[lbo-talk] Antidepressants and Placebos

Andy F andy274 at gmail.com
Thu Feb 28 06:50:15 PST 2008


On Thu, Feb 28, 2008 at 6:23 AM, Michael Pollak <mpollak at panix.com> wrote:


> Dr. Turner discovered that most studies with negative results were
> never published in journals, and so doctors had no way of knowing how
> poorly antidepressants have actually fared. While 94 percent of
> antidepressant studies published in journals show antidepressants to be
> more effective than placebos, only 51 percent of all registered studies
> were determined by the FDA to show antidepressants superior to
> placebos.

NPR interviewed one of the authors of this study and he said the point was not that SSRIs don't work at all, just that their advantage over placebos was primarily in the severely depressed. His conclusions were more nuanced than "SSRIs are bunk".

Interestingly, he also suggested that taking advantage of the placebo effect has therapeutic value.

-- Andy



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