In Defense of Antidepressants

[groovedaddy]

IN terms of perception, these are hard times for antidepressants. A number of articles have suggested that the drugs are no more effective than placebos.

Last month brought an especially high-profile debunking. In an essay in The New York Review of Books, Marcia Angell, former editor in chief of The New England Journal of Medicine, favorably entertained the premise that “psychoactive drugs are useless.” Earlier, a USA Today piece about a study done by the psychologist Robert DeRubeis had the headline, “Antidepressant lift may be all in your head,” and shortly after, a Newsweek cover piece discussed research by the psychologist Irving Kirsch arguing that the drugs were no more effective than a placebo.

Could this be true? Could drugs that are ingested by one in 10 Americans each year, drugs that have changed the way that mental illness is treated, really be a hoax, a mistake or a concept gone wrong?

This supposition is worrisome. Antidepressants work — ordinarily well, on a par with other medications doctors prescribe. Yes, certain researchers have questioned their efficacy in particular areas — sometimes, I believe, on the basis of shaky data. And yet, the notion that they aren’t effective in general is influencing treatment.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/10/opinion/sunday/10antidepressants.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha212

[buddysmellgood]

1. That's depressing.

[get the red out]

2. Well considering....

Considering I don't waste significant amounts of time thinking about death, how I would be better off dead, and wondering if I should consider suicide anymore; I'd call antidepressants a success. But what do I know?

[xfundy]

3. +1,000,000

[mopinko]

4. this excerpt is misleading.

the whole article is a repudiation of this snippet.

[laconicsax]

5. +1

[hedgehog]

6. Good article - I forwarded it to my family of depressives.

It's amazing and disconcerting how much difference a little pill can make between sitting staring at the wall and getting up to get things done!

[Confusious]

7. No Shit

I Second your post.

[HuckleB]

8. Another response to the Angell piece. Worth reading, IMO.

http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/index.php/angells-review-of-psychiatry/