Up to a fifth of patients on SSRI antidepressants do worse than with placebo. There is no way to tell who will do worse. It is interesting that no comparison was made with exercise and no credit was given to placebo in this big pharma sponsored study published in Archives of Psychiatry in December of 2011. Little mention was made of the side effects such as GI symptoms, fatigue, insomnia, suicidal thoughts and even suicide, impotence, seizures, osteoporosis, liver toxicity and much more.
To us it seems far more reasonable to use placebo because the largest collection of clinical trials showed that these drugs are no more effective than placebo, but they have terrible side effects. Another good choice would be an exercise program for depressed people because it is more powerful than either the drugs or placebo. Wow does Big Pharma have a great advertising and promotional team!
