PSYC 1F90 Chapter : The Depressing News about Antidepressants Module Reading
29 Mar 2012
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Antidepressants help about of people with depression who take them. Yes the drugs are effective, lift depression in most. But benefit hardly more than what patients get when they unknowingly and as part of study take a placebo. Believing makes it so placebo improved about 75% as much as those on drugs. Conclude that share of drug effects come from expectations to help them, not from direct chemical action on the brain. The unpublished studies failed to show significant benefit from taking actual drugs. Depression is a devastating, underdiagnosed and undertreated disease. Defenders of drugs scoff idea that fda would approve ineffective drugs. Fda requires only two well-designed clinical trials showing a drug is more effective than a placebo. Doctors see with their own eyes, feel with their heats, drugs lift the black cloud from many depressed patients. Not all patients response same way to a particular treatment. Found antidepressants are a little more effective than placebos.
