndianaGreen]

19. But, but our new GOP Governor Mitch Daniels was a lobbyist

for Eli Lilly, making sure that the company was well taken care of by Congress.

[havocmom]

22. More news from Big Pharma + Politicians

Great letter pointing at the problem in today's Billing Gazette
http://www.billingsgazette.com/index.php?id=1&display=rednews/2004/12/31/build/opinion/35-reader-voice.inc

Subject: Republican Rep. Billy Tauzin is resigning his seat in Congress and his new job

<snip> Tauzin is leaving his post as chairman of the House Committee that regulates the pharmaceutical industry. He has accepted the position of the industry's top lobbying group.

<snip> Tauzin will make hundreds of thousands of dollars in compensation from the pharmaceutical industry and also a very generous pension from the U.S. taxpayers. Is it coincidental that Tauzin as chairman of the Pharmaceutical Committee proposed that, unlike Canada and Western Europe, there would be no negotiations with the drug companies? The drug companies can charge the U.S. anything they wish, about twice the price charged Canada and Western Europe.

<snip> Of course, the Bush administration approved Tauzin's proposal, and his Republican colleagues concurred. Their money support from the pharmaceutical industry will help them in the upcoming elections.

<snip> Do the loyalties of Tauzin and the Bush administration lie with the pharmaceutical industry or their constituents? Is paying inflated prices for drugs the same as increasing taxes?

Marc Racicot left Montana after wrecking the place on behalf of big corporations and went to work for ENRON and the RNC, then bush*/Cheney 04 to further the war Corporations are waging on US citizens. Tauzin makes life much more profitable for Big Pharma Industry and is rewarded handsomely. Cheney does the bidding of Big Oil and gets high paying jobs he has no real background for... Anybody see a pattern here?

Used to be called public service and I know many who work diligently for the government who still practice that, but when policy makers get paid off by corporations, well, that little alliance is what paves the road to fascism. And the GOP seems to be way ahead in participation of that little perk from their time in 'public service'.

[William Bloode]

20. Now lets see...

Vioxx, Celebrex, Aleeve, now Prozac. All are pretty much proven more harmful than the marijuana i smoke for medical issues, but i am an outlaw and a criminal.

Really strange is it not?

[Ariana Celeste]

74. It's fucked up, is what it is. eom

[Danieljay]

83. I get your point....

and support medical marijuana use. That being said, marijuana makes me paranoid, gives me panic attacks, and depression.

All drugs affect people differently, there are those who can tolerate a drug and those who can't. Some people have severe reactions to aspirin and others allergic to antibiotics. The pharmaceutical companies know this...but still the benefit outweighs the risk for the majority of the population, just as the benefit of marijuana to some persons with certain health issues outweighs the risks to others. For example...I can't smoke dope..it makes me crazy, but you obviously can.

It's my opinion that it simply comes down to objective studies, reason, and personal and corporate accountability. Companies should be held accountable for negligence, but even as a progressive democrat I believe there is some validity to personal accountability and choice. I choose to take zoloft knowing the potential side effects...I've read the label and have been warned. Now if they are hiding something from me they should be held accountable...but as of now..the benefits for me outweigh any risk I've read about. I have my life back.

[slackmaster]

21. My personal bad experience with Prozac

I've never taken it myself but it has affected my life in a negative way. In about the 7th year of my 10-year marriage my then-wife started taking it for her chronic depression and low self-esteem.

She ignored the (on edit - corrected spelling of...) advice of her doctor and the label warnings, and continued to drink alcohol while she was taking Prozac. The synergy caused her to become physically violent, something she had never done before in her life.

Try going to an open AA meeting some time and mentioning that you had a problem with someone mixing alcohol and Prozac or any other antidepressant. You will see many heads nodding in sympathy.

[Mr_Spock]

24. OMG - yes mixing alcohol and Prozac is a recipe for disaster

I tried it and though it was a riot, I quickly realized the potential for disaster there and stopped doing that. You can't blame Prozac for that though!! People need to be responsible for their own behavior - even when on Prozac!!

[Mr_Spock]

23. Prozac was the best thing that ever happened to me...

It helped me see hope during a deep & devastating depression. It allowed me to analyze situations with a new outlook so that I could handle them better in the future. It permanently changed my life for the better - it was a "miracle" for me. I wanted to live. The side effects? Yeah, lack of sex-drive - not a bad thing when one is depressed, but ultimately the biggest issue for me. Talking too much (I assume this is the "activation") - this was almost hilarious as I I didn't recognise myself though it was fun in the sense of the "high" associated with it. Change of personality - ultimately the talkative non-sexual person who took over my body got old to me. I stopped taking it unconsciously because I just didn't need it any more and I was able to deal with feeling all of the feelings again. I tried several other SSRI's/derivatives and Prozac worked best by far for me. Other anti-depressants actually made me more depressed. People who take these drugs should be CLOSELY MONITORED until they have adapted to the drug. Used properly, these are life-saving drugs - I can't say enough positive things about what Prozac did for me.

[SmokingJacket]

78. "Closely monitored" -- KEY phrase

I think these medications help many people. They helped me for a little while. But when they stopped working so well, my doc upped the dose.

Before too long, I was obsessed with the idea of suicide. I didn't really want to die, I kept telling myself -- but I couldn't STOP thinking about it. I had a damn-near unstoppable urge to cut my wrists. I've been depressed on and off since I was a teenager, but this was totally new. Terrifying.

I hate to think that this kind of experience is happening to people whose doctors tell them, Take this and see me in six months.

Or people who take them and never see a shrink.

[shrike]

102. YES

Monitoring and proper diagnosis -- in other words, good medicine.

[Mr_Spock]

104. "But when they stopped working so well"

So why did upping the dose of medication get the blame for your suicidal thoughts when the medication wasn't cutting it for you any more in your own words? I'm confused.

[Eloriel]

195. There's no contradiction there

The drugs stopped HELPING him, and -- as drugs are wont to do -- had a side effect, in this case of making him obsess about suicide. Apparently, dropping the drugs cured the suicide obsession.

No contradiction at all that I can see, if that's what you're "confused" about.

[Mr_Spock]

202. MYOB

.

[TaleWgnDg]

26. Here's the original British Medical Journal (BMJ) article . . .

Here's the original article as appeared in the British Medical Journal (BMJ):

http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/330/7481/7?maxtoshow=&HITS=10&hits=10&RESULTFORMAT=&fulltext=Prozac&searchid=1104507419019_5649&stored_search=&FIRSTINDEX=0&volume=330&issue=7481
(BMJ 2005;330;7 (1 January), doi:10.1136/bmj.330.7481.7)

Tis always better to have available the original publication that is referenced instead of layers of this or that . . . that is, whenever possible as here.

edited to add: BTW, all this stuff in this BMJ article is alleged; therefore, it is not conclusionary nor factual. That said, despite the invectives and conclusions that have been prematurely invoked in this DU thread.




.

[sherilocks]

31. Many responses were based on personal experiences

Perhaps the best point was made in the Rapid Response to the BMJ article:

"The evidence of harm from antidepressants is more compelling than the evidence of benefit.<2> More children benefit than are harmed but the magnitude of harm is greater.<2> The risks of untreated depression do not justify doing more harm than good. By contrast, cognitive behavior therapy is better than doing nothing<4> and family therapy deserves research.<5> "

[depakid]

101. This is the result of years of work

in Britain and my recollection is that all but one study demonstrated little to no effect on depression in children and adolescents and that there was a significant increase in suicidal ideation attributed to taking anti-depressants.

