January 18, 2008

Fox News On Pharma Hiding Anti-Depressant Data

Fox News' Douglas Kennedy, who's been the lone national TV reporter going after the lies around SSRIs and other anti-depressants for several years, reports on yesterday's New England Journal of Medicine study reporting that pharma companies routinely left unpublished negative studies of SSRI efficacy, or twisted them into more positive studies. The effect was to boost the overall efficacy or effects sizes of the drugs artificially when their positive value against a placebo was on the order of 20 percent. I congratulate Kennedy and Fox News for staying on this story.

Posted by Philip Dawdy at January 18, 2008 12:01 AM
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Comments

So Fox News is good for something after all!

Posted by: Masale.Wallah at January 17, 2008 08:47 PM

Key phrases: "going after" and "for several years"

I hope he (Kennedy)and FOX NEWS do not let this rest for a long time.

Posted by: d at January 17, 2008 10:21 PM

Yesterday I posted links to the NYTimes and WSJ articles to my literary discussion group mailing list. I got three responses, one a paranoid, angry post from someone I didn't know took ssri's about how I know nothing about his life. This guy read WSJ article and thought it said the drugs were effective 40% to 50% of the time. The second was from a teacher, pregnant with her second child, who thinks taking these drugs makes her a better parent (scary) and that, while students psych histories should be disclosed, teachers' shouldn't. The third was a bizarre tale of a man who, diagnosed with schizophrenia in his youth, stop taking psych meds 20 years ago, seemed "normal," and then was recently diagnosed with colon cancer which caused his psychotic symptoms to return. You guessed it, he had to be forcibly committed and medicated so he could then be forced to get the lifesaving treatment for colon cancer. The bizarro message, if you oppose SSRI's, you want poor mentally ill to die of colon cancer.

This is a hard fight to fight. Fox, especially Kennedy, should be commended.

Posted by: Sally at January 18, 2008 05:23 AM

Pharma support is really a weird issue that doesn't fall into the usual political lines. For example, I've noticed conservative circles far more critical of diagnoses for certian mental health disorders (particulary ADHD) and the use of drugs for treatment. But this contradicts the usual support for business interests.

On the other hand, I've noticed liberal support for mental health diagnoses and treatment through drugs because of a broader interest in public health (look at some of the Daily Kos comments). But they are usually more skeptical of corporations.

Posted by: Mark at January 18, 2008 12:30 PM
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