Posted by ZyprexaNumbTongue on September 6, 2002, at 14:37:39
In reply to Sharing info a little at a time...hmmmm..? (nm), posted by Phil on September 6, 2002, at 12:42:25
Somebody here must set the record straight and stick to the hard facts about Lexapro. Rather than using emotional claims to incite enthusiasm for this new antidepressant. Here are the hard, cold facts about Lexapro.
1) Lexapro is formally classified as an SSRI. Lexapro is not a truly new or novel antidepressant such as a CRF-Antagonist, subsance P drug, an MAOI patch or other drug.
2) Lexapro has been tweaked pharmacologically to supposedly remove some undesireable side effects like SSRI delayed ejaculation. This may...or may not be true. Only time will tell. The studies which claim this are studies done by forest labs, which should be taken with a grain of salt.
3) When reading studies about psychiatric drugs, several things must be kept in mind. First, educated people are skeptical about statistical studies. Unless the studies are done by TOTALLY objective organisations who have no conflicts of interest with the drug. In plain English, any study done abou Lexapro doesnt have a huge amount of credibility unless done by an organisation totally unconnected to Forrest Labs and is not being paid by Forrest Labs.
The U.S Census Bureau is an example of an objective organisation, with no conflicts of interest. Pharmaceutical companies however, have conflicts of interest out the wazoo and thus are unlikely to be able to remain truly objective and honest about their drugs.
Its imperative that any studies done about Lexapro, the organisation doing the study must have no conflicts of interest with Lexapro or Forest Labs. In the case of the Forest Labs/Lexapro studies, you have automatic built in conflicts of interest. Therefore, you should real these studies with EXTREME skepticism.
It should also be remembered that when the other SSRIs came out (Prozac, Paxil, Zoloft) that the studies which came along with these SSRIs also indicated low levels of sexual dysfunction such as delayed ejaculation. This was quickly proven to be untrue and sexual dysfunction has been proven to be a major reason why depressives discontinue SSRIs.
Statisics can be skewed, distorted, etc. to make a product look good or better than the competition. The odds of this happening are higher when he statistics are done by the company which makes the product in question.
4) The studies dont describe the TYPES of depressives in the Lexapro studies. All too often, antidepressant clinical trials turn away those with the severe form of depression known as the melancholia subtype (true severe depression) and actively recruit those with milder to moderate depressions (dysthmics). This is a poor way to assess the effectiveness of a new antidepressant. Id like to know how many melancholic depressives were included in Lexapro clinical trials.
My best is that most of the people who took part in Lexapro studies were dysthymics or people with moderate depression. People who by and large could still function in life without drugs, people who could still work, etc.
We need more drug clinical trials where the people recruited are those with SEVERE melancholia type major depression, not dysthymics and moderate depressives. My prediction is that many antidepressants on the market would not be approved so fast by the FDA if this were to happen.
Of course, many drug companies would love it if they could develop "cleaner" SSRIs which have no real side effects such as delayed ejacuation, weight gain, etc. Why? Because then they would be able to target the HUGE dysthymia market and sell more Lexapro. Lets face it, there is a lot of dysthymia in this country, but dysthmics can still work, function in life, etc. Drugs arent really needed to combat dysthymia. There are other ways. However the drug companies would like EVERYBODY to take these SSRI drugs, simply cause it means bigger profits. But most dysthmics wont tolerate a lot of side effects, whereas a person with severe melancholia type depression will tolerate a lot of side effects.
thus there is motivation to develop newer SSRIs which have minimal side effects...to get all the dysthymics on antidepressants. This is pathetic.
5) and finally as LostBoyinNC has pointed out, remember who "pharmrep" is. Pharmrep is a Lexapro drug salesman for Forest Labs. The more Lexapro that is sold, the bigger the profits for Forest Labs...and the better paycheck pharmrep gets. Thus he may not exactly have the depressives true welfare in mind. Like any salesman, they want to sell their wares, in this case Lexapro.
poster:ZyprexaNumbTongue
thread:109458
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20020906/msgs/119040.html