Finally, in pediatric trials of Wyeth's Effexor, 2% of the children dropped out because of hostility, more than double the rate of children on a placebo.
The researchers also analyzed the 1,374 emails that were received by the BBC television following a program on Paxil and found that many people described emotional storms and thoughts and acts of violence or self-harm.
The analysis, they said, indicated a clear link between severe mood changes when Paxil treatment began, or later when the dosage was increased, decreased, or withdrawn.
The authors say the strength of the current study showing an association between violence and SSRIs is that the data are unselected, but consistent even though it comes from a variety of sources.
"A weakness of the study," they note, "is that we have been able to include only a subset of existing data in the analysis."
"Data on aggression on other antidepressants will necessarily have been collected as part of the development programmes for these drugs," they state, "but these data are not in the public domain."
"Earlier reports have linked antidepressants to violence," they note, "but this is the first independent study to offer a quantitative analysis of the issue; no other studies exist with which our results can be compared."
By now many experts are questioning whether it can be said that the benefits of SSRIs outweigh their risks or whether they have any benefits at all. According to Dr Peter Breggin, another well-known expert on SSRIs, and author of, The Antidepressant Factbook, "study after study has confirmed that antidepressants typically perform only a little better than sugar pills."
"In some studies," he notes, "antidepressants actually turn out to be less effective than the lowly sugar pill."
He also points out that "if depression is a product of our conflicts, stressful life experiences, and stifled choices, a drug would have no direct effect on treating it."
Another expert in the field, and author of, The ADHD Fraud, Dr Fred Baughman, says, "we have the "disease-ing" of emotional and behavioral problems-of life's problems with never a mention that the causes can be found in every-day life difficulties-things people can and must be helped with."
He says when people get help in solving their work problems or marital and family problems or financial problems their "mental illness" is often gone in a day.
"The drugging psychiatry-pharmaceutical cartel," Dr Baughman warns, "is too anxious to "disease" and "disable" those with real-life problems and the emotional symptoms they beget."
Dr Healy has said that most patients diagnosed with mild or moderate depression would be better characterized as suffering from "community nervousness." And although he views the condition as a real disorder, he says that it "could be due to a host of different factors such as overwork, stress, and constitutional deficits. But clinicians everywhere are diagnosing depression because that's what they have a treatment for."
Next Page 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
