Tag Archives: antidepressants

Panel to Examine Murder and Suicide Associated With Antidepressants

On Saturday morning April 9th of this year, a panel discussion will be held for the public and professionals on the theme of “Psychiatric Drug Tragedies: Personal, Legal and Medical Perspectives.” The two-hour presentation focuses on suicide and murder potentially caused by antidepressant medications. It is part of the international Empathic Therapy Conference put on by the Center for the Study of Empathic Therapy, Education & Living (April 8-10, 2011 in Syracuse, New York).
A great deal is now known about suicide and violence in association with the newer antidepressants such as Prozac (fluoxetine), Paxil (paroxetine), Zoloft (sertraline), Luvox (fluvoxamine), Celexa (escitalopram), Lexapro (escitalopram), Cymbalta (duloxetine), Effexor (venlavaxine), Pristiq desvenlafaxine), and Wellbutrin (bupropion).

Psychiatric drug industry driven by wealth and stealth, not mental health

Drug company corporate websites tell us of their integrity and utmost commitment to people’s health and well-being. The American Psychiatric Association’s website begins with “Healthy Minds. Healthy Lives” and asserts the “highest ethical standards of professional conduct.” Yet a mountain of evidence points to an entirely different picture. Most recently, thirty-eight state attorneys won a $68.5 million settlement with pharmaceutical titan AstraZeneca for unlawful marketing of antipsychotic Seroquel for unapproved use. These states also charged this company with failing to disclose the drug’s harmful side effects and concealing negative information about its safety and efficacy. “The company’s illegal practices put our most vulnerable populations at risk, including children and older patients with dementia and other debilitating diseases,” states Illinois Attorney General. U.S. sales of Seroquel brought in $5.3 billion for AstraZeneca last year.

Profiting from mental ill-health

There’s a reason psychiatrists prescribe drugs rather than talking therapy: the latter makes no money for pharmaceutical firms. The New York Times recently led with a front-page splash about psychiatry’s propensity to prescribe pills, “Talk Doesn’t Pay, So Psychiatry Turns Instead to Drug Therapy”. That news is already widely known in the mental health field, but it has vast ramifications for Americans trying to maintain their sanity in our market-driven and medical system for delivering mental healthcare. What does the turn to drug therapy mean for the mass of Americans?

False peace of mind – Antidepressant Placebos

Beginning in 1998, a series of studies have repeatedly questioned the difference in efficacies between antidepressant drugs and placebos. Pioneering analysis work done by University of Connecticut researchers Irving Kirsch and Guy Sapirstein confirmed the effectiveness of antidepressants – but also their inert counterparts. In 38 studies conducted with over 3,000 depressed patients, placebos improved symptoms 75 per cent as much as legitimate medications.

“We wondered, what’s going on?” said Kirsch in a 2010 interview with Newsweek. The medical community, skeptical of his analysis, asked him to instigate a more comprehensive study with the results of all clinical trials conducted by antidepressant manufacturers, including those unpublished – 47 studies in total.

Over half of the studies showed no significant difference in the depression-alleviating effects of a medicated versus non-medicated pill. With this more thorough analysis, which now included strategically unpublished studies from pharmaceutical companies, placebos were shown to improve symptoms 82 per cent as much as the real pill.