"Anatomy of an Epidemic" Part 2: The Origins of Psychopharmacology

The modern day view of science conjures up almost godlike images of mastery over the physical world. Particularly in the area of medicine, we like to think that for any given ailment, we have a drug that will cure it. The reason we think this is that it is actually true, in some but not all cases. Antibiotics can cure bacterial infections; the polio vaccine has damn near eradicated polio from the planet; pain relievers can do a very good job at helping people manage pain even though they don't cure it. So there are good medicines out there that are clearly beneficial.

Modern day psychiatry is saying they can do the same thing. Feeling a little down? Cure it with this SSRI. Having problems focusing? No problem, how about some ritalin. The problem is that while psychiatry and the pharmaceutical companies want you to believe that these are "magic bullets," and that they understand exactly their long term impact on the brain, they really don't. They basically know that there are three chemicals that affect the functioning of the brain: serotonin, dopamine, and norepinephrine. But how these all interact to produce memory, emotion, ethics, behavior, instinct -- in short, YOU -- they really have no idea. They claim that because 28% of depressed people had low serotonin levels in a study that boosting serotonin levels will cure depression. Nevermind that 25% of the normal control group also had similarly low serotonin levels. But I'm getting ahead of myself. That is for part three which will be about the theory of chemical imbalances in the brain.

The point is, these drugs are not cures. They exhibit certain effects whose ultimate impact are not entirely understood. They also burden the user with uncomfortable side effects, and then later agonizing withdrawal should the user decide to stop. The users of antidepressants are quite literally addicts, and Effexor is one of the worst, if not THE worst to come off of because of it's relatively short half life of around 20 hours (vs Prozac which has a half life of 1-7 days, depending).

Psychopharmacology would like you to think that these drugs were all carefully tailored and engineered specifically for the intended purpose. This isn't really true.

Thorozine, the drug that started it all, was originally discovered when searching for a cure for malaria. When that didn't work, they found it had antihistamine and possibly anesthetic properties. They began testing it in surgery and Henri Laborit noticed it could be used in psychiatry.

This new drug, chlorpromazine [marketed as Thorozine in the U.S.], apparently disconnected brain regions that controlled both motor movement and the mounting of emotional responses, and yet did so without causing the rats to lose consciousness.

...

Although today we think of lobotomy as a mutilating surgery, at that time it was regarded as a useful operation. Only two years earlier, the Nobel Prize in Medicine had been awarded to the Portuguese neurologist, Egas Moniz, who had invented it. The press, in its most breathless moments, had even touted lobotomy as an operation that plucked madness neatly from the mind. But what the surgery most reliably did, and this was well understood by those who performed the operation, was change people in a profound way. It made them lethargic, disinterested, and childlike. That was seen by the promoters of lobotomy as an improvement over what the patients had been before -- anxious, agitated, and filled with psychotic thoughts -- and now, if Laborit was to be believed, a pill had been discovered that could transform patients in a similar way.

Anatomy of an Epidemic, page 49

Physicians in the United States similarly understood that this new drug was not fixing any known pathology. "We have to remember that we are not treating diseases with this drug," said psychiatrist E. H. Parsons, at a 1955 meeting in Philadelphia on chlorpromazine. "We are using a neuropharmacologic agent to produce a specific effect."

Anatomy of an Epidemic, page 50-51

Next was Miltown, a minor tranquilizer that was discovered while trying to discover a compound that would kill gram-negative bacteria, and started development by researching the commercial disinfectant called Phenoxetol. This was eventually synthesized into meprobamate and sold for human consumption.

An article published in the Science News Letter ... put the animal experiments into a human frame of reference. If you took a minor tranquilizer, he explained, "this would mean that you might still feel scared when you see a car speeding towards you, but the fear would not make you run."

Anatomy of an Epidemic, page 52-53

By the spring of 1957, the first antidepressant, iproniazid, was brought to market as Marsilid. It's source? A Nazi Germany substitute for rocket fuel called hydrazine. It was originally used to treat TB (Tuberculosis) patients, but seemed to also act as a "psychic energizer."

Iproniazid was seen as having the greater potential, but initial tests did not find it to be particularly effective in lifting spirits, and there were reports that it could provoke mania. Tuberculosis patients treated with iproniazid were also developing so many nasty side effects -- dizziness, constipation, difficulty urinating, neuritis, perverse skin sensations, confusion, and psychosis -- that its use had to be curtailed in sanitariums.

