Posted by SLS on September 24, 2012, at 20:56:51
In reply to Re: Do antidepressants do more Harm than good ?, posted by jono_in_adelaide on September 24, 2012, at 18:51:41
> To my mind, the fairly dramatic drop in the suicide rate that occured around 1960 (When imipramine and phenelzine were introduced into psychiatry) suggests that the antidepressant drugs do far more good than they do harm.
>
> I think that the thresholds for prescribing such drugs have probably dropped too lowI agree. Doctors are doing a disservice to people who have psychobiological mental illnesses by treating with drugs anyone who uses the word "depression" as a complaint. These treatments were never designed or studied to treat their condition specifically. Is minor depression just a mild presentation of MDD? Is mild depression and severe depression simply two degrees of the same illness? I don't think so. That is why I believe that the way clinical trials of antidepressants are currently conducted, a high placebo response rate will be observed. These studies recruit people with mild depression as well as those with severe depression. When biomarkers are identified and used to diagnose MDD, I think we will see that antidepressants are much more effective to treat this illness than previously thought.
- Scott
Some see things as they are and ask why.
I dream of things that never were and ask why not.- George Bernard Shaw
poster:SLS
thread:1026432
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20120922/msgs/1026568.html