NIMH Admits Psych Meds Effective Half the Time

It's not very often that I quote wholesale from a governmental document. The government is trying to spin us just as hard as a corporate marketer, after all. But, then, I ran into the following in a document from the National Institute of Mental Health. I'll update later, when I can figure out which of 10 documents I pinched this from. Hey, I'm off work for a couple of days, so shoot me.

Either way, it's interesting shit:

For people suffering from a mood disorder, the outlook has never been better. Effective therapies, both pharmacological and behavioral, can help them recover from potentially devastating episodes of depression or mania and prevent possible relapses. Why, then, is NIMH putting such a heavy emphasis on the development and dissemination of new therapies for mood disorders? The answer is that despite acknowledged progress, many people with depression or bipolar disorder go untreated. Despite the availability of a reasonably safe and effective therapeutic armamentarium, untreated and less-than optimally treated depression, for example, are both common and associated with profound societal costs. Only half of individuals with anxiety and depressive disorders are accurately diagnosed, and of those diagnosed, only 25 to 50 percent receive guideline-level pharmacotherapy and less than 10 percent receive evidence-based psychotherapeutic treatments. Even when they do receive treatment, only slightly more than half of all of them respond well to therapy, defined as experiencing a 50 percent or greater reduction from baseline symptom severity. If complete symptom remission or restoration of function is the outcome, then the proportion is even lower.

I am pleased to hear this kind of honesty from NIMH. It's also nice to see them confirm what I've been saying for a few years, as well as hearing from sources within the psych and social work community: Meds work for mental health patients about 50 percent of the time--and "works" in this instance is only measured as only making you feel half as fucked up. That's a staggering admission, given that many of us spend a few thousand dollars a year on anti-depressants, mood stabilizers and antipsychotics and, frankly, have little choice but to do so. It's staggering, too, because federal regulators don't require Pharma companies to be honest about this truth anywhere in their marketing. And chances aren't too good that of any of us will get our docs to admit that half-performance is the norm. Even advocacy groups will rarely cop to this in public or print. I'll get into why this is the case some other post.

For now, I simply say, we want something else.