The <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/">Washington Post</a> published <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A42930-2002May6.html">Against Depression, a Sugar Pill Is Hard to Beat</a> recently, covering an <iq>...analysis [of] the majority of trials conducted by drug companies in recent decades...</iq>. It seems positive thinking, or believing that you're taking a pill to make you feel better, is more likely to cure your depression than actually taking an anti-depressant, many of which have terrible side-effects. <bq>... new research suggests that the placebo may play an extraordinary role in the treatment of depression --- where how people feel spells the difference between sickness and health. ... The new research may shed light on findings such as those from a trial last month that compared the herbal remedy St. John's wort against Zoloft. St. John's wort fully cured 24 percent of the depressed people who received it, and Zoloft cured 25 percent --- but the placebo fully cured 32 percent.</bq> This is obviously not to say that the drugs don't work. But, their efficacy has been drastically overrated by an enormous pharmaceutical industry intent on continued profits and growth. In order to be approved by the FDA, a drug must pass two clinical trials that shows its benefit. <bq>Khan said the makers of Prozac had to run five trials to obtain two that were positive, and the makers of Paxil and Zoloft had to run even more. He analyzed trials that were made public in the medical literature, which tend to show positive results, and those that were not.</bq> The biggest problem is that the drugs, a group called SSRIs (selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitors), are known to address symptoms of depression, but not to 'cure' depression itself. The drugs simply control the flow of serotonin to the brain, which is known to affect mood, usually positively. The actual psychological cause of the depression is in no way addressed. In fact: <bq>Patients with similar symptoms ... may have different problems with their brain chemistry. Scientists don't understand the neural mechanisms of depression --- or why medicines like Prozac and Paxil work.</bq> Sometimes, the drugs seem to have the opposite effect. On <a href="http://prozacspotlight.org">Prozac Spotlight</a> (from <a href="http://www.adbusters.org">AdBusters</a>), there are several articles and exhibits about anti-depressants and the corporations that peddle them. <a href="http://prozacspotlight.org/lilly/">The Lilly Suicides</a> is the story of the lengths Eli Lilly, maker of Prozac went to in order to maintain a perfect record of no lost court cases. This, despite repeated studies by prominent researchers that showed a rise in the level of suicide among those taking Prozac: <bq>All described their distress [while on Prozac] as an intense and novel somatic-emotional state; all reported an urge to pace that paralleled the intensity of the distress; all experienced suicidal thoughts at the peak of their restless agitation; and all experienced a remission of their agitation, restlessness, pacing urge, and suicidality after the fluoxetine [Prozac] was discontinued.</bq> Eli Lilly and other pharmaceutical corporations have shown they are willing to go to lengths to defend their profits that are reminiscent of Big Tobacco. <a href="http://prozacspotlight.org/eagle/1.html">I Am An Eagle</a> is one lawyer's tale of the state of "involuntary admission" (in Toronto, at least), which is used to admit people who are deemed dangerous to themselves or society. <bq>More people than you think are hospitalized in this manner. A person is brought in and, after being questioned by a physician, is told that he will be held in hospital as an involuntary patient. He no longer has the right to leave. He is "certifiable." ... Mental health laws worldwide use the justification of people's "best interests" to deprive law-abiding citizens of their rights and freedoms, but as the court declared in one landmark case, "History has shown that the road to injustice is frequently lit with the light of good intention.</bq> And finally, the <a href="http://prozacspotlight.org/madpride/1.html">Universal Declaration of Mental Rights and Freedoms</a>: <bq>We hold this truth ... That all human beings are created different.That every human being has the right to be mentally free and independent. ... That every human being has the right to feel, see, hear, sense, imagine, believe or experience anything at all, in any way, at any time. ... That every human being has the right to behave in any way that does not harm others or break fair and just laws. ... That no human being shall be subjected without consent to incarceration, restraint, punishment, or psychological or medical intervention in an attempt to control, repress or alter the individual's thoughts, feelings or experiences.</bq>