That evidence was ignored by th FDA last February, and its own chief researcher was barred from presenting his own findings at the hearings.

Eventually, he was vindicated- but even so, there's still no ban on Paxil for children here (as there is in Briatain) despite evidence demonstrating not only NO efficacy- but also a significant risk of harm.

No one I know in the healthcare comunity expects the FDA to improve its procedures under the Bush administration. Fortunately, academic publishers seem to be taking matters into their own hands with disclosure requirements for findings published in their journals.

[HuckleB]

33. Anyone who watched the SSRI tale unfold should have wondered about this.

As a child psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner, it has been difficult to go with the FDA's recommendation that Prozac be the first line SSRI for children. I and my colleagues have seen the drug produce great results for many incredibly depressed and/or anxious children. However, we have also noted many apparent behavioral side effects, at level far exceeding those noted with Lexapro, Celexa and Zoloft, to name a few of the mainline meds. These have included increased depression and anxiety, lack of impulse control, and "clouding of the mind" to name a few. The drug also produces more and more intense physical side effects like headaches and nausea compared to most SSRI's (Paxil being the main exception).

In the end, it comes down to a need for a full psychiatric evaluation before prescribing medication, and ensuring that therapy is the first line of treatment and is included in any treatment plan where medicine is warranted. Unfortunately, the mainstream press does not cover the ins and outs of the issue, either, which tends to lead to a great deal of misinformation being spread and widely believed. Too many of the "examples" used in the press to show how an SSRI turned someone to suicide have turned out to have very long histories of suicidal ideation and self harm, and those full histories were never followed up on by the same press outfits that used them as the heartwrenching examples that they were. Again, though, we have to remember that medications are tools, and are not inherently evil. The desire for a quick fix that is sometimes inherent in general practitioners and the desire for a cheap fix that is most inherent in insurance carriers are far and away of bigger concern than the meds themselves, which get overused and overemphasized as treatment modalities because of these factors. For some reason, the press does not cover these matters, leaving the drugs themselves as the representation of what's wrong with mental health care for children. Unfortunately, this leaves parents terrified, and likely leaves children who could benefit greatly from SSRI treatment out in the cold with only fear as company.

[Danieljay]

62. finally...a voice of reason and experience

I began taking a small dose of Zoloft weeks ago for depression and mild OCD spectrum disorders. I'm already feeling better, have no side effects at all, and feel like my life is already turning around. Each person's experience differs with these meds..for me, its been a positive experience.

My mother called and told me of a segment on a morning show yesterday about the dangers of ibuprofen. Some man's daughter had a severe reaction to Motrin. I personally think the media hyping this up is irresponsible and dangerous. There are people who are going to have a reaction to just about anything. Some people can't even take an aspirin...should we ban aspirin and blame the pharmaceutical companies? Should there be accountability? You bet there should! But lets be objective and reasonable about it, based on ALL the evidence.

Believe it or not, there are good people and good scientists that work for the pharmaceutical industry with the intent of developing life saving drugs that benefit everyone. There are also CEO's and lobbyists who simply want to make a buck. Lets be careful with the knee jerk reactions and judgment and not "throw the baby out with the bathwater".

Anxiety, depression, and mental illness is a sensitive issue. I find it disgusting how judgmental so called "progressives" can be around this issue. Had it not been for anti-pyschotics, my mother-in-law would be dead now and if not for SSRI's my sister could never leave the house for fear of leaving the stove on. Thank God for SSRI's and anti psychotics. Have some compassion people.

[shrike]

137. So glad you're feeling better

I know what it's like to come out of the darkness.

Unfortunately, these kinds of discussions are common here. We all have our prejudices and "drugs" are a pet DU prejudice.

[shrike]

135. I always wondered about that, SSRIs for children

With their growing brains, and all.

And suicide attempts and thoughts are so common among depressives: perhaps Prozac just came along at the end of the line. Thanks for this post, it was interesting.

[bunny planet]

36. Ely Lilly must be watched very carefully. Most people don't know that

there is an addendum in the Homeland Security bill (courtesy of Bill'I'm a Crook' Frist) that indemnifies Eli Lilly specifically from any lawsuit brought forth by individuals harmed by a vaccine that they manufacture. I only know about this because my son was harmed by a vaccine. They snuck this little addendum in with fine print in the HS bill and it prevents anyone harmed by a vaccine (any type of vaccine, not just smallpox, which is the excuse they used to add it to Homeland Security) manufactured by Ely Lilly, can't sue the company for more than 125K. 125K is peanuts if your child develops autism etc. which has been linked to thimerasol (mercury) in vaccines. There may be other drug companies indemnified in the bill too but I think it is just Lilly.

I wouldn't be surprised if Frist tries to sneak in a provision somewhere in some huge omnibus bill that indemnifies Ely Lilly for damages caused by Prozac. These bills have to be gone over with a fine tooth comb. Ely Lilly is Frist's pet drug company apparently, he probably owns most of it.

[Merlin]

38. Prozac works wonders. I know about a dozen people who take it.

It's not all that magical. All it does is permit seratonin--the body's natural "feel good" enzyme--to be more easily absorbed in the brain.

Seratonin is released during sex, by eating chocolate and through other pleasurable experiences.

Everyone I know who takes prozac swears by it. The comments I hear most are "it lets me be myself."

Depression tends to hit most heavily people of high intelligence who are under a lot of pressure or experiencing serious reversals in life.

As I understand it, more than half the CEOs of Fortune 500 companies take it.

[spanone]

41. We live in a nation where profit trumps life.

[JoFerret]

42. Can Viagra be far behind?

.

[Carl Brennan]

44. Anti-depressants and political apathy

Antidepressants and political apathy.

The Brave New World syndrome.
Note: some of the drugs are from companies like Eli Lilly with BFEE connections....and from Rummy's Searle Pharmauceuticals
http://www.democraticunderground.com/cgi-bin/duforum/duboard.cgi?az=show_thread&om=4389&forum=DCForumID70&omm=4

<http://www.salon.com/opinion/brown/2003/05/15/pill/index.html>
(you may only get an abbreviated version of it if you're not a member of Salon, so here's the synopsis).

Tina Brown believes that most of the professional class in New York is on meds - Paxil, Wellbutrin, Prozac, whatever. Do you think this is why the intelligent sector of the U.S. population is behaving like zombies, politically? I've had friends on this shit, and it's like I'm all of a sudden talking to some simulation of them, some 2-dimensional representation of the regular person.
Could this be part of Bush's success? Have people just had the fight taken out of them, by meds or the seeming impenetrability of the whole corporate front (govt., media)?

[kerry-is-my-prez]

50. This is total b.s. Prozac is a godsend &the best anti-depressant out there

Said as a person who has used it and as a psych social worker who has worked with many many people who have been on anti-depressants. I also know of many people who have been on it and it is a god-send to them.

Many of the other anti-depressants do have bad side-effects especially when the person withdraws from them. Prozac and Wellbutrin are the only anti-depressants that I would wholeheartedly recommend. There may be some new ones out on the market that I'm not familiar enough with to recommend.

What these so-called studies do not take into account is that people who take antidepressants are ALREADY depressed and/or unbalanced. Therefore, the suicide rate and the rate of violence of the people who take it is going to be much higher than the general population.

In addition, people who commit suicide do NOT do it when they are in a depressive state (they do not have the energy or the creative thought processes to do it in this state). They do it right after they come out of a depression because they then have the energy to do it. THIS is why a few people who have just gone on an anti-depressant will "act out" with suicide, suicidal gestures and violent acts.

