More doubts about Prozac

[unixronin]

Recently, Prozac and related SSRI antidepressants were dealt a blow when it was made public that Eli Lilly, Glaxo-SmithKline and the other manufacturers of the drugs had failed to disclose data from unfavorable clinical studies that showed patients using SSRIs had an increase as much as four to one in suicide risk.  Now, a new study from Hull University, using the data submitted to the FDA to gain approval for the drugs, has found that for most patients, SSRIs are no more effective than a placebo.

Eli Lilly, of course, defends the drugs' effectiveness; and another researcher, the head of psychopharmacology at Bristol University, says that "if they provide some sort of placebo benefit, this shouldn't be discounted."

Now, the thing that immediately occurs to me is this: If you have the choice between a placebo that is medically inert, and has no side effects that aren't psychosomatic, or a drug that performs no better than the placebo, but has a vicious side-effect profile and may quadruple your likelihood of suicide ... aren't you better off with the placebo?

Clarification:

I should point out that I have not read the studies cited; I have only read summaries.  My intention here was not to discuss the studies per se, but rather to question the idea that it's still a good idea to use a drug with known severe side-effects for it's placebo-like effect if it's (allegedly) no better than a placebo.

Comments

[unix-jedi.livejournal.com]

Well, really, that's not a problem of the medication.

Technically?

No, of course not.

But it is a failure of the system that's dispensing those medications, leaving that system's credibility strained when other claims are made.

It's the same issue right now with Ritalyn and Adderol with kids. One of my at-the-time-coworker's kid was sent to the doctor because he couldn't sit still and pay attention during reading. (Math he was great, everything but reading he was stellar.) You can guess where I'm going - Ritalyn within 5 minutes of the doctor walking in the office.

The kid had never even been tested for dyslexia. (Failure on multiple levels, and I hold the parents in particular scorn, especially when at least I and my boss (who had identical symptoms when he was that age - and has dyslexia) insisted that a dyslexia test was well overdue.

Nope. Drugged him up, and he was sitting still, all right.

What percentage of kids have been on "ADD" and "ADHD" drugs now?

Not the fault of Ritalyn, or Adderol at all. I think they have a place. Just as antidepressants and the other mental drugs do. But the brain is the least understood organ we've got. (Even the organs and systems that are "well understood" still have a lot of "Wow. Wonder why THAT's happening" issues.) We're currently mucking around it with damn near the sophistication of tropical witch doctors trying to find cures.

(And like the witch doctors, or "native healers" I suppose is PC now, cures and palliatives (or poisons and other useful compounds) can be discovered and isolated that way. It is a method. But it's not scientific - and it's a nit of mine when non-science tries to take the scientific mantle.)

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

But it is a failure of the system that's dispensing those medications, leaving that system's credibility strained when other claims are made.

Yes. And part of that problem lies with the consumer - the patient. Many doctors will just sigh and write the prescription when a patient walks into their office and demands antibiotics for a common cold, because even though they know it will do no good, they also know that if they say no, the patient will just try another doctor, and keep going until they get their prescription.