Here’s some depressing recent medical news: Antidepressants don’t work. What’s even more depressing is that the pharmaceutical industry and Food and Drug Administration (FDA) have deliberately deceived us into believing that they DO work. As a physician, this is frightening to me.
Two Jews may, as the saying goes, have three opinions, but that appears to be a fairly modest ratio when compared with psychiatrists. It was inevitable that revisions to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders would invite controversy—it’s the classic reference work for mental-health professionals, and a convenient field guide to understanding crazy exes for the rest of us—but even the American Psychiatric Association, which first appointed the work groups to update the text two years ago, couldn’t have predicted the squabbles now under way.
Psychiatry’s solution to life’s problems is stigmatizing psychiatric labels and the administration of toxic drugs which international drug regulatory agencies have warned can cause mania, worsening depression, anxiety, delusions, seizures, liver failure, suicide, mania, heart attack, stroke, fatal blood clots, sudden death, diabetes and much more.
The FDA’s letter to Pfizer (PFE) describing overdoses of the antipsychotic Geodon given to 13 children in clinical trials is merely the latest in a long history of controversies that have dogged the drug at virtually every stage of its existence. Among those controversies: Discredited doctors allegedly prepared research on Geodon for the FDA; Pfizer allegedly promoted the drug for unapproved uses in kids; and the company allegedly paid a non-profit mental health advocacy group to promote Geodon for kids.
A stunning disconnect between psychiatrists and their patients. The average number of side effects reported by the patients on the TSES [Toronto Side Effects Scale] was 20 times (!) higher than the number recorded by the psychiatrist.