Posted on 02/19/2012 6:07:06 PM PST by MindBender26
(CBS News) Do antidepressants work? Since the introduction of Prozac in the 1980s, prescriptions for antidepressants have soared 400 percent, with 17 million Americans currently taking some form of the drug. But how much good is the medication itself doing? "The difference between the effect of a placebo and the effect of an antidepressant is minimal for most people," says Harvard scientist Irving Kirsch. Will Kirsch's research, and the work of others, change the $11.3 billion antidepressant industry? Lesley Stahl investigates.
When (if the trend continues) a majority of women are diagnosed as “depressed” is that a clinical diagnosis of an actual affliction - or is it just being a woman in modern America where any complaint to a physician elicits a prescription?
Whenever I see a HARVARD STUDY, I am reminded of the Harvard Arsenic Study, which I read on-line before it was put together as a position paper.
They posted all the information and documentation, gathered from around the world, before the paper was written. The documentation didn’t match up with the conclusion. The simply dropped all the documentation that did not fit their stated premise, that arsenic in the water caused bladder cancer.
Me too. It works.
give me the years you think this complex started. And what useless medication they put on the market..
We have entered the Age of Irresponsibility.
Nothing is anyone’s fault. There is no bad or sinful behaviour. Everything is a medical problem.
Back in my Crusading Reporter days, had a number of medical sources. A number of psychiatrists and psychologists, even then, said that many of their patients were “cringing whiners.”
Back then, they got guidance, encouragement, set goals and deadlines, etc.
Now, they get a pill that has proved ineffective!
After you address the corruption of the FDA that I asked you to.
I had Strep throat. After an hour in the waiting room the Dr. gave me a scrip for penicillin. Absolutely NO mention of “rest and fluids” or ANYTHING - just pills. Pills were the only answer - making me thing - “It seems I needed the pharmacist a LOT MORE than the Dr..”
It is difficult to walk out of the Dr.’s office WITHOUT a prescription. I had elevated liver function as a result of rapid weight gain (15 lbs after I gave my dog to my brother and stopped walking daily, also taking a new GF out to dinner several nights a week, etc). Luckily that precluded me from being prescribed something for my (slightly) high cholesterol.
All I really needed was exercise and weight loss and to adjust my diet - but pills was the first answer - and he seemed rather disappointed he wasn't getting me on some form of pill or another!
Don't get me wrong - I develop life saving therapeutics for a living - but EVERY drug my company makes is for severe illness - not for any little thing that might not feel 100%!
Impotent? - the Dr. wont tell you to quit smoking and lose 20 lbs - he will prescribe you a blue pill.
Overweight? They got a pill for that!
Anxious? Depressed? They got a pill for that!
Child disruptive in class? They got a pill for that!
I see the regimen of pills my father is on. If I start now by the time I am his age I will be on pills to counteract the activity of the pill I am taking to treat the syndrome brought about by a different pill - all to treat a rather mild initial symptom that could probably be treated through non therapeutic intervention!
For decades there was only a few pharmacuticals....Parke Davis was one and it was in an area I use to drive by when shopping....Now it is highly competitive..with a multitude of pharmacutical business's..It is a cut throat business with a rush to be the first with a new medication..
It also cannot be denied that the FDA regulates the business so heavily, that the cost of R & D is unnecessarily high...
These business have to kiss the arse of government to get their products on the market. Blame government. They have *big pharma* by the short hairs and greasing the wheels of politicians with large amt. of money is a necessity evil of doing business in this country...The evil one here is regulations and regulators put in place by our great congress of mostly corrupt people...and the government is the one that lets them charge more to recupe money based on their having to charge less to other countries that won't pay the same price american's have to...it stinks but thats the game Washington plays. Its pay the price or go out of business...
In reguard to your wanting me to read something you find interesting, forget it. And I won't tell you to read something I think is interesting that might bore you to death...
People move from a company into the FDA to approve the drug they worked on.
