I can promise you it's not only Paxil, although admittedly that's the worst, that's dangerous to take during pregnancy. I am horrified that this is being presented as an acceptable treatment on the show. I'm already feeling queasy at the prospect of watching this -- for 90 minutes!! Jane Pauley is almost certainly someone who has antidepressant-induced bipolar so if she's a principle spokesperson, that right there tells us a lot. It's discouraging. And in my view this is another example of ignorant (or medicated) producers coming to a subject and falling under the thrall of the system in no time and never looking beyond it.

Apparently, one woman who will appear and who suffered from postpartum depression after her first child was born is now pregnant with a second child and is taking an anti-depressant. ... advance news that electroshock and pregnant women taking anti-depressants will be in the mix sure send shivers up my spine.

You have me scared to watch the show now.

"I say it's said to be the most effective because no pharmaceutical company has ever had the courage to do a study comparing an antidepressant treatment with ECT."

-Charles Nemeroff, one with the most conflicts of interest of all KOL's. The guy owns the patent for a Lithium patch, what's he up to? and since when do drug companies have courage? maybe HE hasn't been funded by one yet, and is making a little dig there.
--
Hell, people. Women on meds during pregnancy...everyone knows the phrase "crack babies" right? it's no different! It's actually worse, because it's doctor approved and it is not safe at all, even the fine print on these drugs say they weren't tested in humans pregnant.

I'm just a mom of 3, and let me say I didn't even touch caffeine, let alone a drug of any sort, not even pain killers for childbirth! I'm biased!

Drug companies fund NAMI, NAMI sponsors the show, so it's no surprise that in radio promos they describe depression as a "brain disease." On the show's website, 'Dr.' Myrna Weissman asserts: "Now, depression is a biological disorder... You might think about depression a little bit like you think about diabetes... diabetes is a complex genetic disorder."

Sounds awfully light on the P and heavy on the BS.

I doubt very much I'll be able to tolerate it. I'll give it a shot...

I did manage to get through the Frontline on medicated children, but couldn't make it through Oprah on bipolar.

we'll see.

Thanks Phil! As for the Hartford reviewer who noted the eerie similarity between the previews and the latest Cymbalta commercial... probably the same PR agencies as Eli Lilly uses.

There should be lots of opportunity to respond to this show. The YMCA has signed on as a "community partner" and may actually host discussion groups in some locations. Someone at MindFreedom is putting out an alert to members: watch this show in your area and respond as needed.

I had just checked what was on tonight to see whether I wanted to watch TV and saw that it was airing tonight. I intend to watch it, we'll see whether I can manage to watch the whole thing. When I clicked on your link to verify where/when it was airing (after I entered my zip code and then also clicked on the show's title) I noticed something in the upper right screen that said "Did you know that depression isn't just "all in your head?"". My curiousity of course compelled me to click on that and I got a pop-up window with some "Take One Step PBS health Campaign" statement in it. The very first sentence in their paragraph stated the following:

Recent scientific research has IRREFUTABLE EVIDENCE that depression is a medical illness. (emphasis mine)

REALLY?!? Have I been sleeping for too long? Have I not been paying attention? Can someone tell me what this irrefutable evidence is? I DO believe depression is real (I've been struggling with it since about age 13 and diagnosed BP at age 34. But as far as I was aware there was no scientifically irrefutable way of PROVING that someone was depressed. Am I way off the mark here?

Well, I watched the show and although it had some good points, overall the LIE about the rise in suicide among youth after the Black Box warning on antidepressants just made me want to weep. How can these people be so evil?

www.SSRIstories has the four articles showing the INCREASE in antidepressant use among youth straight through 2004 and the one article showing the decrease in antidepressant use among youth in 2005 which also showed a decrease in suicides. Every newspaper in the country printed the LIE and when the retraction was finally made there were only 3 newspapers that printed the correct data. These 3 newspapers were the New York Times, the Boston Globe and the Philadelphia Inquirer. Associated Press, UPI, etc., none of these newspapers printed the correct data. This is so evil and now here is this PBS show with the wrong data too.

I was a little surprised that the show discussed the dangers of giving antidepressants to bipolar patients. One doctor even called it "catastrophic".

Another surprise was the case of the young man who chose to not take meds and who did talk therapy and social support. He recovered.

The most interesting comment was made by the man who said the antidepressants made his anxiety "go through the roof".

Andrew Solomon gave his story and I had already read his book. He neglected to mention on this PBS show that when he first started treatment with an antidepressant, Zoloft, he decided to kill himself by giving himself AIDS. So, even though he was heterosexual, he had homosexual contact for about 6 to 8 months. Obviously, he didn't get AIDS but what is this saying about the bizarre & dangerous behavior that these SSRIs can cause. Anyway, he was finally diagnosed as bipolar in the book but he doesn't mention that on the PBS show. He only says he takes Zyprexa and three antidepressants plus 2 Omega 3 capsules a day.

Of course, NAMI was mentioned by Jane Pauley [I still wonder if she is really bipolar - she recevied this diagnosis after going nuts on an antidepressant that she was given when she became depressed on a steroid given to her for a rash] and we all know who NAMI is. They are Pharma.

I was surprised, though, that they mentioned exercise and support groups for depressed people. Seems they saw many treatments were valuable and said that depression is multi-faceted and requires different treatments for different people.

As for the ECT and the brain stimulation, I feel that I don't know enough about this subject to comment on it.

There was one interesting case of a boy who took antidepressants and then started cutting himself but PBS didn't show the connection. Sad.

The postpartum case was evil too. What can a person say about it except to generalize.

Anyway, it was a mixed bag except for the big LIE. That just broke my heart.

All in all, it will help Pharma and the APA, no doubt about that.

Ugh, they even used the animation of drugs blocking neurotransmitter re-uptake in a synapse that looks like an out-take of an 'SSRI' DTC commercial...

I guess my chemical imbalance must be acting up again, because after hearing 90 minutes of those pompous douche-bags repeating the lie that there is proof that "depression is a biological disease," I'm feeling kind of down. Of corse I expected that it would be basically a bio-psych informercial, but they even go so far as to claim that untreated depression can cause brain shrinkage and 'antidepressant' drugs reverse brain cell death. That's the only claim they admit is a controversial not-yet-proven theory, but of corse we don't actually hear from anyone questioning it. There is no suggestion anywhere in the program that any of the other claims are at all contentious; they're just presented as being the product of the objective, dispassionate, scientific progress.

Rather than stay up all night picking the show apart, I'd like to raise one question for other viewers: do you think that the vignette about Jiwe Morris, who joined the Bloods gang at the age of 11, implies that his depression caused his violent actions?