The dirty little secret about antidepressants is actually pretty big
Late to the party
Did you catch the recent “60 Minutes” episode where Leslie Stahl blew the lid off the dirty little secret that antidepressant drugs are no more effective than placebo?
And by “blew the lid off,” I mean, “finally caught up with what we’ve known for years.”
Like me, you might have found yourself watching and wondering: “What? This is NEWS?”
Which brings us to dirty little secret number two: There’s a good reason why “60 Minutes” is very late to the party.
Freedom of placebo information
In 2002 I told you about a depression study where subjects who received a placebo actually had a higher response rate compared to subjects who were given Zoloft — a drug that’s been taken by millions, creating sales in the billions.
But that’s just one of several studies we’ve seen that produced similar results.
On “60 Minutes,” Stahl interviewed Irving Kirsch, a psychologist and Harvard Medical School researcher who has studied the placebo effect for more than 35 years.
After analyzing many antidepressant studies, Kirsch and his colleagues concluded that the effectiveness of antidepressant drugs is a myth.
This conclusion was strengthened after Kirsch used the Freedom of Information Act to access and analyze studies that were conducted by drug companies and submitted to the FDA. But these studies were never published because they didn’t produce the desired results.
Now, I personally like Leslie Stahl, but I think she must have been doing a bit of acting when she responded to Kirsch’s revelations with shocked reactions that bordered on jaw-dropping. Obviously, she knew what was coming or she wouldn’t have been doing the interview in the first place.
But more to the point, this is not fresh information, piping hot from the oven.
Kirsch first published his findings in 2008, and then wrote a book about them — titled “The Emperor’s New Drugs: Exploding the Antidepressant Myth” — that was published in 2010.
Obviously, Stahl and the producers of “60 Minutes” and CBS executives have all had YEARS to assimilate Kirsch’s bombshell. So…why now?
As I’ve mentioned before, the major TV networks have always been timid when it comes to reporting drawbacks about major drugs that provide enormous advertising profits.
And I don’t have a mole at CBS, but I have to think that the delay on the Kirsch story is quite likely linked to the loss of patent protection for several major antidepressants. In recent years, patents for Prozac, Paxil, Zoloft and other blockbusters have run out, turning the market over to generics.
So now that we’re past the glory days of blockbuster antidepressants, “60 Minutes” bursts through the door and shouts, “Holy mackerel! Look what we found!”
Yes — like finding a giant Easter egg that’s been sitting in the middle of the street — in plain view of everyone — for more than 1,400 days!
Nice “scoop,” CBS.
The interesting thing about Kirsch is that he’s not saying antidepressants don’t work. Just the opposite — he says they DO work. But it’s not the chemicals that make them work. It’s the placebo effect. Which brings us to the glaring omission in the “60 Minutes” report: there’s not a word about side effects.
Writing in the Huffington Post two years ago, Kirsch noted antidepressant adverse effects such as sexual dysfunction and nausea. And tragically, even the FDA eventually admitted that SSRI antidepressants increase the risk of suicide in children and young adults.
What DOES work to relieve depression with zero side effects? Kirsch offers two suggestions: exercise and talk therapy. Both are PROVEN to be effective in relieving mild to moderate depression. And you can be sure that the FDA isn’t sitting on unpublished studies about either of those methods.
Sources:
“Treating Depression: Is there a placebo effect?” 60 Minutes, CBS, 2/19/12, cbsnews.com
“Antidepressants: The Emperor’s New Drugs?” Irving Kirsch, Huffington Post, 1/29/10, huffingtonpost.com