People who have come out of a major depression do need to be watched carefully because that is when suicide or violence will occur.

The incidences of suicide and violent behavior is actually quite low when you consider the large numbers of people who are taking them.

I do not want to see the government dictating to me and others whether or not I can take a particular drug. This is a situation similar to them dictating that people cannot use medical marijuana.

This is not a decison that should be made by emotional laymen - but by mental health professionals. It really grates on me when a group of uninformed people try to inflict their unresearched opinions on others.

Enough of big brother government trying to dictate our lives.

[QC]

54. Amen!

It really grates on me when a group of uninformed people try to inflict their unresearched opinions on others.

That bears repeating.

[MisterP]

58. well, who would that be?

(just asking)

[Guaranteed]

64. Apparently just being of the opposite opinion makes someone

uninformed, in their minds.

Far be it from anyone to have a BAD, or a LARGE NUMBER OF BAD experiences with psychiatric drugs. Those of us who have must not have informed ourselves correctly with regard to how they affected us or our friends.

[QC]

73. No, the problem is universalizing your own experiences.

If you have had bad experiences with psychotropic medications, then that is certainly worth nothing, but it doesn't mean that everyone else has had the same bad experiences. Quite a few of us out here would very likely be dead without these medications.

And, of course, another problem is getting so goddamn huffy when you are asked to back up your statements with something other than "Because I said so." There's no need for it, unless you are just looking for a fight, which I strongly suspect is the case right now.

[Mr_Spock]

90. This isn't the first time I've seen "looking for a fight" WRT this person

It's so damned frustrating how some will project their experiences onto the rest of us. Don't you dare question that person :eyes:

[Guaranteed]

138. I'm sorry, I just don't like being called uninformed

simply because I carry a certain opinion. And this isn't the first Prozac thread where people have said exactly that with regard to that opinion.

On edit: Let's just say I knew exactly the bullshit that was coming.

[Mr_Spock]

145. I'm just glad I'm not depressed now and I thank Prozac 100%

It may not work for all but it was effective for me. It may be over-prescribed (I agree with this), but it worked for me. Doctors/therapists may not follow-up properly when prescribing this drug (mine didn't), but the damn chemistry of the drug STILL WORKED FOR ME. Does it help the vast majority of those who take it? I'm going to say YES based on my limited sample of people who have taken it that I know personally. Is it the elixir that will cause "nirvana" for the masses? Of course not, but I still believe the world is a better place for it's existence, over-prescribed or not. Do people overreact to a drug that works for others but not for them - YES . How 'bout letting the majority get some satisfaction vs your own personal vendetta or whatever the fuck you wanna call it. Get over yourself - some of us have better lives due to this drug.

[Guaranteed]

97. The field of psychiatry is doing the universalizing.

And my hostility comes from the fact that every time there's a thread like this people start in with the "you don't know what you're talking about" and distorting the argument that these drugs are being over-prescribed.

As far as backing up what I'm saying, I started taking Imipramine when I was thirteen. I took that for awhile and felt nothing, but when I went off of it I couldn't eat for over a month. I lost about 30 pounds. Next was Zoloft- again, didn't feel it. I may not have been taking it right, though. Then came my delightful Prozac experience. I was about 16 by this time. After going off of that it was Paxil, which made me totally numb to the world, and threw me into a massive depression that I'd never felt the likes of before when I finally went off of it.

Finally, I took Serzone my first year of college- it actually wasn't bad. I couldn't sleep for the first few nights, but it just put an extra spring in my step, as opposed to the mania that Prozac put me into. Once I felt the effect I immediately went off of it out of fear for what it would turn into.

Further, I was a biopsych major my first two years in college before switching to philosophy. My mother is a behavior modification specialist (and she's also taken Wellbutrin for close to a decade- it seems mild, also, and I'd recommend it to others with similar symptoms) and my dad was the county mental health director for a number of years (moving up through the social work chain) before being promoted to health care director. Psychology was a routine dinner table topic in my house.

I also worked in a residential mental health treatment facility for 14 months, taking care of bipolars and schizophrenics. These people were, without a doubt, mentally ill, and needed to be on the medications they were taking. The doctor did not know any of them well enough, though, to fully understand the complexities of their psychologies.

My personal experience- and this is with people I know other than my mother- is that these psychiatric drugs are prescribed to people who do not have severe symptoms- particularly teenagers trying to adjust to the world that they're entering. They're prescribed as an alternative to dealing with real-life problems. In fact, one of my best friends from college, who, while an excentric fellow, for sure, but NOWHERE NEAR mentally ill, is now on a cocktail of Risperdal, Depakote, and possibly others by now because his parents convinced him there was something wrong with him. He now weighs over three hundred pounds (while previously being one of the most physically fit members of our group of friends) and, so I hear, has been institutionalized for the past five months. Unfortunately, his situation is a product of psychotically over-protective parents and psychiatry. He had very real, objective problems that he needed to deal with, especially in the area of sex, but they refused to address those, instead telling him he's nuts, medicating him, and forcing him to live at home.

He was doing great before his parents and his shrink took hold of him.

[Guaranteed]

61. You need more experience with Prozac.

That scares the hell out of me that you say you recommend that shit "wholeheartedly." In my experience, that is some dangerous, dangerous, very powerful stuff.

[shrike]

65. I've had ten years experience with Prozac

Please don't discount the fact that it can help people -- it's just not a cure-all, the way some ad execs and MDs seemed to think it was at the beginning.

[Guaranteed]

68. I can certainly see how it could help someone

with severe depression. But I wouldn't give it to bipolars, or people with behavioral problems (as the parent of an autistic child mentioned elsewhere in this thread).

[shrike]

72. We can agree on that

It is definitely not a cure-all. Trouble was, in the beginning it was marketed as such -- I heard of doctors prescribing for weight loss (No joke!)

[kerry-is-my-prez]

127. Most bipolar people can take it if they are taking Lithium, etc, w/it

They need to take a mood stabilizing drug along with it.

[ally_sc]

71. i have a friend who has been on it 10 years or longer...

she rather fight than switch. learning about this article may make her violent.

[kerry-is-my-prez]

82. Sorry but unless you have dealt with a large number of people taking it

and seen it first hand I don't think people should be spouting off about something and discouraging others from trying something.

I have worked with hundreds of people over the period of several years who have been on psychotropic drugs and have yet to see anyone who has had a "bad" reaction to Prozac. And yes, I recommend it to others who have chronic depression or who are having a serious depressive episode.

I especially do not appreciate individuals, groups or government entities dictating to me or others what I may take or not take if it is not harming others.

[Chicago Democrat]

87. AMEN!

[Stevepol]

55. Psychological "effedts" are almost impossible to prove.

The Mother Jones article I mentioned in an earlier post began and ended with an interview with a woman who was part of one of the clinical studies used to prove the effectiveness of one of the big 5 or 6 anti-depressants. She found herself improving greatly over time and swore to everybody that she was in the drug group but not the placebo control group. Turned out she was actually in the control group. The placebo had a tremendously positive effect on her. When the doctor told her she had been in the control group instead of the drug group, he told her she could have as much of the drug as she wanted as a reward for taking part in the study. She took him up on the offer, even tho all her "improvement" had come as a result of the placebo. Her reasoning: If I did this well on the placebo, think what I'd do on the real thing!!

Go figure.

[The Judged]

56. Declare children mentally ill now, save Pharm industry from claims later!

ding, ding, ding!

Also, ruins any chance of credibility for future "dissidents!"

