Posted by SLS on February 25, 2019, at 9:00:54
In reply to 'Real' drugs work on virtually everyone, posted by radish on February 24, 2019, at 18:11:22
Don't be fooled.
Take a look at the clinical trials of antidepressants performed in the late 1960s, 1970s and early 1980s. You will see that the results were closer to 70% drug and 30% placebo. The criteria for selecting subjects were strict and well-defined. The goal was to promote accuracy and objectivity in order to investigate how a treatment influences the course of a true mood disorder. The symptoms of the people chosen for these studies were more severe. Now, the goal of many clinical investigators is to recruit as many people as possible in order to make more money and be chosen for future studies. It is getting harder and harder to find severely ill people who are not treatment-resistant. Why run to a placebo-controlled clinical trial first when there are already a plethora of approved treatments available? People with mild and moderate depression are now being included in the pool of subjects in order to compensate for this reduction in particpation. My guess is that a large percentage of these people have a depression that is more psychogenic than biogenic. I believe that those people with a psychogenic depression are less likely to respond to a biological treatment. In addition, they are more likely to report feeling better because they are being provided emotional support and anticipate feeling better. This explains the increase in placebo effect and the decrease in drug response reported.
- ScottSome see things as they are and ask why.
I dream of things that never were and ask why not.- George Bernard Shaw
poster:SLS
thread:1103378
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20190206/msgs/1103393.html