The purpose of the FDA is to grant monopolies to LARGE drug companies.
The FDA is on record saying they will NEVER approve a drug not owned by a large drug company.
That is documented in my previous link.
>>Whenever I see a HARVARD STUDY, I am reminded of the Harvard Arsenic Study, which I read on-line before it was put together as a position paper.<<
Oh my goodness! Great find!
Exactly!
>>Overweight? They got a pill for that!<<
What is it?
I want to go to your doctor.
You need to read Post 102.
And I don’t take a single pill (short of an ibuprofen for headache occasionally) so you can’t really define me as a “pill popper”. As for “too lazy to read the study”, it’s more of a “won’t waste her time with reading Obama propaganda”.
You can however count me as someone who worked with people who WERE helped with both chemicals and natural medicine. All I can tell you is, Harvard will find what it wants and it should give you pause when academia and CBS agree on anything.
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your psychiatry.
FDA is not the only department that should be eleminated. EPA, ADA,BATFE, DEPT OF EDUCATION, DEPT.OF HOMELAND SECURITY, MOLESTERS THAT YOU HAVE TO SUBMIT TO SO YOU CAN FLY ON A PLANE DEPT. OF COMMERCE and that is just off the top of my head...with though could come up with lots more dept. we don't need and all czars to go. I am way ahead of you and the FDA. But probably have lived a few decades longer than you......
What the Harvard Arsenic Study actually found was that the areas in the US with the highest % of arsenic in the water, had the LOWEST rate of bladder cancer.
The reason was that those same areas had a high % of selenium in the water and that selenium combines with the arsenic (and other potentially dangerous elements, like mercury) to flush it from the body.
Man would have died out a long time ago if arsenic was as dangerous as the Harvard arsenic study led people to believe. Arsenic is plentiful in areas of former volcanic activity.
Amazing!
Thanks for sharing that Eva!
Speed. Didn’t you know?
They regularly prescribe amphetamines for weight loss.
There are even over the counter products.
Unfortunately they have major side effects - and when you stop taking the speed the weight comes back.
By FDA rules, clinical studies that show any drug is safe and effective is admissible, and a study that shows the drug is ineffective is ignored by the FDA.
A company could get 20 negative tests in a row, and as long as they get two positive trials, over any time period, the drug will be approved!
There is no debate that people with depression get well. Many of them took Prozac, Welbutrin or other such drugs. They also ate mashed potatoes.
The studies all confirmed that Prozac was more effective than a placebo in only 14 percent of the cases, and only when the patient was severely depressed.
In the moderately or minimally depressed, (often called “stinkin’ thinkin’”) Prozac had no effect than that created by the placebo sugar pill.
Yes the moderately and minimally depressed people got well, but it wasn't because of the Prozac, nor was it because of the mashed potatoes!
And in the severely depressed, only 14% got help from Prozac. The other 86% who got well did it through talk therapy and their own commitment to getting well.
Those are the facts, from Eli Lilly's own clinical trials!
By FDA rules, clinical studies that show any drug is safe and effective is admissible, and a study that shows the drug is ineffective is ignored by the FDA.
A company could get 20 negative tests in a row, and as long as they get two positive trials, over any time period, the drug will be approved!
There is no debate that people with depression get well. Many of them took Prozac, Welbutrin or other such drugs. They also ate mashed potatoes.
The studies all confirmed that Prozac was more effective than a placebo in only 14 percent of the cases, and only when the patient was severely depressed.
In the moderately or minimally depressed, (often called “stinkin’ thinkin’”) Prozac had no greater effect than that created by the placebo sugar pill.
Yes the moderately and minimally depressed people got well, but it wasn't because of the Prozac, nor was it because of the mashed potatoes!
And in the severely depressed, only 14% got help from Prozac. The other 86% who got well did it through talk therapy and their own commitment to getting well.
Those are the facts, from Eli Lilly's own clinical trials!
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