Poll: Scientific American readers trust what scientists say about "depression drugs" least, second to only "flu pandemics"

Interesting poll here by the Scientific American: In Science We Trust

The basic point of the article and poll is to see how trustworthy a selection Nature and Scientific American readers thought scientists were in the wake of "climategate" and hyperbolic swine flu epidemic predictions.

The more interesting thing for this blog is how much the respondents trusted scientists in a breakdown of selected subjects.

Flu Pandemics is dead last at 3.19

Depression Drugs is just a few ticks above that at 3.21

And strangely, both pharmaceutical related. Hmm.

I realize that this isn't a scientific poll, but I still find this interesting.

"Antidepressants Under Scrutiny Over Efficacy" --WSJ January 2008

Antidepressants Under Scrutiny over Efficacy -- Wall Street Journal, Jan 2008

More evidence that (surprise, surprise) drug manufacturers attempt to present their products in the best possible light. And why not... if they happen to get called on fraud they just settle for a couple hundred million... peanuts.

A total of 74 studies involving a dozen antidepressants and 12,564 patients were registered with the FDA from 1987 through 2004. The FDA considered 38 of the studies to be positive. All but one of those studies was published, the researchers said.

The other 36 were found to have negative or questionable results by the FDA. Most of those studies -- 22 out of 36 -- weren't published, the researchers found. Of the 14 that were published, the researchers said at least 11 of those studies mischaracterized the results and presented a negative study as positive.

...

Dr. Turner, who once worked at the FDA reviewing data on psychotropic drugs, said the idea for the study was triggered in part by colleagues who questioned the need for further clinical drug trials looking at the effectiveness of antidepressants.

"There is a view that these drugs are effective all the time," he said. "I would say they only work 40% to 50% of the time," based on his reviews of the research at the FDA, "and they would say, 'What are you talking about? I have never seen a negative study.'" Dr. Turner, said he knew from his time with the agency that there were negative studies that hadn't been published.

...

In this week's study, the researchers found that failing to publish negative findings inflated the reported effectiveness of all 12 of the antidepressants studied, which were approved between 1987 and 2004. The researchers used a measurement called effect size. The larger the effect size, the greater the impact of a treatment.

Effexor's estimated effect size was 27% (XR) and 28% in the study. Zoloft 64%. Paxil 40%. Prozac 14%. These are the increased apparent effectiveness of the drug treatments because of the omission of negative reports. You could read this as X% less effective when the positive bias is removed.

Effexor: "Baddest of the bad."

Just ran across this article that claims that the British Medical Journal in 2007 found that people on Effexor were three times as likely to attempt suicide compared to those on other antidepressants.

Effexor, baddest of the bad? I believe it.  Part of the reason is likely the very short halflife of Effexor.  On the order of 18-20 hours.  Prozac in comparison is on the order of 3-7 days.  This makes discontinuation syndrome excruciating for most, if they choose to get off the drug.

Antidepressants: The baddest of the bad is revealed

08 February 2007

Antidepressants are a family of drugs that are bad and dangerous to know – and now researchers have named Effexor (venlafaxine) as the baddest of the bad. Patients are much more likely to attempt suicide while taking Effexor than any of the other antidepressants, a new study has found.

The news comes as no surprise to those who’ve already been exposed to the drug. It’s considered to be one of the most powerful antidepressants, and one of the hardest to tolerate. In fact, around 19 per cent of patients stop taking the drug early because they can’t stand the side effects, which include anxiety, sexual dysfunction, weight gain, high blood pressure and thyroid depression. One patient even reported a sudden change of hair colour.
They are the lucky ones. Once over the initial hurdles of life-destroying side effects, withdrawal symptoms are so severe that it’s almost impossible to stop taking the drug.

Thousands of patients who signed a petition to the drug’s manufacturer, Wyeth-Ayerst, claim the drug company knew about the side effects and the withdrawal problems, but failed to properly disclose the facts.
Most of the problems were slowly drip-fed into the public arena over a period of eight years after the drug was first licensed, they say.

Now the last piece of the jigsaw has been revealed. Researchers from RTI Health Solutions at Manchester Science Park analysed the safety records of 219,088 patients from the UK who were taking an antidepressant between 1995 and 2005. Patients taking Effexor were nearly three times as likely to attempt suicide compared with a patient taking another antidepressant, including Prozac (fluoxetine).

(Source: British Medical Journal, 2007; 334: 242-5).

Quick Links

Mish links to a Bloomberg article stating that half of Americans take at least one prescription pill a month. I agree with Mish's statement that: "Throughout grade and high school, I do not recall any kids with attention problems. How is it that attention-deficit disorder is now so widespread? Are kids today different? Why?"  Very good questions, Mish. 

I personally think kids are kids, and they should allowed to be kids. And if they have problems, it is likely something in their environment (*cough* parenting, or lack thereof) that is causing it.

Almost half of Americans took at least one prescription drug per month in 2008, an increase of 10 percent over the past decade, a U.S. study found.

One of every five children ages 11 or younger took at least one medication each month in 2008, led by asthma and allergy treatments, according to the survey released today by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Among those ages 60 or older, 37 percent used five or more prescriptions per month.

The most common medications for adolescents were treatments for attention-deficit disorder, a condition in which people have trouble paying attention and engage in impulsive behavior.

For adults ages 20 to 59, antidepressants, including Eli Lilly & Co.’s Cymbalta and Pfizer Inc.’s Zoloft, were the most-used drugs. Cholesterol-lowering medications, including Pfizer Inc.’s Lipitor and AstraZeneca Plc’s Crestor, were the most common drugs taken by people ages 60 and over, with 45 percent of those in that age group on such therapies.

Also, this article from the NYT "Child’s Ordeal Shows Risks of Psychosis Drugs for Young" shows how some parents have gone full retard to deal with their kids.

“

Kyle at the time was very aggressive and easily agitated, so you try to find medication that can make him more easily controlled, because you can’t reason with an 18-month-old,” Dr. deGravelle said in a telephone interview. But Kyle was not autistic — according to several later evaluations, including one that Dr. deGravelle arranged with a neurologist. Kyle did not have the autistic child’s core deficit of social interaction, Dr. Gleason said. Instead, he craved more positive attention from his mother.

“He had trouble communicating,” Dr. Gleason said. “He didn’t have people to listen to him.”

After the neurologist review, the diagnosis changed to “oppositional defiant disorder” and the Risperdal continued.

Just 18 months old. Unreal.