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Re: Interesting article? What do you think?

Posted by bulldog2 on May 10, 2010, at 8:39:16

In reply to Re: Interesting article? What do you think?, posted by SLS on May 10, 2010, at 8:04:23

> Hi.
>
> > For those of you not familiar with, he started out believing in the miracle of psych meds as a journalist but when he started doing research, he felt the statistics didn't back up the story being told.
>
> Do you know whether or not he suffered from depression? Had he been personally disappointed when taking antidepressant drugs?
>
> Claiming knowledge of statistics doesn't guarantee their validity. I have seen statistics indicating that the response rate of antidepressants is significantly greater than 15%. This is especially true when one includes those people who are allowed to try more than one drug, either sequentially or in combination. Under these conditions, I have seen the response rate reported as being between 75-85%, and remission rates of 60%. Interestingly, the rate of response to placebo has increased rapidly over the years. This has reduced the apparent margin of statistical superiority of drugs. My guess is that this is an artifact of the use of less rigorous screening for major depressive disorder (MDD) and the inclusion of more people who don't suffer from it. (Clinical investigators are payed based on the number of subjects enrolled). One way or another, this trend must be accounted for if statistics are to be of any value. It is significant that when working with inpatients or people with more severe depressions, the placebo response rate plunges. Another guess of mine is that this occurs because a greater percentage of subjects actually have the illness being investigated.
>
>
> - Scott

People with agendas can always find studies to back their claims and or put together a study that will prove their claims.
Very interesting as by just manipulating placebo repsonse you can conventiently subtract their numbers from the AD side. Personally I am often amazed when looking at the double blind studies at how high the placebo recovery rate is. Maybe followers of Mercola's diet and exercise protocol?

 

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URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20100504/msgs/946970.html