Posted by Larry Hoover on September 12, 2007, at 9:25:56
In reply to Re: News - Antidepressants Vindicated?, posted by sam123 on September 10, 2007, at 10:44:43
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> >
> > I think the figures are compelling.
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> > Lar
> >
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> Thanks Lar, yes very compelling. Wow, a 49% increase in sucide rates in the Netherlands
> while SSRI prescriptions for youths decreased
> by approximately 22% in both the United States and the Netherlands.I think, perhaps, that you misunderstood me. I meant Figures literally, as in the graphical evidence, rather than the data figures. Still, it's the same evidence, simply presented in a different way.
An old trick I learned from an excellent prof was to hold my completed graph of data points up close to my face, and to look across the dataset at a shallow angle. You can quite easily estimate an appropriate regression line for the set, and also readily identify outlier datapoints. You can do the same thing with these figures, on the computer screen. When you look at the figure for U.S. suicide trends in this way, the latest data point stands quite apart from the others.
A similar procedure for the Netherlands dataset is less conclusive, as there is greater variability about the line of central tendency. Nonetheless, the more typical way of viewing the graph reveals the dramatic upturn in incidence.
The authors of this paper spend quite a bit of time discussing pretty much any possible explanation for the change in trends, and IMHO the only plausible one remains the change in SSRI utilization.
Lar
poster:Larry Hoover
thread:781684
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20070911/msgs/782416.html