Video: A psychiatrist who worked at FDA talks about drugs for depression

[daley]

A really interesting video.
He has criticisms about how clinical trials are performed,
and what it means for a drug to be "effective" for depression.
But the criticism is nuanced, and he is not dismissing drugs at all.

In a nutshell, drugs do not "cure" depression, rather the drugs have specific
effects which may alleviate symptoms of depression. The clinical trials drug
manufactures are required to do, only address whether the drug is "effective" for
treating a particular illness. However, it would be more useful for psychiatrists and
patients to know what the actual effects the drugs will provide, and the duration
of time they are expected to be effective before patients get used to them.

 

[Leiot]

Yeah, all they do is kick you towards a point where other stuff can help.

 

[notreallybored]

ב''ה,
The "forced swim test" used in early phase drug discovery (though occasionally research is now being done for functional intuition or on the drugs people like to use on their own) may only increase anyone's nihilism.

Medicine doesn't solve food or housing or make people care about each other, though, aside from the use of MDMA to simulate that in business recruitment networking.

 

[Jack_Nimble]

Thank you very much for this post. I've always heard anti-depressants only slightly out perform placebos in studies. It's nice to hear someone who's been in the system in multiple ways explain it.