Posted by blueboy on July 19, 2008, at 8:25:48
In reply to Re: Want to stop meds ... should I? » blueboy, posted by linkadge on July 18, 2008, at 15:37:54
> I don't think AD medication has made any significant drop in suicide rates. According to the following U.S. data, suicide rates have been steadily increasing since 1979 (and earlier). The increase peaked in the late 80's early 90's and has remained fairly constant since. If there has been a small drop in recent years, it is indeed a *very small* reduction, and certainly not a reduction to the levels of before 1979. I.e. if you look at the whole picture, there is nothing to suggest that antidepressant medication is at all responsable for the relatively miniscule drop in overal U.S. suicide rates.
>
> Take a look for yourself. Let me know if you have any data for a larger study period.
>I'll just go with a quote from my previous link, since it's from a major research facility.
<<"Suicide rates rose steadily from 1960 to 1988 when Prozac, the first SSRI drug, was introduced," said Licinio. "Since then, suicide rates have dropped precipitously, sliding from the 8th to the 11th leading cause of death in the United States."
Several large-scale studies in the United States and Europe also screened blood samples from suicide victims and found no association between antidepressant use and suicide.
"Researchers found blood antidepressant levels in less than 20 percent of suicide cases," said Licinio. "This implies that the vast majority of suicide victims never received treatment for their depression.">>
I'm not in a position to do the research to join a long debate about whether or not SSRI's have lowered the suicide rate. Even if they have dropped or risen "precipitously", so many health researchers have such a blind eye to regression analyses that I doubt anyone has proven a causal relationship. Or the lack of one.
I have really been shocked, since I've started looking at "medical research" in two fields: nutrition/general health and psychiatric treatment.
At the bottom of the barrel you have publications such as "Prevention", who immediately consider a causal relationship proven when any research claims to have found a coincidental relationship.
Sharing the "F-" status is the entire psychiatric profession, which continues to give ECT -- a profoundly dangerous and invasive procedure -- to 50,000 people per year just in the US. This has been going on for over 50 years, and yet, nobody has done even the most rudimentary study of effectiveness and side effects, despite anecdotal evidence of profound mental damage to patients.
The answer to the question, "Have SSRI's resulted in a statistically significant decrease (or increase) in suicide rates" is the same as many questions in psychiatry, which could be answered by adequate research: "I don't know and nobody has bothered to find out".
poster:blueboy
thread:840049
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20080718/msgs/840726.html