Posted by Ritch on July 15, 2002, at 10:03:14
In reply to Someone please shoot some holes in this story..., posted by waterlily on July 14, 2002, at 17:33:39
> Go over to MSN.com, click on the left where it says "Antidepressants - better than dummy pills?". The story basically says that there is a new study out that shows that placebo pills are 80% as effective as antidepressant medications. Also Roger P. Greenberg, PhD is quoted as saying "Biochemical imbalance is a handy catch phrase, but there is not alot of evidence there is such a thing.". I am not well versed in the biochemical processes involved in depression, so I can't dispute the findings myself. I know some of you guys are very knowledgeable about these things, so shoot away! What I do know is that regular exercise did absolutely nothing for my depression and that even with careful tapering of medication, I still get depressed below a certain dose. Therapy has done some good for me, but has not been near as effective as antidepressants.
Hi WaterLily,
I read that the other day. Towards the end of the article the PhD psychologist who set up the trial "admits that the design of the experiment could have skewed the results". Well, that pretty much says it all. The really bad thing is that story will get passed around 2nd, 3rd hand, and it will become "fact" to antimed folks. There is something else I have noticed-most of the "antimed" folks don't have the power to prescribe meds. They seem to be politicians, ministers, or psychologist/therapists. Medications may generally be overused(due to TV advertising?), and people may be over-discounting the benefits of therapy/faith, etc., but just because we lack a truly decent bio-chemical model to explain depression, doesn't mean it doesn't exist. The really scary thing I think is the ability to manipulate a clinical trial to support your own assertions. That goes both ways. I don't want to take more medications than I really need.
Mitch
poster:Ritch
thread:112339
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20020709/msgs/112409.html