Posted by Larry Hoover on August 19, 2003, at 20:29:34
In reply to SSRI TOXICITY- please read!, posted by matthhhh on August 19, 2003, at 16:03:57
> When talking with patients, Cheney usually opens the book to a picture of a monkey's brain before and after it received a very potent SSRI. The "before" photo shows a dark background filled with fine white lines and white blobs, healthy neurons. The "after" photo is very dark, only a few white lines and blobs remain. Most of the brain cells had been "fried".
What Cheney and Glenmullen fail to include along with this hyperbole is the information that the monkeys had received simply staggering overdoses of SSRI medication. This is nothing more than fear-mongering, and frankly, takes away from any arguments these doctors may more reasonably have made about the risks of this class of meds.
You cannot infer that normal therapeutic doses of a med will have effects similar to, or even related to, the effects of toxic overdoses. Drink six to eight glasses of water a day, and you're fine. Drink six to eight gallons of water, and your brain will swell until all its cells rupture, and you die. You cannot interpolate the effects of six to eight glasses of water from the observed effect of the overdose. They are totally unrelated.
Lar
poster:Larry Hoover
thread:252223
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20030818/msgs/252316.html