In the end I ha…

In the end I have to leave you with a comment from Dr Kirsch in his Epilogue from his book The Emperor’s New Drugs Exploding the Antidepressant Myth.

In 2004 the FDA issued a statement to various drug companies to adopt a don’t ask don’t tell policy when it comes to antidepressants and children. The clinical data clearly show that antidepressants are no better than placebo in treating depressed children. The FDA felt that if this information came to light with the general public it might lead doctors to stop prescribing antidepressants for kids. Imagine that, suggesting exercise and proper nutrition instead.

An FDA spokesperson was reported to have said to a Washington Post reporter “Even if the clinical trials show negative results, it doesn’t mean that the drugs are ineffective.”

Kirsch comments that “the assumption seems to have been that doctors should prescribe medications that have not been shown to work, until it has been proven that they don’t work.”

In summary the entire class of new drugs called the SSRI antidepressants (and by inference similar drugs like the SNRI, SSNRI, and atypical antipsychotics) do not work any better than a placebo. This has been conclusively shown in Dr Kirsch’s new book. Exercise, proper nutrition and cognitive therapy work as good acutely and better than drugs in the long run. SSRI’s are not benign drugs. They are fraught with side effects some of which can be life threatening. They also have been shown to incite murder, suicide and generalized mayhem in a significant number of users. Witness 18 American servicemen commit suicide every day. Patients on these drugs for long periods of time become “spellbound” to use a term coined by Peter Breggin, and never get better. In fact, they tend to worsen developing a chronic, depressive condition called Tardive Dysphoria. For about half of the users it’s almost impossible to stop taking the medication which can lead to profound psychiatric disturbances if withdrawn too quickly. Furthermore, it is often the acceleration or deceleration phase of drug dose adjustment that precipitates intense personality changes and the acts of violence that accompany these changes. A perfect example is Andrea Yates who’ s Haldol dose was stopped and Effexor dose doubled-overnight. This does not include the more subtle personality changes that accompany nearly every person who takes an SSRI which includes the “autism of antidepressants.” The past theories of depression including low serotonin brain levels have been debunked as well. The theory of how antidepressants work no longer fits the theory of depression. Depression itself may not be a disease at all in the same sense we define other diseases. With far safer options available these drugs should be eliminated from the market place or only selectively prescribed. This however may be a pipe dream since they are the second most profitable drugs in pharmaceutical history. Statins (another con job) are the most lucrative.