Posted by genes-r-us on May 11, 2006, at 12:35:11
In reply to Re: Statistical question on SSRIs, posted by yxibow on May 7, 2006, at 0:41:02
> Nonwithstanding the potential of any antidepressant to possess possible danger to cause suicidality, I would question things that come from David Healy. He was stripped of his position at the University of Toronto. If you quack like a duck... its hard to say. There are varying opinions on that issue.
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> There is also the issue that any seriously suicidal patient can commit suicide while on any medication regardless. They were destined, if that is a word, to do so in the first place. The medication didn't cover the disorder, and tragedies happen.
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> Nonetheless, in this litigious society, we now have black box warnings on SSRIs, especially re adolescents. That is an entirely different question -- not all medications in the past were tested for the under 18 population. So that fits a whole special consideration. Adolescents have rapidly changing bodies and rapidly changing brains as well.
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> I would say the jury is out on these sorts of manners, but analysis does no harm. Hysteria and my dear departed so and so committed suicide because he/she took X, Y, or Z, is not always so easy to tease out exactly the circumstances, and does do harm when improper information about antidepressants are handed out, i.e. Scientology, which rejects all antidepressants (yes, lets have people who really need help run in front of cars, that is a great solution -- but then this comes from people like Tom Cruise who would eat placentas on television.)
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> - tidings
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> JayHi, first time poster here. Well, I just wrote a reasonably long and (hopefully) informative post on what happened between Dr. Healy and the University of Toronto, but the post submission process ate it, and I don't have the energy to re-do the whole thing from scratch. Suffice it to say that Dr. Healy was given a formal offer of a position at a University of Toronto associated centre, made his infamous comments in an introductory lecture, and was promptly relieved of his emplyoment offer. Eli Lilly, by the way, appears to have been the largest outside source of funding for the centre at the time this all happened (and may still well be). So one can't use the fact that he was stripped of his position as a factor when considering the validity of his views on this issue, much as it's not particularly informative to define a word using the word itself in the definition.
poster:genes-r-us
thread:640557
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20060510/msgs/642619.html