This one is blowing up big. Reuters is now carrying the story. One version of it, on AOL, says, "Data on Antidepressants Often Shelved".
In the story, the statistics are incredible. "Nearly a third of antidepressant drugs studies are never published in the medical literature and nearly all happen to show that the drug being tested did not work..." according to the story.
Of 74 studies for 12 antidepressant drugs, 38 produced positive results. All but one of these were published. But only 3 of the 36 studies with negative or questionable results, as assessed by the FDA, were published, and another 11 were written as if the drug had worked when in fact the results of the studies were negative.
Making this data broadly public is a vital step in the right direction. Those of us who have been involved in this movement for a long time already knew this, but not enough people were aware of it. Legislators who want to have the government pay for psychiatric drugs don't know it, for instance.
It's time for a system overhaul.
Thursday, January 17, 2008
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