Lennard Davis
Psychology Today
January 7, 2010

For the past five years, and in my recent book OBSESSION: A HISTORY, I have been questioning the effectiveness of Prozac-like drugs known as SSRIs. I’ve pointed out that when the drugs first came out in the early 1990’s there was a wildly enthusiastic uptake in the prescribing of such drugs. Doctors were jubilantly claiming that the drugs were 80-90 per cent effective in treating depression and related conditions like OCD. In the last few years those success rates have been going down, with the NY Times pointing out that the initial numbers had been inflated by drug companies suppressing the studies that were less encouraging. But few if any doctors or patients were willing to hear anything disparaging said about these “wonder” drugs.

Now the tune has changed.

Reason One: A study in the Journal of the American Medical Association says that SSRI’s like Paxil and Prozac are no more effective in treating depression than a placebo pill. That means they are 33 per cent effective, which is the percent of patients who will respond well to a sugar pill. The article goes on to say that although SSRI’s are effective to some degree in treating severe depression they don’t have any effect on the routine type of depressions they are most often used to treat. The take-home message is–don’t take SSRI’s if you have normal, mild, or routine depression. It’s a waste of money, and the drugs have serious side-effects including loss of sexual drive.

Reason Two: A January 4 article in MedPage Today cites a study done at Columbia University and Johns Hopkins.  The study says that doctors routinely prescribe not one but two or three SSRI’s and other psychopharmological drugs in combination with few if any serious studies to back up the multiple usage.

Read entire article: http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/obsessively-yours/201001/five-reasons-not-take-ssris