Posted by bleauberry on February 4, 2010, at 18:30:59
In reply to newsweek: antidepressants all placebo effect, posted by pegasus on February 3, 2010, at 12:46:49
When reading any article on any topic, you really have to read it. You have to look at not just what they said, but what they didn't say. If that makes any sense.
This article was so full of bias and flaw it was almost nauseating.
Notice it began with the word "suggests". And of course that word we so rapidly gloss over, "may". Notice that the studies used to form the opinion of this article were not identified so that readers could scrutenize them themselves. Notice how data for the opinion was "cherry-picked".
And of course right at the beginning it was glaringly obvious what the whole thing was about...a treatment resistant friend must mean ADs don't work.
I could spend all night tearing this article to shreds sentence by sentence. Very easy to do. The article is scientific garbage.
Newsweek itself as a whole is a very biased and unreliable source of information. They do not take a rounded whole-picture stance on anything. They have an agenda and cherrypick whatever data they need to make their story, banking on the assumption that you the reader are as stupid as they think you are and that you will buy whatever they say hook-line-and-sinker.
In the real world, outside of this author's frustrated fantasy world, most of us here have seen and/or experienced what benefits meds can do. You all are much smarter than this author. You know the real story and you don't even need any clinical studies or third-party research to do it.
I would suggest that author go to revolutionhealth.com and askapatient.com to see what REAL people say about their ADs. It's all there...the good, the bad, and the ugly. He'll be happy to see the reported failures. It'll make his day. He will quickly gloss over and ignore the astounding cases of remission and miracles. In general, any AD in the real world helps people in a meaningful way beyond placebo effect, because the average rating of meds is in the mid 3's on a 1 to 5 scale. There are some failures scoring 1, some 2's, but also a bunch of 4's and 5's where the drugs obviously worked really good.
Anyway, this author is a joke. Newsweek in general is not to be relied on for anything more than entertainment. Certainly don't go to them for facts.
I do extend empathy and sympathy to his friend. He has obviously been working with the wrong doctors and not trying the right meds. Or not getting a thorough diagnosis of other unsuspected phsycial problems. Something. In any case, I feel sorry for him and wish him better days ahead. His treatment providers up to this point have obviously not been very skilled.
poster:bleauberry
thread:935850
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20100204/msgs/935970.html