Anti-depressants Have a Downer Day by 6ixStringJack

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Anti-depressants Have a Downer Day

POSTED BY: 6IXSTRINGJACK
UPDATED: Thursday, February 28, 2008 17:51
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Friday, January 18, 2008 12:36 AM

I really got a kick out of that line in the msn.com Money's article about yesterday's great performance for the stock market titled "Dow Plunges 307 as Economic Fears Grow"

http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Investing/Dispatch/080117markets.
aspx

All in all I found it a pretty good read, but I figured I'd post the interesting subject of buried studies which had recently come to light and did their part to make yesterday even more painful for Wall Street. Enjoy!

Antidepressants may not work

The effects of popular antidepressant medications may be in question, according to The Wall Street Journal.

A number of studies showing that drugs like Wyeth's (WYE, news, msgs) Effexor and Pfizer's (PFE, news, msgs) Zoloft may not have any effect at all on patients were submitted to the Food and Drug Administration by big drug makers but never published, the paper reported.

That left doctors to rely on the published stories, many of which found that antidepressants helped treat patients with depression. Shares of Wyeth fell were down 4.3% to $44.17. Pfizer was down 1.9% to $22.96.

[INSERT: Don't nobody do no crying for Pfizer. They'll be a-okay after this because their boner pills work great.... trust me

]

The FDA received 74 studies involving 12 antidepressant drugs from 1987 to 2004; all but one of the 38 that were deemed positive were then published. The remaining 36 studies showed negative or questionable results, the paper reported, and 22 of them weren't published.

"There is a view that these drugs are effective all the time," Dr. Erick Turner, psychiatrist at Oregon Health and Science University told The Journal. "I would say they only work 40% to 50% of the time, and they would say, 'What are you talking about? I have never seen a negative study.'"

Sales of antidepressant drugs bring in about $21 billion each year, the report added, citing IMS Health.

Wow! $21 billion a year! Seems as good a reason to bury negative studies to me. I know I'd be pissed off at the whistleblowers today if I had a large stake in Wyeth.

"A government is a body of people, usually notably ungoverned." http://www.myspace.com/6ixstringjack

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Thursday, February 28, 2008 5:51 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK

http://www.hull.ac.uk/news/feb08/antidepressants.html

Maybe it's a downer year for antidepressants?

Hey, hey... don't blame me. It's British science folk saying it this time.

"A government is a body of people, usually notably ungoverned." http://www.myspace.com/6ixstringjack

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