Posted by linkadge on July 15, 2006, at 22:45:02
In reply to Re: couldn't have said it better myself, posted by SLS on July 15, 2006, at 7:54:01
Thanks for that link. It really helped to summarize what I have been saying.
"In fact, more than half of all recent clinical trials of commonly used antidepressants failed to show statistical superiority for the drug over placebo."
Bingo.
"This is not necessarily because of the ineffectiveness of the antidepressant, but rather because of an increased response to placebo."
Oh I see, so instead of making drugs that actually work, we'll just try and find ways to dampen the placebo effect.
"Factors that may contribute to these findings remain elusive. Using data from U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Summary Basis of Approval (SBA) reports and from studies conducted by our group, we reviewed methodological factors used in clinical trials of antidepressants."
"The 2 most notable factors affecting positive trials are (1) the inclusion of patients with more severe depression, and (2) the use of a flexible-dose design; these may yield results identifying true antidepressant-placebo differences. Severely ill patients with depression respond well to antidepressants but poorly to placebo."
Any references to support that claim?
I've heard the contrary, that severely depressed people don't respond well to either antidepressants or placebo.>Flexible dosing paradoxically reduces the >response to placebo without augmenting the >response to the antidepressant. All of these >findings suggest that the use of placebo is >mandatory when assessing new antidepressants.
Thats exactly what I have been saying. The use of placebo is "mandatory". It can absolutely bring contest to any trial.
Its easy to suggest why the drugs often do worse than placebo, but harder to actually change the outcomes.
Linkadge
poster:linkadge
thread:662854
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20060709/msgs/667416.html