Bob Morris wrote:
>
> Carrol Cox <cbcox at ilstu.edu> wrote:
>
> > What shag's source argues about SSRIs may be true; I am somewhat
> > sceptical of their usefulness myself, and they never helped me much.
> >
>
> But sometimes meds do help.
I agree, but my argument is that the formal research, both anti-SSRI and pro-SSRI, is not definitve, and that a general leftists tendency to doubt everything needs to be aware of how flimsy that evidence for _either_ position is. I think amitriptylines (not an SSRI) practically saved my life back in the mid-80s, but after that I ssemed to sink into and recover from depressive episodes pretyymuch independently of any meds I was taking. Back in the early '80s someone close to me was working as a computer analyst for a testing lab. She was taking amitrityline for migraine; then her doctor tried another migraine med, she sank into a depression without knowing she was, & ended up suddenly fired. It took several years to get back on track.
Incidentally, re evidence. When the diptheria anti-toxin was developed the need was so great that they didn't carry through proper tests on it, and all we have to this day is anecdotalevidence that it gives immunity to diptheria.
But my real concern is not the status of SSRIs, or any other anti-depressant, but political priorities and the ease with which leftists, having so rich a knowledgte of the evils of capitalism, will be distracted by this or that pointless crusade launched by some clever writer against some abuse that can be strongly suspected but can't be established in the way that political issues need to be established.If you look back over the last 60 years you will find one book after another making a splash by exposing this or that scandalous situation, then sinking from sight after a year or so as some other great expose appears. True or false, such exposes are merely, at best, a distraction. shag's source may have really latched on to something; she may not. All her essentially anecdotal evidence doesn't establsih the point -- nor am I very trusting of drug company evidence. But it just doesn't get us anywhere politically, and some of it is seriously misleading. Everyone lvoes to hate psychiatrists or Microsoft.
Carrol