You Can't Get There From Here

Tampa Tribune is publishing more meaningless drivel about the supposed pharmaceutical breakthroughs relative to depression, suicide, etc.

First of all, there is no suicide epidemic.  Period.  For example: teen suicides have been going down in numbers since the 80s. 

Secondly, the "treatment" being recommended is only about drugs and their profits.  Do you see any of these "experts" recommending anything else?  A change of diet? Anything?  No, you don't.  For these pharmaceutical mouthpieces, all roads lead to drugging (aka: addictions to patentable, profit-generating drugs).  It's time we realize that and start asking the tough questions that would expose this the science-less scam that it is.

Where I have comment on the article it is below each paragraph.  Red text indicates a part of the article on which I'm commenting.

Tampa Tribune

1st Antidepressant Has 1-In-3 Success Rate, Study Says

By LAURAN NEERGAARD The Associated Press

Jan 1, 2006

WASHINGTON - A third of people suffering serious depression recover with the first antidepressant they try, and well-educated white women are most likely to benefit, according to initial results of an eagerly awaited study on the controversial drugs.

One key finding: Patients whose depression symptoms disappeared took higher than typical drug doses and received close monitoring and frequent dose adjustments in the first three months, a level of care few U.S. patients receive.

Oh, so taking more of these expensive drugs is now the answer.  Why am I not surprised?

The main goal of the government-funded study is to identify what harder-to-treat patients should try when initial treatment fails, instead of abandoning therapy in frustration. Those results are due in a few months. 

Isn't "treatment" an interesting choice of words?  You never hear these guys talk about fixing anything really.  You just have to endlessly "treat" your problems according to these "experts".  I wonder if that's got anything to do with there not being any real science behind the way they treat or if it's just because it's more profitable. 

I mean let's just talk about the standard of our expectations for a moment.  If you were to take your car to a mechanic because it was making an awful grinding sound, and he said "hmm..this is going to take several treatments, probably for the life of your car...", you'd be out of there faster than I could say "bullspit".  Why?  Because you'd know right away that the mechanic didn't know what he was doing.

Why should our expectation relative to mental health care be any different?

Psychiatrists long have known that for most depression sufferers, the first antidepressant choice won't be a panacea, just as patients with epilepsy, heart disease or cancer often must mix and match medications before finding the best choice.

"Guess" might be a better word.  They don't know jack, really, if by "know" we mean "can prove it with real science."  Go ahead and ask your psychiatrist (God help you if you have one) for the lab tests that prove the cause of your symptoms is a deficiency in the drug he is prescribing for you.  Then sit back and watch the stammering begin.

Unlike those illnesses, physicians have had little scientific evidence to guide their choices of myriad antidepressants or how to maximize each patient's chances of benefit.

Need I say more?  There it is in writing!  They are making all these "choices" for people giving them a "myriad" of antidepressants and they have "little scientific evidence".  People, we are being duped!  They are GUESSING! 

To do that, "tailor the treatment," said Madhukar Trivedi of the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, who reported first results from the study today in The American Journal of Psychiatry.

Guess #3,143,928...

Thorough Care Is Rare

he study created an easy-to-use rating system to assess depression symptoms and report drug side effects. That rating system, posted on the Web for any doctor to use, allowed patients' drug doses to be adjusted every two to three weeks until they hit the right balance, or it became clear that another therapy was needed.

It's rare that antidepressant users receive this so-called measurement-based care, said Richard Nakamura, deputy director of the National Institute of Mental Health, which funded the $35 million study.

"Many people, because they're not given follow-up, the medications aren't adjusted ... do end up being frustrated, and any negative side effects, any trouble with dosage levels, will cause them to end treatment," Nakamura said.

Why are we even taking things that would lead to side-effects in the first place, much less require so much monitoring. But this is probably a separate blog posting...

A bonus: The ratings led to closer physician monitoring, with five to six visits during the critical first months of antidepressant use.

The only "bonus" here is going to go the CEO of Celexa maker Forest Laboratories, Inc for getting a "government funded" study to mention his brand name drug.  I can almost hear him writhing his hands with giggling greed from here.

Antidepressants have become extremely controversial in recent years because of evidence that they on rare occasions worsen suicidal tendencies in children or teenagers. In 2004, the Food and Drug Administration ordered strong warnings about the pediatric risk be put on antidepressant labels, and began analyzing whether adults face a similar risk.

It's worse than this.  In fact, the kids who were committing suicide were already on anti-depressants.  Five years of these incidents in my state of Florida found this to be true.  So why are we putting more kids on these drugs?

Meanwhile, the FDA urges that antidepressant users of all ages be closely watched for symptoms that might signal suicidal behavior during the first weeks of therapy.

There were no suicides among the almost 3,000 patients in Trivedi's study, known as Star-D.

Suicide Risks

A separate study also published in the psychiatry journal tracked more than 65,000 people, mostly adults, who used antidepressants in a 10-year period and were insured by the Seattle-based Group Health Cooperative. The risk of a serious suicide attempt was highest in the month before patients started antidepressants, and the risk of a serious attempt or a completed suicide dropped in the weeks after treatment began, the researchers, also funded by the National Institute of Mental Health, concluded.

Probably because they were in a nice delusional chemical straight-jacket.  Again, where's the science?

"This study lends us some very important information" about adults, but "it doesn't, however, alter our ongoing concern about children," said Paul Seligman, who heads the FDA's Office of Drug Safety.

Ten percent of men and a quarter of women will have depression some time in their lives, and it often recurs. There are about 20 medications and a variety of talk-based therapies, but little evidence to say who is most likely to benefit from which approach.

So what?  What's so bad about a little depression?  Welcome to life on Earth.  Get over it.  I'm so sick  of these idiot experts making this sound like we should all live in a depression-free chemically induced biosphere where no one has to experience anything bad in their lives.  That's not life.  It's delusion.   I'm pretty sure our country's forefathers were just a little depressed when England was at it's apex of dictatorial rule over the colonies.   If they had all sat back and said "I'm sooo depressed about all this excessive taxation...hand me some Prozac..." I'm pretty sure we'd all  be English today.  Or, worse, we'd be under the rule of a Nazi Europe--who knows for sure.

My point is, "depression" is part of life.  Not facing that life situation and instead running to drugs and the advice of quacks and mental health charlatans only postpones the resolution of the actual cause--not to mention all the side effects like suicidal ideation.

Until now, most research has consisted of industry-funded comparisons of a single drug with a placebo, among patients not considered difficult to treat.

In other words, we're supposed to feel confident that this is a "government funded" study.  Wow.  I feel so much better. 

The six-year Star-D study aims to fill that gap.

In step 1, all enrolled patients were given Celexa, part of a newer class of antidepressants known as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors.

"Newer class" = more expensive.  Look for these to be part of TMAP-like programs--like Teenscreen.

Researchers aren't endorsing Celexa, Trivedi stressed. Researchers can't explain why white women, especially the well-educated, were most likely to recover with initial treatment. Also more likely to benefit were patients with fewer co-existing illnesses and less severe depression.

Doesn't "can't explain" = "we aren't using scientific methods"?  Why are we even reading about this if they can't explain why this is all happening in the first place?  It doesn't sound to me like they have anything worth releasing if they can't answer a key question about why this even "works" in the first place.

Those who didn't become symptom-free were moved to step 2, assigned a variety of different therapies to determine care for harder-to-treat patients.

Again, the existence of a symptom indicates there is a cause somewhere.   Masking the symptom is not the same as fixing the actual cause. 

These guys have no idea what they are doing really.  Can you see how they are guessing?  It's hit or miss and that's not science.

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