Posted by Larry Hoover on May 16, 2006, at 10:04:04
In reply to Re: Statistical question on SSRIs - ADDENDUM » Larry Hoover, posted by Squiggles on May 16, 2006, at 7:02:11
> > > ...........
> >
> > I have been struggling, as I read your post, to find your argument. I didn't find one. Could you please try again?
> >
> > Lar
> >
>
> It's not an argument so much; it's a point to
> the emphasis medical "science" is putting on
> statistical significance. Anecdotal "evidence" which is really no evidence at all but a number of cases outside the scope of statistical explanation, are not examined. They may be statistically insignificant but still merit causal or some kind of explanation, just like every event in the universe.
>
> SquigglesThank you. That's much clearer for me.
I would never say that anecdote is not examined. It just cannot be the basis for concluding anything. If statistical significance falls short of concluding causation (correlation is not causation), then anecdote is absolutely excluded from that consideration.
What we need to do is to conduct the proper study. I have some experience with determining what parameters would be necessary to obtain a meaningful result. I have consulted on the methodology of a number of studies. I think I have a fair comprehension of the necessary characteristics for determining just what we're looking at. Such a study would probably require hundreds of thousands of subjects. That's my best estimate.
But it is not relevant, IMHO, to even do such a study. What would it tell us? We already know what's missing from the care received by depressed people. It is management of the treatment. That's where we fall short. You can't just hand a depressed person powerful drugs, and leave him on his own.
IMHO, the problem has never been the drugs. It has always been the people who were let down by other people. We haven't taken the illness seriously enough. Don't forget, fifty years ago, nobody talked about mental illness at all. We built great buildings, and populated them with people who otherwise virtually ceased to exist. We haven't come too far from that period of great stigma. Don't kid yourself.
If there was a failing, it was that we believed the marketing agents. The salesmen. Scientists knew all along that there was nothing so special about SSRIs. But once Prozac got onto the cover of Time magazine, this false image of Happy Pills was embedded in the culture. Accountants for the drug companies thought that was a good idea, too. Money poured in. The guys on Wall St. weren't about to kill the golden goose.
We end up facing the fact that we got suckered into buying a lemon of a used car, when we thought we were getting a Mercedes at a really great price. Ya know?
I don't think blame is a good idea. If a deal looks too good to be true........
Lar
poster:Larry Hoover
thread:640557
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20060515/msgs/644679.html