>To be honest, I think this is a verson of "smoking
>doesn't cause cancer" and "AIDS isn't the result of
>HIV." I think people just don't want antidepressants
>to work.
But the result was that they DO work. Only insignificantly better than placebos, but still much better than no pills at all.
It doesn't come as any great surprise to me that the cure for something that's entirely in people's minds should be all in their minds as well. It would be astounding if it was otherwise. And it would be amazing if popping a pill that the entire medical establishment says will make you better *didn't* make you better. Especially when what is wrong with you in the first place is all in your head to begin with.
Oddly enough, I have the same experience with aspirin. I'll take an aspirin for a headache sometimes and the headache usually goes away within seconds of me tasting the aspirin. I presume a placebo that tastes like aspirin would work just as well, given that I need to take only the smallest dose and that isn't enough time for it to work anyhow. But aspirin are cheap, so why bother looking for a fake.
Don't knock placebos. They are, surely, the most effective medicine ever known to man. If these anti-depressants are "only" effective as placebos, then that is surely good enough. If it ain't broke, don't fix it I say.
Bill Bartlett Bracknell Tas