[lbo-talk] Antidepressants and Placebos

Carrol Cox cbcox at ilstu.edu
Thu Feb 28 06:22:42 PST 2008


Doug Henwood wrote:
>
>
> This analogy makes no sense. Independent reviews show little or no
> more efficacy than a placebo, but drug-company-sponsored research
> shows an effect, sez the article. It was tobacco co's that argued
> that smoking doesn't cause cancer (at least publicly -- privately
> they knew better). I think some people just want antidepressants to
> work.

This is sort of true, but, there is one solid bit of knowledge: depression destroys brain cells in the hippocampus -- and SSRIs actually cause new neurons to grow there. I stopped taking ADs two years ago, and never plan to go back to them. But in reference to memory, however, ADs have a clear advantage over placebos.

Carrol



More information about the lbo-talk mailing list