[arikara]

57. I heard the same horror stories about it years ago

and when I was going through a major depression I refused to take it. After many months of nothing else helping, out of desperation I finally agreed to try it because I was not functioning at all just sitting around and crying, and no sleep. As posters above have said, there is a big difference between a minor depression and a major depression which is debilitating. Anyhow, guess what, the prozac worked I stopped crying, started sleeping and feeling like a human being again. I took it for nearly 2 years then took myself off. Now I take St Johns Wort daily and pop an extra capsule when I feel the edges of that sorrow again. I haven't needed to go back on prozac but I would not hesitate if I was ever hit with depression like that again.

I wonder if they aren't misdiagnosing many of the people who are having side effects with it in the first place. Some docs have their favorite pills and hand it out like candy, and the pharmas also push "off-label" prescribing of these meds to them, for example one of the birth control pill manufacturers unofficially tells the docs that it helps with acne so the docs prescribe it to girls for acne, "off-label".

Any prescribing of these heavy duty drugs to kids should be a last resort but it seems like nowadays its a first resort.

[Guaranteed]

70. Great post. nt

[AngryWhiteLiberal]

75. Well, I see the Scientologist propaganda machine is working...

All quick acting anti-depressive medications (most notably SSRIs), run the risk of increasing behavioral activation before mental components of the disease are alleviated. THIS HAS BEEN KNOWN BY PSYCHOLOGISTS AND PSYCHIATRISTS FOR YEARS. The problem is decreased funding and reimbursement for PROPER psychiatric care to insure that the behavioral activation doesn't become a harbinger for suicidal actions.

So, fuck off Scientologist nutballs...go play with your "orgasmo-psycho-meter" thingy.

J

[Florida_Geek]

76. may people have killed themselves or others

over SSRIs.

IMHO you are the nutball.

[AngryWhiteLiberal]

80. It's SIMPLE...depressed people ARE MORE PRONE TO SUICIDE.

SSRIs have an ancillary impact. They DO NOT create suicidal thoughts, only increase the behavioral ability for someone to carry out wishes NOT CAUSED BY THE DRUG. The suicidal wishes are a symptom of the DISEASE.

As a licensed shrink, I just happen to know what I'm talking about. And, I'm VERY aware of the Scientologist crusade against any and all forms of psychiatric care not including their DELUSIONAL FUNDAMENTAL beliefs.

BTW - I seem to remember a few SUICIDES involving Scientology treatments. So, I guess anti-depressants and/or Scientology cause suicide...using your logic.

J

[Chicago Democrat]

91. I'm interested in the Scientology link....

I hadn't heard about it before. Thanks for the excellent posts!

[AngryWhiteLiberal]

217. Here's some good Net links on the Anti-Psychiatry Scientology crusade

Psychiatry & Scientology (by L.J. West, M.D.)
http://www.amazing.com/scientology/psychiatry.html?FACTNet

Scientology Lies (good broad overview of their nutball philosophies)
http://www.scientology-lies.com/liesindex.html#psychiatry

Another good reference on Scientology's hatred of Psychiatry
http://cultpreres.users4.50megs.com/scientology.htm

Scientology & Medical Fraud
http://www.factnet.org/Scientology/medfraud.htm?FACTNet

Scientology/Psychiatry La Time Expose
http://www.lermanet2.com/scientologynews/latimes/lat-6b.htm

Scientology's Secret War Against Psychiatry
http://www.solitarytrees.net/cowen/misc/psywar.htm

------------------------------------

Personally, I think the deep-rooted hatred of Psychiatry by Scientology rests in the distrust of their poor science-fiction writer leader, L. Ron Hubbard. Hubbard was megalomaniacal, narcissistic, and most likely delusional. He chose to make a villian out of those who had the sense enough to realize that he needed professional help...something I see quite a bit in my psychotic and delusional patients.

J

[Florida_Geek]

112. check out Peter R. Breggin site

more people kill themselves or someone else after starting these drugs than starting a sugar pill.

[AngryWhiteLiberal]

157. Breggin is a quack with a huge anti-medication agenda...grain of salt

Breggin lives on the fringe of the field and is not highly regarded. Science should be devoid of an agenda (facts are facts), but Breggin fails to pass the impartiality test.

JB

[conflictgirl]

174. Find me any impartial doctor though!

So far I've never had a doctor that wasn't all gung-ho in support of meds. That's not impartial either. I've never once had a doctor tell me what my alternatives were, only that I needed to take an SSRI and that if I didn't, I was risking my life.

The AMA, APA, AAP, etc - basically any American medical association you can name - is funded by pharmaceutical companies. Even the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill is funded by Eli Lilly and GlaxoSmithKline. That's not impartiality either. It's not hard to be considered "fringe" when you're the only one speaking out against a medical establishment that's in bed with the pharmaceutical industry.

[depakid]

188. There are good pdocs out there

admittedly, they're difficult to find, especially by chance.

You'd be surprised, though. Even many of the doctors who prescribe medications you think may not be "right" have considered the influence of pharma in their recommendations.

In the couple of classes I have had where the Prof asked "what's the single biggest problem in the medical profession," The consensus always is- the pharmaceutical industry. Every time- for various reasons.

[AngryWhiteLiberal]

220. Doctors know of other ways to treat, but insurance co. don't pay for it

Doctors (on the whole) are pragmatists. Medications are just the quickest and really only viable way to treat someone where costs are a consideration. Those who are lucky enough to afford the optimal medical care (read as "out of pocket") are certain to receive more than just medications to treat their psychiatric difficulties.

People are missing the point. The true BAD GUYS are the insurance companies that limit treatment options for doctors. I'm sure the pharm companies are working in concert with the insurance companies to guarantee their continued importance, but those with the "keys to the gate" of good healthcare are the insurance companies.

JB

[sherilocks]

223. I would be interested in some links

in reference to Dr. Breggin's "quackery" and your other criticisms of him. I always enjoy exploring both sides of an issue.

[AngryWhiteLiberal]

226. And, links you shall have...there's a few at quackwatch.org

Breggin's Background

Peter R. Breggin, M.D., is a Harvard College graduate who obtained his medical degree from Case Western Reserve Medical School in 1962. After training in psychiatry at Harvard and State University of New York Upstate Medical Center (Syracuse), he worked for two years at the National Institute of Mental Health. Since 1968, he has practiced psychiatry in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area <14>. Breggin describes his private practice as "psychotherapy for individuals, couples, and families, including children," with "subspecialties" in "the adverse effects of medications, electroshock, and psychosurgery" and "forensic psychiatry and patient rights." <15> His online resumé states that he has testified as an expert in about 40 cases, many of which involved psychiatric drugs, FDA regulations, and product liability <15>. His 18 books, most written for the general public, attack psychosurgery, electroconvulsive therapy ("shock treatments"), Prozac, Ritalin, and the use of psychiatric drugs in general.

In 1972, Breggin founded The International Center for the Study of Psychiatry and Psychology (ICSPP), a nonprofit organization "concerned with the impact of mental health theory and practices upon individual well-being, personal freedom, and family and community values." <15> ICSPP's 2000 federal tax report states that its primary purpose is to gather and distribute information about the "hazards of bio-medical model of psychiatry." <16> Other information I found on the Internet states that ICSPP had one part time employee <17> and less than $25,000 in annual income throughout most of its existence <16>. Breggin also launched Ethical Human Sciences and Services, a journal that began publication in 1999. He has also been listed on the advisory board of Network Against Coercive Psychiatry, an anti-psychiatry organization whose home page asserts that the "mental health establishment has conned the American people."

