This is a great little synopsis of the problem with pharmaceutically driven treatment in psychiatry. I will present some excerpts with no further comments as I’ve gone on ad nauseam on the subject matter. Anyone who has not been reading Beyond Meds for years though may stand to learn quite a bit.
From Psychology Today, John D. Gartner, Ph.D. in The Roving Psychologist:
First a little scenario that isn’t really unusual at all but in this instance it all became glaringly apparent and now is a good illustration for the whole of how pharma is used in psychiatry:
About 12 years ago, I noticed that many of my bipolar type II patients were being put on a new drug, Neurontin. None of my patients seemed to get much benefit from it, and most suffered side effects. Now, I understand why.
We now know from independent research–research not funded by drug companies–that Neurontin produces absolutely no benefit in the treatment of bipolar disorder. None. But then, why did we ever believe it did? The Neurontin story is a particularly egregious example of science run amok, but not an atypical one. Psychiatrists were falsely induced to prescribe a medicine that was both unsafe and ineffective.
The study that Warner Lambert used to prove Neurontin was effective for the treatment of bipolar disorder was flawed and titled toward positive results, according to a recent article published in the Archives of Internal Medicine. Even worse, evidence of adverse consequences in this study was suppressed: 73 patients in this trial had adverse reactions, and 11 patients died. (go to the article to find out how and why this all happened)...
…Is Neurontin an isolated incident?
No, it most certainly is not.
…in a New York Times op-ed piece Carl Elliot wrote, “Pharmaceutical companies promote their drugs with pseudo-studies that have little if any scientific merit.”…
….Not only has the effectiveness of psychiatric drugs been oversold, but the real harm they may be doing has gone mostly unreported. For example, according to an impressive array of evidence presented by Pulitzer Prize nominated investigative reporter Robert Whitaker in Anatomy of an Epidemic, antidepressants appear to increase the lifetime rates of rapid cycling in bipolar patients. So the drugs that provide short-term relief actually worsen the disease they are meant to treat in the long-term. The response has been to add mood stabilizers and anti-psychotics, which have their own often disabling side effects, to offset the long-term instability produced by the antidepressants. So suppressing findings doesn’t just give us billion dollar placebos. It gives us patent medicine that may be doing real harm…..
…..But we need to face facts: Psychiatric research has become corrupted, not around the margins, but at its core. The scientific evidence that underlies psychiatrists’ day-to-day prescription decisions is really marketing propaganda packaged as science. As a result, we can no longer trust psychiatrists’ judgments and recommendations. read the whole article here