A new collaborative re-analysis of placebo-controlled trials of antidepressants finds that the drugs are still linked to an increased risk of suicide attempts.
“Overall, we would consider an increased rate of suicide attempts, and possibly also suicides, among those treated with ADs a reliable finding in the Bayesian analysis,” the researchers write.
Last year, researchers Michael P. Hengartner and Martin Plöderl re-analyzed a study that used what they described as an inappropriate statistical technique to measure whether antidepressants were linked to increased suicide attempts. The original study had found no link, but in their re-analysis, Hengartner and Plöderl found that those who were randomly assigned to antidepressant use in placebo-controlled trials were 2.5 times as likely to attempt suicide as those randomly assigned to placebo.
Their article was criticized, though, for failing to use meta-analytic techniques that might have accounted for other factors. At the time, Hengartner and Plöderl responded to those criticisms, providing multiple different statistical methods, all of which found a link between antidepressant use and suicide attempts.
In their reply to the criticisms, Hengartner and Plöderl also corrected their data: two of the suicide attempts were incorrectly listed as occurring in the placebo group, but actually occurred after the patients took the active antidepressant, strengthening their findings even more.
Earlier this year, researchers Jakob André Kaminski and Tom Bschor argued that the analysis used by Hengartner and Plöderl (pooling all antidepressant drugs) may not have been the most appropriate analysis either. They re-analyzed the re-analysis with seven different statistical methods, and found varying results—some methods found a link between antidepressant use and suicide attempts, while others did not.
According to Martin Plöderl (writing on Twitter), he and Hengartner reached out to Kaminski and Bschor to see if they could team up—collaborate to work on a new statistical analysis that would resolve their questions about differences in method.
The final analysis was just published in the Journal of Affective Disorders.
Hengartner, Plöderl, Kaminski, and Bschor provided a number of Bayesian analyses, different ways of looking at the data that provide somewhat different results. However, they still found a consistent increase in suicide attempts for those taking antidepressants.
“The analyses consistently hint at an elevated risk for suicide attempts and, less reliably, also for suicides in cohorts of adults.”
The increased risk ranged from 1.7 times greater (consistently, in the conservative analyses) to 6.3 times greater in one analysis.
“This is remarkable for drugs that are used to treat depressive symptoms,” they write.
The researchers also mention issues of bias in the studies that could inflate the suicide rate in the placebo arms of studies, meaning that the risk could be on the higher side.
For instance, they write, “Many patients were on an AD before entering the trial, and randomizing them to the placebo group can induce withdrawal symptoms leading to an inflated suicide (attempt) risk in the placebo arm.”
The researchers agreed on the need to consider statistical findings critically:
“We agree that we should be skeptical of relying on statistical significance or point-estimates in our analysis. We also need to be skeptical, given the rare occurrence of suicides in the trials, the sensitivity to the different meta-analytic procedures, the method biases, and the pooling of different trial designs.”
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Plöderl, M., Hengartner, M. P., Bschor, T., & Kaminski, J. A. (2020). Commentary to “antidepressants and suicidality: A re-analysis of the re-analysis.” Journal of Affective Disorders, 273, 252-253. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jad.2020.04.025 (Link)
I would think that if you get told you have an abnormal brain, that alone would breed
hopelessness and a feeling of being trapped or lesser than others.
Somehow “sick”.
The following discrimination and being looked at as someone abnormal by the very doctor you go to see, is an onslaught to ones dignity.
How does that make someone believe in themselves as a worthy subject of the earth.
Who has the right to officially lower another humans life.
You tell me what kind of people do this for a living.
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Thank you Peter, it’s only determined effort that has brought the fatal dangers of these drugs to the surface.
“…2.5 times as likely to attempt suicide ..” this is not a good advert for antidepressants.
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Taking the drugs increases your suicide rate by 250%. So these drugs are 2.5 times worse than the “mental illness”.
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It’s the ghost of Dr Shipman.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_Shipman
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After I got halfway through my taper off my 150 mg of Effexor, my suicidal thoughts went away.
They have never returned. 🙂
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I remember the overwhemingly thoughts of suicide on antidepressants that intensified on polypharmacy. Those kind of thoughts disappeared once off the drugs.
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“’This is remarkable for drugs that are used to treat depressive symptoms,’ write the researchers.” Not really, it’s typical for the psychiatric industry. They were all taught in med school that both the antidepressants and antipsychotics can create psychosis and hallucinations via anticholinergic toxidrome, yet anticholinergic toxidrome is not even listed in their DSM. The psychiatric industry is absolutely corrupt.
For goodness sakes, the number one actual societal function of both the psychiatrists and psychologists, and this is by DSM design, is covering up child abuse.
https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2019/01/23/18820633.php?fbclid=IwAR2-cgZPcEvbz7yFqMuUwneIuaqGleGiOzackY4N2sPeVXolwmEga5iKxdo
https://www.madinamerica.com/2016/04/heal-for-life/
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/your-child-does-not-have-bipolar-disorder/201402/dsm-5-and-child-neglect-and-abuse-1
How much more corrupt can an industry be, than to be a systemic child abuse covering up industry?
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This seems to be an example of “hoisted by your own petard.”
At least some of these researchers seem surprised at the outcome that their own procedures presented to them. They are either naïve or feigning ignorance of reality. We have only been saying this about these drugs for – how long now? 30, 40 , 50 years?
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Well reports by actual ingesters don’t mean anything.
Although the initial report meant enough to put people on chemicals.
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