Breggin's Web site states that he "has been informing the professions, media and the public about the potential dangers of drugs, electroshock, psychosurgery, involuntary treatment, and the biological theories of psychiatry for over three decades." <14> The back cover of his Ritalin Fact Book describes him as "the conscience of psychiatry." <12> I believe it would be more accurate to characterize him as a harmful nuisance whose views can undermine trust in the medical profession and frighten people away from helpful treatment.

A Bit of Puffery?
Breggin's resumé and other biographical reports describe him as a Diplomate of the National Board of Medical Examiners; a "Specialist in Psychiatry" recognized by the State of Maryland, Department of Mental Health and Hygiene, Board of Physician Quality Assurance; a Diplomate of the American Board of Forensic Medicine; and a Fellow of the American College of Forensic Examiners. He also states that he is (or has been) on the editorial board of six peer-reviewed journals and has published more than 25 articles in peer-reviewed scientific journals. Although these accomplishments might sound impressive, they actually are much less than they might seem.

Breggin is not certified by the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology, which is the recognized agency for certifying psychiatrists.

Having completed three years of psychiatric training, Breggin is entitled to call himself a psychiatrist or a "specialist in psychiatry." Until 1996, the Maryland Board of Quality Assurance maintained a list of "identified" specialists. Anyone who completed an approved training program was eligible for listing. No special examination or additional qualifications were required.

To become licensed in the United States, every physician must pass an examination given by the National Board of Medical Examiners or an equivalent examination by a state licensing board. Thus being a "diplomate" of the National Board of Medical Examiners means nothing more than the fact that the doctor has passed a standard licensing exam. Most resumés I have seen do not list this credential.

The American Board of Forensic Examiners is not recognized by the American Board of Medical Specialties (ABMS), which is the recognized standard-setting organization. ABMS offers subspecialty certification in forensic psychiatry and forensic pathology, neither of which Breggin has achieved.

Only one of the six journals with which Breggin has been affiliated is significant enough to be listed in MEDLINE, the National Library of Medicine's principal online database.

On September 5, 2002, I found that Breggin had 33 citations listed in MEDLINE. None of these publications appears to be a research report. Eight were letters to the editor, two were books, and most of the rest were expressions of his opinion on various psychiatric topics.

Here's the rest of the Breggin anti-ADD backgrounder...
http://quackwatch.org/11Ind/breggin.html

The rest of the quackwatch site is informative, as well.
http://quackwatch.org/

Best regards,
J

[Chicago Democrat]

88. Protect crazy people from crazy do-gooders!

Prozac Zoloft Wellbutrin Effexor Saves Lives.

The radical right wants to destroy medicare and medicaid and let manic depressed people kill themselves because of being taken off their medication.

Which side are you on?

[Florida_Geek]

113. Not on the pills of death side

check to find out what you do not know about these drugs.

"The International Center for the Study of Psychiatry and Psychology"

While Peter R. Breggin, M.D., is more or less retired now, he has talked and published about the problems of SSRIs and has won many court cases.

http://www.breggin.com /

[AngryWhiteLiberal]

218. Hunh? The radical right did not invent depression or bipolar disorder...

The pharmaseutical industry didn't invent or hype these disorders either. The problem rests in demonizing the pharmaseutical companies for a known early risk in treating people already prone to suicide. I'm not saying the pharmaseutical companies are without guilt or are admirable...only that people are missing the point. The REAL villians are those in Congress and the White House who have cozied-up to the insurance companies to DENY proper long-term treatment and tracking of psychiatric patients.

JB

[Mr_Spock]

92. So not treating a depressed person lowers suicide rates?

Some people here have a LOT of nerve. Prozac saved my life.

[HuckleB]

110. Well, not treating diabetes would lower the rate of people with diabetes.

So maybe the poster is thinking of it in terms of the long run.

:shrug:

I'm glad you got help. Best to you!

[Florida_Geek]

114. And they have KILL

so because they helped you, you do not care about the side effects.

[MisterP]

119. Scientologists?

this is the British Medical Journal revealing that Lilly suppressed evidence.

[Chicago Democrat]

85. Prozac and drugs like it are WONDERFUL and to anyone who says

otherwise...

I say they are perhaps well meaning but completely misinformed.

Prozac and other similar drugs have saved lives. The anecdotal evidence, like "someone killed themselves one month after taking Prozac" is NOT COMPELLING OR LOGICAL.


1)Only depressed people kill themselves.
2)Prozac is given to depressed people and can be clinically proven to cause less suicides.
3)Ergo, less people on Prozac kill themselves than otherwise would!

That does NOT MEAN that Prozac will prevent all suicides in these already suicidal people! Jeez!

[proud2BlibKansan]

100. Good point

This is just like claiming that since more people on chemotherapy die, that means the chemo kills them.

[depakid]

107. I say otherwise

and I must also add that your logic is faulty.

First of all, observational epidemiological studies rely not only on cases (anecdotes, if you will) where people taking the drug that have committed suicide- but also on controls. They're set up with 2 x 2 tables to compare relative risks among those taking the drug vs. people similarly situated (and sometimes matched for specific characteristics) who are not taking the drug.

If a case/control study finds what appears to be a higher incidence of suicide or suicidal behavior in the people taking the drug, then that's a pretty good evidence that there's a problem.

Next, scientific studies will do a double blind comparison between a group of depressed individuals taking the drug vs. those taking a placebo or an active comparator. The studies look both for efficacy and adverse events. If the subjects taking the drug show a significantly increased risk of suicide, then that's even better evidence that there's a problem.

As to the logic:

1. Depressed people ARE NOT THE ONLY PEOPLE WHO COMMIT SUICIDE.

That's a false premise. Most suicides in fact result from bipolar mixed states- not from clinical depression. Indeed, as some posters have suggested, what may be going on here is the movement out of depression- physiologically, without concommittant treatment for the dark thoughts and cognitive distortions.

2)Prozac is given to depressed people and can be clinically proven to cause less suicides.

That is what's at issue. The suppressed Lily documents and other work over the past 10 years seem to suggest otherwise, at least in the short term.

Finally, anecdotes (case studies) like Joseph Wesbecker's tragedy are necessary for any broadly effective presentation of the material. You have to put a face on the abstract concepts- and this holds true even among professionals.

Otherwise, particularly among lay persons- you just get "the look."

[Mr_Spock]

109. What did you say?

Is there a point to your post?

[depakid]

122. Simply this:

The above poster's conclusion doesn't make sense.

He states that:

That does NOT MEAN that Prozac will prevent all suicides in these already suicidal people.

Of course it doesn't. But the quesion is whether there is an increased risk associated with taking the drug.

The risks being compared are risks are among people who have presented with clinical depression (who, incidently, may also fit in somewhere on the bipolar spectrum).

If studies show increased risk of suicide or violent behavior among people taking the drug vs. those who are not- then that risk of harm needs to be weighed against the possible benefits.

Moreover, anecdotes are often the first thing that crops up- and if there are a sufficient number of them or odd things are happening, then further study is merited.

So, while not proof in and of themselves, they often lead to studies that prove connections. This is exactly what happened back in the 1940's, when a surgeon noticed that most of his lung cancer patients were smokers, or when another physician noticed that some infants whose mothers had contracted rubella while pregant were born with a certain congental eye defect.

[Guaranteed]

143. Geez, you looking for a fight or something?

What's with the 'tude?

[Mr_Spock]

148. You tell me from the post and the follow up what the intent is

I simply cannot understand the point of the post. No substantive data is presented so what am I supposed to "presume" from the poster?

