Considering the widespread use of anti-depressants this is big news. As a person who tries to do just about anything to avoid pharmaceuticals (I don't react well to them) I wonder if the medical community will start promoting alternative treatments such as diet change and other natural remedies. The problem, according to the pharma industry, is that it is difficult to run tests on alternative treatments and have mathematical results as you can with modern medicine. Perhaps. I also believe that all too often Big Pharma cherry picks data or entire studies, as this new report suggests. One could easily view this as falsely overcharging insurance companies and consumers and another reason why health care is so expensive.
Prozac, the bestselling antidepressant taken by 40 million people worldwide, does not work and nor do similar drugs in the same class, according to a major review released today.
The study examined all available data on the drugs, including results from clinical trials that the manufacturers chose not to publish at the time. The trials compared the effect on patients taking the drugs with those given a placebo or sugar pill.
When all the data was pulled together, it appeared that patients had improved - but those on placebo improved just as much as those on the drugs.