Anatomy of an Epidemic, page 53

So there you have it. The drugs that launched the Psychopharmacology revolution were originally intended to treat malaria, gram negative bacterial infections, and TB, but were then used to induce certain psychological effects in humans. It seems clear that the developers did not fully understand the full long term implications of the drugs they were issuing and that trend seems to persist today.

I guess the bottom line is, if you knew your antidepressant was derived from rocket fuel... would you take it?

Stories of the Effuxed. Meet "Picking up the Pieces"

This is the latest in a monster thread started in July 2007 (currently 73 pages, 1442 comments) over at topix.com called Marriages destroyed by SSRI's/SNRIs. The stories repeat over and over again, almost as if scripted. Most of them do not have as happy of an ending as this one does. It is also unusual because as she weaned herself off Effexor she became closer to her family, but when she went back on Effexor the cheating started up again. Definitely seems to indicate that the drugs have at least something to do with changing ones personality.

My heart goes out to her husband, as I know how much this hurts, and he's handled it a lot better than I have. Major kudos. I wish them both the best.

But it makes me think about how I would handle things if/when my wife ever regains her senses and wants to try to reconcile. She belittled my manhood like I was a little boy. She told me how I never inspired her, but this other man did. She lied to me. She said the text messages to him asking "whether or not his antenna worked", and whether or not he "had a spot for her in his bed like she has for her cat" were only simply platonic jokes that she would do with any friend. When I discovered these text messages and read them to her, she laughed at me maniacally. She saw nothing wrong with keeping her phone locked and hidden away from me. The list goes on...

What would I do if given the chance? Would I take her back? Would I even want to be friends, or would I cut her out of my life forever? After she said that I wasn't her last resort because I wasn't even an option and that she wanted a divorce, I went to my attorney to file papers and thus far have cut her out of my life. I guess that is just for my own emotional self-preservation and healing. No kids, makes it easier. I can only aspire to do the right thing. I wish I just knew what it was.

But I digress. Here's "Picking up the Pieces" story:

http://www.topix.com/forum/drug/effexor/TQ4I2UR28DFD3N759/p73

I have read a lot of your stories and decided to add mine as well. I suffered from depression and later anxiety since high school. After the birth of my 2nd son, it reached an all time low. When he was about 15 mos old, my doctor tried me on Paxil, Paxil CR, and others due to insurance problems. Finally, I started seeing a therapist when he was 3, and he put me on Effexor XR. At first, as with most everyone, it was amazing. I felt great...better than I had in years! I even recommended it to my friends! But within 9 months, my family noticed that my attitude and personality had been changing...ALOT. I became very selfish and assertive, not in a good way. I started working for a friend and it was great. Too great. Within a couple of months we had an affair. Now let me stop right there for a moment and tell you I came from a very religious background for one thing and always felt very very strongly against anything morally wrong. And I loved my husband for the 11 years we were married at that point. He was the most amazing man I knew, loving, patient, helpful, and the best father ever. But there I was hating him, putting him down, cheating on him. This was so opposite of who I was. That man was also on the meds and his wife had said this was a side effect...so to speak. I thought she was crazy, so did my therapist. So I was on it for another 3 months. The relationship with that man ended, and I stayed with my husband. I finally decided to go off the meds and it was awful. If not for my kids, I would not be alive. Fast forward 18 months, I couldn't take it anymore. Work and everything was getting to me so I went back to my therapist. They put me on Zoloft but it made me sick. He said he saw me at my best on Effexor so I tried again. In 6 months, I was back at it again, my 2nd affair with the same man. Only this time, no matter how much my husband tried, I was determined to divorce him after 13 years, even to the mental distress of my 2 kids! In between the 2 tries of meds, we had no real problems, so this was really a shock to him. The following summer, I finally saw the light. The relationship was a lie. I missed my family so badly. And I realized that I only thought I was happy on the Effexor. It changed me completely. I was not the loving, caring, help you if I can person I always was... I was a lying, cheating, selfish, you know what! I abandoned my family, my values, everything. I have been off of the Effexor for a year now. I am truly happy for the 1st time in a long time. I have gone a different route for therapy: I talk about all of my feelings with my family, no matter how bad. I am fortunate that my ex husband is the amazing man he is and sees that it wasn't the real me that did all of those horrible things...although I still take responsibility for them. We are now trying to work on a fresh relationship, rebuilding our family on truth, trust and knowledge. And I know that it was the Effexor that changed me and will NEVER take AD's again! In fact, I now make it clear to all of my friends that they need to be very careful about the meds they are considering.