Forgot to mention the article’s ludicrous assumption that physicians also don’t look for treatable physiologic causes of depression, such as thyroid deficiency or excess, nutritional deficiencies, endocrine disorders, autoimmune disease such as lupus etc.
Not sure how much trust we should put in the clinical studies though, particularly when they are mostly financed thru the drug companies, and that also includes them financing a portion of the FDA budget now since 1992. They have their ways of still getting thru though, as Cecil explained in his column, by setting the bar real low, and doing as many trials as necessary so that they can get the results they want.
I’ve also read in Overdiagnosed that many drug manufacturers will do as many trail results as necessary, generally in small numbers, until they get something that appears slightly better than chance to show a positive result. They don’t have to report any of the negative results, only the ones they want to report. Others were proposing legal legislation that would monitor all trial results, also proposing in advance of any new drug study, not just the ones the pharmaceuticals want released. Don’t know if anything ever come of that.
PBS Frontline:How independent is the FDA?
Federal law has mandated reporting of clinical trial results without regard to outcome since 2008, though compliance remains a problem.
Reported where? In the same medical journals they report their successes?
Note: in post #21 that should read “other treatable physiologic causes of depression”.
Since the 1980’s, they’ve plied me with every anti-depressant known.
So far, sad to say, the side-effects have been worse than the disease.
Psych drugs are big money, though.
Hopefully some more effective ones will emerge.