...ans it's cute what you're doing butting in on this conversation BTW - though a bit childish.

[Guaranteed]

150. Was I talking to you when you offered up your opinion before?

No. And yours was a bullshit personal attack.

Most of these pro-Prozac arguments are exactly that, BTW. I've offered nothing but evidence, and the previous poster gave a perfectly cogent and logical argument (even the first time around). But the drug-lovers are going around calling people Scientologists. Yeah, real mature.

[Mr_Spock]

159. Whatever - we'll have to agree to disagree.

"drug-lovers" - cute.

Edit: Oh, and you can read my response to the other poster below if you are still interested in my "drug-loving".

[depakid]

152. If you can't get it

I'm not sure how much clearer I can make it.

There appears to be an increased risk of suicide attributable to taking certain SSRI's. As far as I know, there aren't any studies as to why that is, but the evidence (most stongly in children and adolscents) indicates that there is. Obviously, further study needs to be done in adults- (further study almost always needs to be done).

What would you like to see as substantive data?

The Mosholder report?

http://www.ahrp.org/infomail/04/07/26.php

Dr. Healy's extensive letter to the FDA?

http://www.ahrp.org/risks/healy/FDA0204.php

[Mr_Spock]

164. I am familiar with the data for children and adolescents...

but I wasn't clear that we were only talking about adolescents here. Let's talk about kids then. Based on the preliminary "scare" from the UK, we took our daughter off of Paxil (and didn't consider Prozac, even though it worked for me) and put her on Lexapro (more precise acting). She was suicidal (at age 7!!) and hasn't mentioned such things even once since being on Paxil and now Lexapro. We have given her neurofeedback therapy (she likes this!) and now we are attempting to lower her dosage of Lexapro and eventually ween her off of it. I'm not a person who thinks that one should be on any more drugs than absolutely necessary to get through especially trying times where talk therapy wouldn't have time to work. Plus, my little daughter violently attacks the therapist which I think is funny BTW because she HATES being asked questions about herself. She got in one therapists' face and screamed at the top of her lungs "STOP ASKING QUESTIONS" - I laughed my ass off. I also dislike therapists and tend to find myself analyzing and frustrating them. I think it has something to do with the fact that me and her are hamstrung with Aspergers (which explains the depression too).

[depakid]

169. We could also be talking about adults, too

that's the significance of the anecdotes and what the Lily documents appear to suggest (btw: I trust BMJ's analysis, even though I haven't seen the actual data- and I trust the British MHRA whereas I no longer trust the FDA).

I'm sorry to hear about your daughter. Childhood and adolescent depression is very real, and coupled with aspergers must be really difficult. It's hard to weigh the options and sometimes there aren't a lot of good answers. It seems to me asking someone with aspergers a lot of questions isn't really a good idea. Maybe written inventories would be better.

In the spirit of disclosure, I have bipolar II, a condition marked by persistant depression. SSRI's do very little except give me nasty side effects- including a bout of hypomania the first time I took zoloft (thanks, doc, for doing a complete history- that's one reason why primary care physicians probably ought not to be giving these out like they do in America). Bupropion works- for about 3 months at a time.

I can relate to prozac saving your life- because depakote saved mine- fortunately, without any real side effects.

BTW: If you'd be interested in a place to get information, feedback, support or just to talk, I help run a website for people with depression, bipolar and other related conditions. We have a lot of extremely caring, highly educated and intelligent people on board- including several brilliant brits. If you're interested in having a look, PM me. It's a private and very safe (and fun) place. Sort of a little sanctuary from the craziness of the world.

[Mr_Spock]

207. Thanks for the informative and constructive post.

I don't disagree with anything you are saying WRT potential negative side effects and lack of supervision by primary care physicians, I just want to make sure we don't throw out the baby with the bathwater. A small scandal can get a drug pulled from the market forever and I believe that would be a very serious mistake that could be dangerous to my future health.

I'll consider checking out the site you described above. Unfortunately, all of the bantering back and forth about this issue in this thread is kind of depressing to me and I'm not sure I want to focus on this subject again other than in this thread until it dies.

[HuckleB]

224. One thing to remember...

The data is not conclusive, and the data shows a possible increase in the early stages of taking an SSRI, not once someone has been on the medication for some time. Unfortunately, this is not covered in our mainstream press, which seems bent on hype rather than getting real information across to people. What this has led to is a real increase in the number of parents who simply stop taking their child to his or her psychiatric provider and simply stop giving the medication to the child. I suspect that this has led to suicides that would not have happened otherwise, but who is responsible for those?

Blah. Blah. Blah. On and on it goes.

[Chicago Democrat]

116. Only depressed people commit sucide...Incl VietNamMonks and Palestinians

Most suicides in fact result from bipolar mixed states- not from clinical depression.

Huh? Its all just mumbo jumbo... How can you say that a depression is not the absolute precursor to suicide in all cases! Name one person who committed suicide for non-depression reasons. OK I will... The Viet Nam monks who immolated themselves in protest of the Viet Nam war. That was a political act. OK Palestinian suicide bombers. That was a military act. Each of them probably could have used prosac too. All the rest of the suicides are from people who hate this world and their lives so much that they choose to end them. That's a depressed person.

As for the studies....No new drug can really be adequately tested until it actually gets released. I think on balance the 20 years of Prosac and its related drugs have been an unqualified success. I can think of no other drug that has so many successful applications and so few side effects. Its popularity speaks volumnes about its success and lack of toxicity. It requires constant monitoring however.

Drug effects over 10 or 20 years are only known after 10 or 20 years. I think now is the perfect time to study these effects, but what is going to be the control group? There is none, or it has to be estimated. Where are you going to find unmedicated Bipolar people to compare Prozac Bi Polar people to? So all we get is bullshit 'anecdotal' nonsense. You can find any horror to prove anything under the sun with unscientific, statistically flawed studies. So Lilly had a study, so fucking what?

Has Lilly been sued by irate victims? No.
Have new analogues constantly been developed to allow for a wide variety of these drugs for the wide variety of mental illnesses? Yes.
Does this prove they are safe. Unequivocably YES.

[depakid]

128. Well, maybe you might want to consider the facts

The incidence of suicide in schizophrenia, for example is about 10% (compared with 1% in the general population). These patients are not depressed- so you argument that depression is a necessary precursor to suicide fails on this ground alone.

There are other grounds, too. Take a look at the data. Depression rates run highest in the winter in the Northern Hemisphere. Yet suicide rates spike substantially in late spring to early summer and match up neatly with the incidence of mixed states- which are distict psychiatric conditions- though not unrelated to clinical dpression.

As to the studies, while some drug effects must be studied logitudinally (estrogen replacement is a good example) other- such as suicide and violent behavior alleged to be associated with prozac occur in the short term and well within usual clinical trial periods.

As to your statement that its popularity speaks volumnes about its success and lack of toxicity. This is not only WRONG but dangerously fallacious reasoning. Take a look at estrogen replacement therapy. It was very popular among women and physicians treating them for years reported good results and noticed no adverse effects associated with it

Then along comes a huge study demonstrating that in fact, estrogen replacement therapy is associated with coronary heart disease, breast and endometrial cancer. Does that mean all women shouldn't use it. No. ERT is also associated with lower incidence of alzheimers and increased bone density. Bottom line- you have to weigh the risk factors in any given patient.

Finally, when running studies on biplor patients, for example- of course you don't leave them untreated. What you use is an active comparator. you test one treatment vis a vis another- unless no other treatment is available.

