revisão antidepressivos funcionam

Professor John Read
11 h ·

My letter to the Guardian about their coverage of the Lancet’s antidepressant review yesterday:

Your article ‘The drugs do work:antidepressants are effective, study shows’ (22.2.2018) was disappointingly uncritical.

There are already 65 million prescriptions a year in the UK, double the rate of ten years ago. One in 13 men and one in 7 women are already receiving these drugs. Yet your article suggests that a million more people should be on these drugs.

It is easy to artificially and temporarily lift mood with chemicals, but chemicals cannot address the social causes of human distress. The idea that antidepressants are treating a chemical imbalance that somehow causes depression has been debunked as a drug industry created myth. Several of the paper’s authors are employed by this industry.

Neither the research paper nor your article report any of the serious adverse effects that lead most people to throw away the drugs within a few weeks. Our own study, the largest direct-to-consumer survey to date, found that more than half reported emotional numbing, sexual difficulties and withdrawal effects. Suicidality as a result of the drugs was reported by 39% and a reduction in positive feelings by 42%.

More balance please.

Professor John Read

University of East London