World Mental Health Day 2012

A quote from the article (about antidepressants): “Medication can help some ..."

Not according to science.

Article: http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fj...

Quote: "Meta-analyses of antidepressant medications have reported only modest benefits over placebo treatment, and when unpublished trial data are included, the benefit falls below accepted criteria for clinical significance." (emphasis added)

Translation: "If all legitimate scientific studies of antidepressants are examined at once, the outcome is that antidepressants do not work."

Analysis: The drug industry has funded many antidepressant studies over the years. Those that support the efficacy of antidepressants are published. Those that do not support the efficacy of antidepressants are not published. It's a simple, effective scheme, and until now it has worked -- most people think antidepressants work.

The study linked above did something clever -- they performed a meta-analysis of all the studies -- those that were completed and published, and those that were completed and then thrown away. The end result is that antidepressants do not work, i.e. are no more effective than a placebo.

But because practicing psychologists don't care about science, this study might as well not have been published -- it might as well have been thrown out along with the many studies that cast antidepressants in a bad light, studies that were suppressed.

Someday psychologists will be forced to adopt the evidence-based practice standards that govern the practice of medicine, but until that day arrives, they will continue to lie to their clients.