Simply saying things like "you can find any horror under the sun"- or asserting that "unscientific" studies suffer from statistical bias- is not only wrong- but as I mentioned, dangerously wrong. It promotes a general misuderstanding about how the processes work and how one should interpret the findings.

[Chicago Democrat]

131. If they are so bad, then why do drug companies continue to

develop new anologues? Drug companies know a winner and so do doctors and patients. Not Scientologists, which is a cult.

If they are so bad, why has there been no lawsuits?

[depakid]

141. You make several incorrect assumptions

First of all, I never said anti-depressants were 'bad' or even ineffective (except in the case of paxil- where there's absolutely no efficacy in children and adolscents- but there is an increased risk of harm). Some work for some people, some don't- and for some, no anti-depressants work at all over long periods of time.

My point is that there appears to be an increased risk of suicide and potentially violent behavior among patients (especially children) taking certain antidepressants. In the event that one of these drugs is considered, the risks need to be 1st- known both to physcians and to their patients, and 2d- they need to be addressed. In some cases, they shouldn't be used at all, a least until other means have been exhausted.

Next- drug companies do indeed know a winner. Unfortunately- their definition of a winner differs from the scientific definition. If Fen- Phen, Celebrex and last year's Paxil hearings haven't demonstrated that, I don't know what will.

In my opinion, in cases where drug companies market a drug through misleading ads or gain approval via fraud (suppression of evidence in the face of a duty to disclose is fraud) then they should be required to disgorge all of the profits gained by the fraud. That's the standard legal remedy in fraud cases- and applying it to Pharma (like any other business) would go a long way toward making the definition of a winner rational- as opposed to avaricious.

Finally, of course there have been lawsuits. One of the major problems in litigation however is that when cases settle, the matter becomes sealed- no one knows exactly what the evidence was- or how many similar cases have been swept under the rug.

[Chicago Democrat]

158. Paxil was never a very good one IMO

because especially of the seizure side effect. Neither was Phen fen.

Zoloft and effexor were great products by comparison.

The drug ads are a national disgrace and should be abolished in all cases.

The lawsuits can't be that bad, nothing compared to Celebrex or Vioxx debacle. Its one thing to have a continued risk of suicide in already suicidal people. Its another thing to give people heart attacks for a pain pill.

[Florida_Geek]

115. What drug company do you work for

[Chicago Democrat]

118. Tell us about the Church of Scientology

:)

[Florida_Geek]

121. I do not have a clue what you are talking about

All I know is the drugs companies knew there was problems with these drugs and covered up.

Peter R. Breggin, MD organization he started and lookie at all the MDs.



Board of Directors



Board of Directors

Chairman

Joseph Tarantola, M.D.


Executive Director (Board member ex officio)

Dominick Riccio, Ph.D.



Officers

Robert Foltz, Psy.D.

Grace Jackson, M.D.

Jake Johnson, Ed.D.

Brian Kean, M.A.

Diane Kern, Dr. Crim., M.F.T.

Andrew Levine, M.S.W.

Kevin McCready, Ph.D.

Loren Mosher, M.D.

Pam Oatis, M.D.

Lawrence Plumlee, M.D.

Jack Raher, M.D.

Lloyd Ross, Ph.D.

Milton S. Shore, Ph.D.

Laurence Simon, Ph.D.

Robert Sliclen, Ph.D.

Doug Smith, M.D.

David Stein, Ph.D.

Clemmont E. Vontress, Ph.D.

Calvin E. Woodland, Ed.D., Psy.D.

[Chicago Democrat]

125. What exactly is YOUR problem with these drugs?

Who are YOU working for?

Why do you want to engage in anti-mental illness propaganda?

If you are a Scientologist, you should really admit it, so we can understand your antipathy towards mentally ill people and their doctors and their drug providers. Perhaps we should just lock people up or give them lobotomys, then they won't hurt anyone!

If these drugs hurt you or any other person, please seek legal remedies and let us know if you win, otherwise I don't really understand why this issue is so important to you?

The people who take these drugs have enormous problems with every day life, why is it your job to tell them what to take?

Don't you think people who take these drugs and spend huge $ on them and therapy can make decisions for themselves?

[MisterP]

130. what's with the accusations of Scientology?

[Chicago Democrat]

133. Because of articles like these...

http://www.scientology.org/html/opencms/cos/scientology/en_US/directory/publications/freedom/issues/index.html

[MisterP]

142. "Cats are not vegetables. Teacups are not vegetables.

Therefore, cats are teacups."

[Name removed]

132. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Name removed]

134. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Florida_Geek]

139. You are one sick person

I have never been Scientologist. But I have been a member of http://www.icspp.org/ which has been around for over 23 years.

from their web site.


The International Center for the Study of Psychiatry and Psychology (ICSPP) is a nonprofit (503c) research and educational network whose focus is the critical study of the mental health movement. ICSPP is completely independent and at present our funding consists solely of individual membership dues.

ICSPP was originally founded in 1971 by Harvard-trained, critical psychiatrist Dr. Peter Breggin, who has been called "the conscience of psychiatry," and by his wife Ginger Breggin. Dr. Breggin is the author of "Toxic Psychiatry," "Talking Back to Ritalin," "Talking Back to Prozac" (with Ginger Breggin,) "The War on Children of Color" (with Ginger Breggin), "Your Drug May Be Your Problem" (with Dr. David Cohen), and many other books and scholarly articles. Dr. Breggin is also a founding editor of the ICSPP's scholarly journal, "Ethical Human Sciences and Services," now edited by Larry Simon and Jonathan Leo and published by Springer Publishing Company.

Our professional Board of Directors, Advisory Council and membership list consists of psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, philosophers, counselors, therapists, and psychiatric victims and survivors worldwide, and includes journal editors, academics, practitioners and interested lay people."

I am one of those interested lay people.

[Chicago Democrat]

149. I see, so you have it out for shrinks?

Alot of people do. To me the profession is half science and half theatre. They have drug therapy and 'talk' therapy and that's about it. The various definitions of mental illnesses are completely vague and subjective. The interior mind remains mostly a complete mystery. Any attempt to try to say 'this drug will do that to this person' is farcicle. In the real world patients try these things and sometimes they work well and sometimes they don't. Patients and doctors work these things out over many years.


I've had experience not only with Prozac, but with every subsequent analogue. I would say that Prozac was groundbreaking, but the subsequently developed drugs really built on it and became better and better. It seems they are always coming out with a new one, that affects differently or works in a different way. I'm not saying they are not without risks. I am saying that I am certain from much first hand experience that they are effective and safe. Thank God.

Social Security and Medicare are under assault Its certain that the Bush administration will use this "controversy" to cut the meagar funding for the mentally ill. (Currently Medicare only pays for 50% of pyscho therapy for the mentally ill vs 80% for non mental illnesses) Before you attack a whole class of drugs, for whatever honorable personal reasons Im sure you have, just be sure of which side you are on. The people on the side of cutting benefits, cutting prescription coverage includes Rev Moon, the Scientologists and the NeoCons who want to kill the Psychiatric profession, which they don't really recognise as a disease in the first place.

[Guaranteed]

153. I coulda sworn that the Bush administration's plan was

to psychologically evaluate every child in the United States in the hopes of putting them on these drugs.

[Name removed]

161. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Chicago Democrat]

163. LOL!

:)

[Mr_Spock]

166. You mine as well be talking to a wall

It's so discouraging that these people want to kill us because there are no perfect drugs. What can you say to this insanity? There is nothing perfect or predictable in this world - just ask the guy who invented quantum mechanics.

