Posted by Larry Hoover on May 15, 2006, at 9:54:44
In reply to Re: Statistical question on SSRIs - ADDENDUM, posted by linkadge on May 14, 2006, at 1:26:14
> Is it the drug that caused the suicides? Absolutely, in my opinion. In some of these cases, had the drug not been introduced, lives may not have been lost. But, I do think that there may be genetic predispositions to SSRI induced akathesia and suicidal behavior that do not fall under the category of "latent bipolar".
Link, I feel your pain so bad that I almost fear trying again. I don't mean to question your personal experience and wisdom. I don't question you when I question the issues themselves.
I nearly lost my life to antidepressants. But I can't help other people if I let my bias stand in the way of my science.
If antidepressant drugs caused a suicide, how would you demonstrate that to another person? How could you show that it was this one lone variable that made the difference?
This article that Squiggles dug up explores all of the possible interpretations of the collected data. It's an excellent summary of the process that human beings use to try and clear the scientific arena of bias and logical fallacies. I am not inferring which belief is biased and which is pure. I just want to look at the arguments themselves.
Anecdote. What is anecdote? It is an uncontrolled experiment with one subject. What have you got when you collect one thousand anecdotes? One thousand different uncontrolled experiments with one thousand different subject populations. Anecdote is a point in space. How do you extrapolate from one point?
Anecdote spurs people to create hypotheses, and to consider experiments not yet done. How could you design an experiment which would demonstrate this suicidality, this inductive effect? The fact is that you can't. Any experiment that could do so is absolutely unethical to perform.
Blame helps no one. Except the lawyers.
All we can really do, IMHO, is to manage the drugs better than we did before. Serious drugs for a serious disease require serious management. I cannot fathom how the latter was allowed to detach itself from the former, but we let that happen. Thalidomide taught us a lot. It turns out that thalidomide is a miracle drug, when used in other contexts than for morning sickness.
It's the human component that we can influence. No amount of posturing will affect the drugs themselves. They are what they are. We have a people problem, not a drug problem, IMHO.
Lar
poster:Larry Hoover
thread:640557
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20060515/msgs/644223.html