Depressing news about antidepressants
If you’ve been with me for any amount of time at all, you know I think that depression is one the most over-diagnosed diseases in modern America. The only reason the condition has exploded in the last two decades is because drug companies have been practically force-feeding their patented poisons to our doctors and mental health professionals. But now, finally, there are other people making some noise about these absurdly over- prescribed pills.
Charles Barber, the author of the new book, Comfortably Numb: How Psychiatry is Medicating a Nation, is getting the word out about the overuse of antidepressants. “There is a confusion between major clinical depression, which is clearly a biological illness where medication is appropriate, and being depressed,” Barber says. “Life’s problems, or having a feeling of sadness or dislocation, have been medicalized.”
Barber points out that there’s a one-two punch that’s driving Americans toward prescription antidepressants. First, Big Pharma saturates your television with major marketing campaigns that push these “happy pills” that play right into Americans’ desire for a quick-fix solution to their problems.
But the fact that American culture has become hyper-narcissistic over the last decade doesn’t help matters either. The “Oprah-fication” of our society has led to a lot of overindulgent self-examination that has made being medicated for depression not only widely accepted, but even trendy. Antidepressants are now perceived as being an “instant cure for all emotional difficulties.”
This is not likely to change any time soon. Antidepressants are among the top-selling products of some of the country’s biggest drug manufacturers. To Big Pharma, there’s nothing sad about the fact that Americans spent $12 billion on antidepressants last year. According to IMS Health, a market research firm, the top sellers were Effexor by Wyeth ($2.8 billion), Lexapro by Forest Laboratories ($2.6 billion) and Eli Lilly’s Cymbalta ($1.9 billion).
But the question is: With such a huge chunk of the American populace popping “happy pills,” is anyone better off?
A recent British study examined the clinical trials that had been submitted to the FDA for Prozac, Effexor, Paxil, and Sezone. The researchers concluded that these drugs definitely benefited the most severely depressed patients. But for patients who were only mildly or moderately depressed, the drugs were only about as effective as a placebo.
It’s bad enough that most of the people now pumping these drugs into their system don’t need them, but the fact that they’re barely even effective makes them all the worse. I don’t know why anyone would want to pay such a hefty price tag for such a useless pill – especially when you consider the hefty list of side effects that goes with them.
According to psychiatrist Dr. Douglas Bremner, head of the clinical neuroscience research unit at Atlanta’s Emory University, “The bottom line is that antidepressants don’t work as well as people think.” And yet, this hasn’t stopped Bremner and doctors like him from prescribing them to patients. “I prescribe antidepressants because sometimes they are better than nothing, but they are not a magic cure-all. And they are overused.”
“Better than nothing?” When doctors are handing out prescriptions to patients with the rationale that an ineffective treatment is better than no treatment at all, you’ve got to wonder what has gone wrong with the medical community. It’s obvious that doctors have bought into the pharmaceutical companies’ line of you-know-what (no doubt this has been helped along with some well-placed “donations” from Big Pharma).
I’m glad Mr. Barber is putting the word in the street. Maybe a popular book on the subject will help make people aware of the continued problems of the overmedication of this country. And in a country as wealthy and overindulgent as ours, this just proves that money can’t buy happiness – no matter how hard Big Pharma’s TV ads try to convince you otherwise.