[Chicago Democrat]

129. Insane Scientologist's False Article Condemns Prozac...

see here..

http://psychdrugs.freedommag.org/page14.htm

Hey guess what? Prozac killed Princess Diana!

http://www.scientology.org/html/opencms/cos/scientology/en_US/directory/publications/freedom/issues/index.html

Insane Psycho babble from a dangerous cult. That's the psuedo-science you are peddling.

[sherilocks]

136. There is absolutely no relationship

between Scientology and Dr. Breggin approach to psychotherapy and the treatment of mental illness. I can't even see where you make the connection. I happen to agree with Dr. Breggin. But realistically I know that too many people are so resistant to psychotherapy for themselves and for their kids, that sometimes meds are the only alternative, and sometimes a dangerous one.

[Chicago Democrat]

151. Social Security and Medicare are under assault and the best

way for the neocons to pass it is to divide the opposition. There is no doubt that the other side will use your arguments, however valid or not, to advance the agenda of cutting mental illness Medicare benefits.

It may be that there is no relationship between the Scientologists and Herr Doktor, all I know is that they are on the same side, thus I suspect.

[Guaranteed]

156. Just not true. The Bush administration wants MORE people on

psychiatric drugs, not less, because that's how their pharmaceutical industry buddies make $$$.

[Chicago Democrat]

162. Maybe so, but right now patients pay for the drugs themselves.

And the devil is in the details with respect to the new prescription 'benefit'.

I can tell you that it is current policy for all the pharmaceutical companies to provide FREE OF CHARGE these antidepressants to mentally ill patients who earn less than 21/2 times poverty level (about 18000 per year)

Therefore, the paying patients subsidize the poor ones. I think the reason they do it is to prevent people from being a menace to society.

[amazona]

98. they didn't suppress it very well

I knew about this in the 1980s and I am not involved in medicine. I've always been very leery of SSRIs unless the doctor is sure of the diagnosis and is able to make close observation of the patient.

I don't want to be a medicine grabber, and I have had people tell me of their good results with Prozac, so I am not advocating that the medicine should be taken off the market.

I do advocate that when it is prescribed, the doctor should have the option of observing the patient in hospital for 1-2 weeks, at the least. A friend of mine went on Prozac twice. Both times, very shortly after starting the drug, he got a loaded gun and threatened people. This could have been prevented if he could have been observed for violent behavior changes before letting him skip merrily away with the Prozac. But insurers don't want to cover the hospital time.

The doctor was also negligent because this friend was bipolar and who doesn't know that bipolar patients are at very high risk of a bad reaction to Prozac? I don't know the whole story but eventually this doctor was put out of business quite suddenly, which might be just as well.

I think Prozac can be used safely for some people for some purposes but we need an insurance system that encourages doctor/hospital observation for mind-altering drugs. Not a system that denies patients hospital care because the doctor can just write a script for a pill.


You can't really rely on the patient's subjective impression, because my friend's subjective impression was that Prozac "helped." Perhaps it seemed so to him, but from the outside we saw a man who could not hold a job and, now, could not even hold his temper and came close to being prosecuted for several violent crimes including rape. There needs to be objective observation of patients on these drugs, at least while they are getting adjusted.

Disclosure -- I'm a shareholder in a company that makes, among other things, an SSRI. It is a very difficult topic for me. New drugs need to be invented, and all drugs have risks. But risks need to be properly managed. So I'm torn.

[Mr_Spock]

103. I also knew of the potential risks before I took a single pill too

Anybody who spent any amount of time researching what they were about to take would see all of the storm revolving around this medication. I read all of the studies and results and all of the small print. I heard of all the people that supposedly "flipped out" and killed people and/or committed suicide. I read about every single possible side effect in the studies - even the very small occurance ones - I knew what I was doing. I made an informed decision and it worked fabulously for me. I'm sorry that the people that it didn't have the expected result for are more outspoken than those of us who were saved by it - but this is the way it usually is.

[BrutalEntropy]

147. my father committed suicide in 1990

When I was 9 years old. He was on Prozac at the time. He had attempted suicide a few times in the past, but it had been years. When I was 15, I finally got enough strength to listen to the tape that he left the day he died. On that tape, he seemed more mentally disturbed than I ever remember him being in my life.

I always said I thought the prozac had contributed to that. Now I find that I may have been right.

[Chicago Democrat]

160. You should look into a lawsuit, then.

Perhaps it will give you some peace. I encourage you to look into it.

People get these drugs during times of great crisis and they don't always work.

[Disturbed]

172. M. Moore's new film...

may cause mass hysteria regarding drugs from the pharms.

[puddycat]

180. I think most SSRIs are dangerous. In fact, most drugs are, I suppose.

I do believe from my own experience and talking to others than SSRIs are harmful to most people.

Our society needs a new paradigm to treat people.

[Mr_Spock]

185. So are most recreational drugs and we take them willingly

knowing the risk. In fact the "street" drugs are manufactured with no standards whatsoever. Slipping on ice is dangerous. Breathing the poluted air is dangerous. The food we eat is potentially killing us. Daily pain killers are potentialy dangerous. Heart surgery is very debilitating. Kidney sugery can kill you. Smoking will kill you. Too much beef jerky will give you migranes and maybe a stroke. Too much caffeine in drinks is bad for you. Too many carbs in your diet is dangerous. Too much fat in your diet will kill you eventually. Too much licorice will kill you. Too much sex might even kill you (not sure about this one though :D). Too much photon exposure from these damn screens will give you a migrane and may eventually kill you. Most things are harmful to most people - get over yourself.

[BrutalEntropy]

214. you are completely missing the point...

The point is not what can hurt you. The only certainty in life is death, so yes we are *all* aware that we will die someday.

The point here is that Eli Lilly, a multi-BILLION dollar corporation, chose profit over the sanctity of human life, and KNOWINGLY distorted and hid information regarding the negative effects of one of the drugs they produce.

These companies have NO social conscience whatsoever. I have read several other posts that you have made in this thread, and I must say your defense of Lilly is troubling... even bordering on questionable. There are a multitude of other anti-depressants available on the market, so one must question the gusto with which you defend a specific company, and their specific drug.

[Psephos]

222. Prozac is now a generic drug

So there are several companies producing it. A month's supply of the generic costs about seventeen bucks if you are paying for it yourself. Lilly does not have monopoly power in this market.

So if anyone feels strongly about not giving money to Lilly, it's easy, just use the generic.

BTW, your attack on Mr_Spock is weird. He is neither defending or damning Lilly. He's saying that Prozac has dramatically improved his own life and those of many other people, and that life would suck more than it has to without it. May I gently suggest you quit trying to make his posts fit your "evil corporation" template? The dude has had enough troubles in his life, lay off him. Judgmental people like you cause Mr_Spock more trouble than the profiteering behaviors of Lilly, which he can at least avoid by not purchasing their product. I wish I knew an equally easy way to turn off finger-wagging moralists.

[zann725]

216. Seems most drugs these days have more "side effects" than benefits...

Those TV ads for drugs that list all the side-effects (mostly quite serious), always convince me to 'pass' on whatever they're selling.

[graywarrior]

221. I took prozac twice. First time it worked for me. Second time...

...whoa. I turned into a psycho. First time was in 1990. Second time was for one month in 1995. I nearly killed myself and tried to take out a few family members with my violent behavior.

Fuck Lilly. I hope they go down for what they are...self-serving philistines.

[maddezmom]

227. locking, see thread #2 here

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x1114793