Susan Perry writes for Second Opinion, MinnPost's health blog. In her post, "Is it time to abandon the 'don't ask don't tell policy for antidepressants", she addresses the topic of Newsweek's February 8th cover story that antidepressants are no more effective than lifting depression than a placebo. She questions if marketing is really triumphing over science.
http://www.minnpost.com/healthblog/2010/02/02/15541/is_it_time_to_abandon_the_dont_ask_dont_tell_policy_for_antidepressants
It is of course, very shocking to hear that after 30 years of research, it is only finally coming to our attention now. The media has been ignoring the data because these drug companies have so much investment, and people don't really care about the data, as long as they're feeling happy. Yes, it is easier to take a pill than go talk to someone. I'm sure that the drug companies can invest in psychological treatment, and then go buy out a candy company.
But in all honesty, if a drug works just as well as a placebo, it means that there are other ways to fix the problem. It means that the drug is not altering the brain chemistry in a significant way for most people. Yet we can't forget the people that it does work for -- the people with severe depression. This poses a separation of a biological and psychological kind of depression. We’re not yet able to differentiate between the different entities that most likely make up what exactly constitutes “Major Depressive Disorder”. It seems likely that the more biological causes would respond better to pharmacological treatments than would a more psychologically-based problem. Think of how sometimes even electroshock therapy is effectively (though controversially) used in very severe forms of depression. Severity might be acting as a proxy for the degree of biological dysfunction, and therefore the severely ill are the ones responding better to antidepressants. For the rest of the 87% who are only mildly depressed, I think it is important that they are aware of what they're being prescribed.
I really liked the post - I agree with what you argue. It's almost offensive that "big pharma" is able to wield a giant hammer of authority over "alternative" methods of self-healing.
ReplyDeleteDepression is just an amazingly large cesspool of un-knowing. It's hard to clinically quantify - not everyone who feels depressed has a chemical imbalance, and vice versa.
However, I'm not entirely opposed to the idea of pills for depression. Relief is relief, and when one feels depressed, trust me, there is absolutely no desire to stay depressed. The problem is that the typical behavioral response to depression is to close one's self off from the rest of humanity in order to protect itself, which only reproduces the depression.