It is so good to hear that no children were harmed by using placebo.

The following is an article [partial] about a woman who recovered from a THIRTY [30] year depression while taking a placebo during a clinical trial. Kind of blows the mind!!

http://www.ssristories.com/show.php?item=2055

This article reads: "And by the end of the study, Schonfeld seemed to be yet another person who owed a nearly miraculous recovery to the new generation of antidepressants -- in this case, venlafaxine, better known as Effexor.
But during her final visit to the institute, one of the doctors directing the research sat her down to deliver some disturbing news. "He told me I hadn't been taking a medicine at all. I'd been on a placebo. I was totally shocked."

http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2003/11/ma_565_01.html

Is it Prozac? Or Placebo?
New research suggests that the miracles promised by antidepressants may be largely due to the placebo effect. Too bad there's no money to be made in sugar pills.
By Gary Greenberg
November/December 2003 Issue

Janis Schonfeld recalls the events that started her on her recovery from 30 years of depression with snapshot clarity: the newspaper ad she saw in 1997 seeking subjects for an antidepressant study; the chair she was sitting in when she called UCLA's Neuropsychiatric Institute; the window she was looking out of when she first spoke with Michelle Abrams, the research nurse who shepherded her through the trial. She remembers being both nervous and hopeful when she arrived at the institute, and a little uncomfortable when a technician put gel on her head, attached a nylon cap shot through with electrodes, and recorded her brain activity for 45 minutes. But most of all she remembers getting the bottle of her new pills in a brown paper bag from the hospital pharmacy. "I was so excited," she told me. "I couldn't wait to get started on them."
Within a couple of weeks, Schonfeld, then a 46-year-old interior designer, got quickly and dramatically better, able once again to care for herself and her husband and daughter, no longer so convinced of her own worthlessness that she'd consider killing herself. For the next two months, she came back weekly for more interviews and tests and EEGs. And by the end of the study, Schonfeld seemed to be yet another person who owed a nearly miraculous recovery to the new generation of antidepressants -- in this case, venlafaxine, better known as Effexor.
But during her final visit to the institute, one of the doctors directing the research sat her down to deliver some disturbing news. "He told me I hadn't been taking a medicine at all. I'd been on a placebo. I was totally shocked." So was nurse Abrams. Both women knew that half the test subjects were getting placebos and that Schonfeld might be among them. But not only was she feeling better -- she'd even experienced nausea, a side effect commonly associated with Effexor, so they had each assumed that she was in the drug group. Schonfeld was so certain of this that at first she didn't believe the doctor. "I said to him, 'Are you sure? Check those records again.'" But there was no doubt. The brown bag contained nothing but sugar pills. Which didn't mean, he was quick to add, that she was making anything up, but only that her improvement couldn't possibly be due to the pharmacological effects of the pills.

There was a paper in PLoS Medicine which investigated the difference between AD and placebo for different levels of depression (mild to severe). It was interesting that the AD's performed as poorly for mild as severe; what was more interesting was how the placebo effect was significantly diminished for the severe whereas for mild it is as good as AD. All too often, mild depression is just normal response to life issues. Given time (placebo), it clears up on its own. As you have noted, there is a rush to drug. For severe which is more likely biological in origin and potentially life threatening, waiting for it to clear may not be wise. In this case, treatment of some sort seems to be the thing to do.

I don't know whether to laugh or cry when I see medical professionals assessing the "safety of placebo" with the implicit assumption that of course the "disease" of mental illness is much more dangerous than any psychotropic treatment they might be evaluating. The whole way in which the problem is constructed makes me weep. The most dangerous piece of the puzzle by far is the pyschotropic drug that's being evaluated. That possibility seems to be far off the radar screen of all the "scientists" listed at the heading of this article. Yet evidence everywhere in clinical practice is screaming that this is in fact the case. According to Philip's summary the only worrisome events on placebo were related in some way to active treatment and that's exactly what has been obscured in so many other "placebo arms" of other trials. So often "placebo events" turn out to be nothing of the sort. They are often withdrawal events dressed up as placebo events (because there is no active treatment right at the time of the event -- it was stopped abruptly shortly before). This in turn makes the active arm look more benign than it really is because the number of "events" are closer to the placebo arm (which was really a withdrawal arm). No treatment turns out not really to be no treatment -- it's abruptly stopped treatment. This is what's dangerous -- abrupt withdrawal -- not no treatment as the fearmongers and sickness sellers would have us believe. If you were really comparing active treatment to a true absence of all medicated treatment, especially over time, you would certainly see just how dangerous and ineffective it is.

I agree with Sara. So many of these placebo clinical trial patients are actually in withdrawal from another drug. This skews the trial results in favor of the active drug and against the placebo.

I will always wonder if all these clinical trials among children actually did result in a suicide or two - contrary to what the authorities would have us believe.

I have confirmation, with all the legal papers from Solvay, that a man, with no previous criminal record, who was in a clinical trial for Luvox in 1993 [yes! the drug Eric Harris of Columbine was taking] murdered another person during the clinical trial. This fact was never made known to the public. The man was sentenced to 15 years in prison and upon early release has undoubtedly signed papers of a secret settlement type. So how many children actually committed suicide during the clinical trials? Was this kept a secret also - with a big payment involved?

SSRIs seem to still be useful in entrenched OCD not responding to cognitive behaviour therapy, or at least the pills may help the CBT get going. A very rare severe more biological depression may benefit too.

But nearly all depressed kids and teens need the right mix of psychotherapy, lifestyle changes like regular bedtime, nutritious natural food, exercise, addressing family and school issues through family therapy, parenting work, stopping bullying etc etc.

The placebo aspect raises the point that to not give a pill denies people the benefit of the placebo effect.

Luckily there is an alternative to antidepressants that does not risk agitation, apathy or dependency reactions. Fish Oil capsules - for which there is evidence of efficacy above placebo and showing people the literature can boost the placebo effect of the omega-3 capsule as well as them getting real benefit. Good for many systems in the body also.