Peter Gøtzsche writes for the Brownstone Institute: “The outcomes used in psychiatric drug trials are not meaningful, and psychiatric diagnoses and names of drug classes are also problematic. According to DSM-5, major depression “causes clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning.”1 It is the other way around. People become depressed because they have difficulties in their lives, not because they are attacked by some depression monster that can be killed with so-called antidepressants, like antibiotics that can kill bacteria.
The patients want to have normal levels of functioning and to enjoy a meaningful life.2 Yet, I have not seen a single placebo-controlled trial of depression drugs that reported on such outcomes except one, which was unethical because the drugs were abruptly withdrawn in half the patients, which harmed them substantially, as they developed abstinence symptoms.3 Patients on paroxetine reported statistically significant deterioration in functioning at work, relationships, social activities, and overall functioning. The study was sponsored by Eli Lilly, the manufacturer of fluoxetine, which has an active metabolite with a half-life of one to two weeks. Thus, little harm will be done to patients on fluoxetine during a five-day period where the drug was changed to placebo unbeknownst to the patients.”
