Posted by Klavot on February 22, 2007, at 18:27:26
In reply to Re: Some ruminations on AD efficacy, posted by bassman on February 22, 2007, at 17:08:29
My suggestion was measuring polypharmacology against placebo. STAR*D did not contain a placebo arm and made only partial use of polypharmacology.
The author of the linked article makes the mistake of extrapolating data from other AD trials to the STAR*D study, for example he states:
"And again, it is known from other antidepressant studies that had there had been a placebo control in stage two, the control would likely have done as well or better than STAR*D results."
My argument is precisely that a trial involving polypharmacology might yield substantially higher remission rates for the active treatment arm than traditional studies employing only monopharmacology.
The article is also full of ad hominem attacks on researchers which have financial ties to drug companies. One cannot simply discount research data as being biased from the fact that the researcher has previously received payments from the company concerned for services rendered.
Klavot
> The STAR*D study did exactly that-add a second psychotropic agent if the first drug (Celexa) didn't help. It also had arms where there was a simple change of AD. For a particularly critical review of the study, see:
>
> http://www.mindfreedom.org/know/psychiatric-drugs/anti-depressants/stard-d-wars-study-failure-on-antidepressants/
poster:Klavot
thread:735061
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20070219/msgs/735178.html