Posted by Fred23 on January 11, 2009, at 14:11:37 [reposted on January 13, 2009, at 3:41:27 | original URL]
In reply to Seriously What's Happened To Meds Board????, posted by Phillipa on January 7, 2009, at 12:54:07
I've read several books over the last few months, after having begun actually taking an SSRI, and wonder if people here know such "basics" as (off the top of my head, rather than a thorough review of what I've learned):
1. Most/many drug studies submitted to the FDA are biased, often having been done by those with financial ties to the drug maker.
2. Most/many so-called research papers are ghost-written for the drug companies.
3. For FDA approval, new drugs don't have to be better than old drugs, just 51% better than a placebo.
4. Most/many new drugs are "me-too" re-hashes of older drugs that the company just wants to extend the patent on. (E.g., Prilosec vs. Nexium.)
5. Legitimate studies show that SSRIs don't have a very high rate of actually working.
6. Science doesn't actually know *why* SSRIs do work, when they are successful.
7. Doctors get most of their "education" via drug salespeople.
8. Doctors aren't trained in statistics enough to be able to interpret even real studies.
So, there is very little *real* info for doctors or patients to go by for what the drugs actually do.
So a board like this is the ideal place for that type of info to be discussed.
poster:Fred23
thread:873680
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20090104/msgs/873682.html