{"id":247,"date":"2010-01-07T10:17:21","date_gmt":"2010-01-07T16:17:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.cchrstl.org\/wordpress\/2010\/01\/07\/the-antidepressant-fraud\/"},"modified":"2024-07-14T05:43:10","modified_gmt":"2024-07-14T10:43:10","slug":"the-antidepressant-fraud","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cchrstl.org\/wordpress\/2010\/01\/07\/the-antidepressant-fraud\/","title":{"rendered":"The Antidepressant Fraud"},"content":{"rendered":"

New research <\/a>exposes the fraud: depression\u00c2\u00a0would be better treated with alternatives to antidepressant drugs, which do not help patients much more than an inactive placebo. [“Antidepressant Drug Effects and Depression Severity”, JAMA. 2010;303(1):47-53]<\/p>\n

“They would have done just as well or just about as well with a placebo,” said Robert DeRubeis<\/a>, one of the study authors and a psychologist at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia.<\/p>\n

The study’s conclusion states that, “The magnitude of benefit of antidepressant medication compared with placebo … may be minimal or nonexistent, on average, in patients with mild or moderate symptoms.”<\/p>\n

While the study suggests that antidepressants help the symptoms of major depression, one has to ask what that “help” entails. Antidepressant drugs are a chemical straight-jacket, temporarily interfering with normal body processes enough to give an impression of symptomatic relief. Like banging your thumb with a hammer to cure a headache, the pain in the head pales in comparison to the pain in the hand; for a short period, the headache is apparently gone.<\/p>\n

Antidepressants can have a “damping down” effect. They suppress the physical feelings associated with “depression” but they are not alleviating the condition or targeting what is causing it. The drugs break into the routine rhythmic flows and activities of the nervous system. The human body, however, is unmatched in its ability to withstand and respond to such disruptions. The various systems fight back, trying to process the chemical, and work diligently to counterbalance its effect on the body. But the body can only take so much. Quickly or slowly, the systems break down. Tissue damage may occur. Nerves stop functioning normally. Organs and hormonal systems go awry. This can be temporary, but it can also be long lasting, even permanent. Like a car run on rocket fuel, you may be able to get it to run a thousand miles an hour, but the tires, the internal parts, were never meant for this. The machine flies apart.<\/p>\n

Bizarre things happen: worsening depression, addiction, exhaustion, diminished sexual desire, trembling, nightmares, hallucinations,\u00c2\u00a0anxiety, panic, psychosis, heart attack, irritability, violence, aggression, suicide. Side effects are, in fact, the body’s natural response to having a chemical disrupt its normal functioning. Once the drug has worn off, the original problem remains. As a solution or cure to life’s problems, antidepressants do not work.<\/p>\n

Why then\u00c2\u00a0use an antidepressant which has the potential for virulent side effects<\/a>, when non-drug alternatives<\/a> work just as well or better?<\/p>\n

The only answer is drug company profits. More than 164 million prescriptions for antidepressants were written in 2008, totaling nearly $10 billion in U.S. sales.<\/p>\n

For more information, read the booklet “What is the Alternative to Psychiatric Drugs” available for download from www.CCHRSTL.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n

[see also http:\/\/video.foxnews.com\/v\/3961682\/do-anti-depressants-really-work\/?playlist_id=87249<\/a>]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Why use an antidepressant with potential for virulent side effects when alternatives work just as well or better? Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-247","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-big-muddy-river-newsletter","category-press-releases"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6NMpC-3Z","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cchrstl.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cchrstl.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cchrstl.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cchrstl.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cchrstl.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=247"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.cchrstl.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cchrstl.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=247"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cchrstl.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=247"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cchrstl.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=247"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}