Originally Posted by Rough translation of the link above
London, Feb 26 (EFE) - The new generation antidepressives doesnt work, except in graver cases, and in most patients it only have placebo effect.
This is the conclusion of a research made by scientists from UK, USA and Canada which examinated all the existing data about this kind of substances, even the clinical tests which the labs didnt divulge.
The manufacturers of Prozac and Seroxat, two of the worlds most sold antidepressives, showed, however, their disagreement with the results of this study.
One spokesman of the english lab GlaxoSmithKline, which manufactures the Seroxat, said to the press that the study has taken in account only a small segment of all available data, while the Eli Lilly, manufacturer of Prozac, said that the experience has showed its efficacy as antidepressant.
The scientists compared the effect in the patients which took antidepressants with the results obtained by who took placebo and discovered that the results were very much alike in the two groups.
The only exceptions were patients who suffered of graver depressions, explains professor Irving Kirsch, from the Psychology department of the University of Hull (England), which participated of the research.
However, it may have happened, according the scientists, because in this graver patients the placebo didnt work as well as in the ones which did took the medicine, and not because the antidepressants had any greater efect.
"Given the results, it seems there is not reasons to prescribe antidepressants, except to the patients who suffer of graver depresions and to the ones in who another methods failed", said Kirsch.
According him, people who suffers of depression "may recover without need of this kind of treatment".
For this research, published in the specialized publication "Public Library of Science", it were used the results of 47 clinical tests, and a series of inedit data due the brittanic legislation about freedom of information.
The conclusions of this research are valid to Prozac (fluoxetine), Seroxat (paroxetine), and similar substances as Effexor (venlafaxine) and Serzone (nefazodone).
According Tim Kendall, adjoint director of the Research division of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, the labs usually only publish the researches which shows thier products under a good light.
The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence, from UK, advise the doctors to try another methods before to prescribe antidepressants.
Since its launching in USA in 1988, about 40 million persons did use the Prozac, givin billions of dollars to the lab Eli Lilly.
Even if its pattent has fallen in 2001, the active principle of Prozac, the fluoxetine, still gives money to this lab, as the same substance is also ingredient of Sarafem, a pill for PMS. EFE jr/wb/fb.
