Mind-numbing

An independent study shows that anti-depressant drugs are useless in the vast majority of the cases where they are prescribed. This is destined to be a finding soon to be forgotten, or buried, considering the power of the drug companies, one of the largest, if not the largest, lobbying groups in the nation. Except in the cases of the severely depressed, who are by far the minority of the patients on the meds, the drugs have been shown to be no more effective in the treatment of depression than placebos, prescribed in conjunction with the medical visits to the prescribing physician and staff who interact with the patients on a regular basis. A psychiatrist, who not incidentally is employed as a consultant by a pharmaceutical company, was confronted with the findings of the new study. Even he finds that only 14% of the non-severely depressed benefit from taking anti-depressants. He acknowledges the other 86% most likely receive no benefit. He bases that percentage on the case studies that were conducted, even though when evaluating the case studies, only the results that supported the 14% effectiveness rate were included; the results from the case studies that did not support the case for the effectiveness of anti-depressant drugs were discarded. Children, teens, and some adults tend to use the word depressed to describe sadness, disappointment, boredom, fatigue, loneliness. Pharmaceutical companies don't care; they want to turn a profit, so they create and perpetuate the illusion that life should be a carefree journey through a flower-strewn field with an abundance of fluttering butterflies. To block out the annoyances of sadness and losses which inevitably accompany the joy and accomplishments of life, they would have you take a pill to deaden the impact. Seems so wrong, doesn't it?