|
|
The Emperor's New Drugs : Exploding The Antidepressant MythStock informationGeneral Fields
Special Fields
DescriptionEveryone knows that antidepressant drugs are miracles of modern medicine. By targeting a chemical imbalance in the brain they have restored millions of people to mental health. They are safe and effective and there is a mountain of data to prove it. When Irving Kirsch began to look at that data he knew all this as well as anyone. But, as Kirsch discovered in the course of his research, there's a problem with what everyone knows about antidepressant drugs. It isn't true. When Kirsch analysed clinical trials, he found that antidepressants are not much better than placebos - dummy pills with no active ingredients in them at all. But that was only part of the story. Many of the studies sponsored by the drug companies were never published at all. They had been withheld from the public and even from the doctors who prescribe these medications. Using the Freedom of Information Act, Kirsch obtained the data from the hidden trials and found that the difference between drug treatment and placebo is not clinically significant. Indeed it turns out that antidepressant drugs are less effective - and significantly more dangerous - than other forms of treatment. Promotion infoA journey of discovery and an expose of the pharmaceutical industry. ReviewsA beautifully written, profoundly important book that is sure to shake up the psychiatric establishment and pharmaceutical industry. Many readers will be excited, and probably disturbed, by this brilliant and shocking expose of the lack of efficacy and dangers of the most popular antidepressant medications. The author also reveals the astonishing lack of evidence for the widely believed but poorly validated theory that depression and anxiety result from a chemical imbalance in the brain. This book is long overdue and I hope that people will pay attention. Kudos to Dr. Kirsch! Irving Kirsch brilliantly documents a grim scandal of regulatory and clinical failures concerning antidepressants but also holds out hope in one of the most profound meditations for 50 years on the nature and role of the placebo effect in clinical care A terrific account of how optimism, greed and scientific incompetence have misled us about the nature of depression and the drugs we throw at it Author descriptionIrving Kirsch is professor of psychology at the University of Hull. He has published eight books and numerous scientific articles on placebo effects, antidepressant medication, hypnosis, and suggestion. His work has appeared in Science, Science News, New Scientist, New York Times, Newsweek, and BBC Focus and many other leading magazines, newspapers, and television documentaries. |