Comments on: How the powerful placebo effect works
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- Again Leslie Stahl is guilty of irresponsible reporting, just like her story on Facebook. I did not see one representative for those of us that suffer from mental illness. How hard would it have been to get some one from NAMI (National Alliance for the Mentally Ill)? This story showed a complete lack of understanding of the stereo typing and stigma those of us with mental illness battle EVERY DAY. Yes, I would agree that anti-depressents are over prescribed. There were 100 other ways this story could have been handled. Like the lack of effective psych care which creates the over dependence on medication solutions.
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- Really, people here who have commented on this subject who have not suffered from real depression, have absolutely nothing valuable to add to this topic. Something else that needs to be emphasized here is that these scientists who have the placebo work are saying that antidepressants do not work for people who have mild or moderate depression. Which is really just another way of saying that antidepressants do not work for people who do not suffer from depression. They admit this but they do not make this clear. They admit that antidepressants do in fact work for people with Major depression. These are the the people who have a physiological problem and not just some temporary blues from a failed relationship or lost job etc...
But I want to be clear about something. First of all, if you are a person who thinks that depression is just something that you can snap out of by jogging, vitamins, and some talk therapy, then you are ignorant. You do not have the slightest clue as to what you are talking about.
A person who suffers from real depression will go through periods where it is physically difficult to even move an arm, or to walk. And it is difficult just to form a thought in a normal way. Imagine something for a minute. Imagine that the worst tragedy has just occurred in your life. Your husband or wife or child was just murdered or killed in a car accident. Just imagine the devastation. Now just imagine that you feel this kind of devastation in your day to day life with nothing happening to create it. It just is. You feel this way but nothing has happened. I could go on and on in more detail but I won't here.
Now just imagine this. You suffer from real depression, as I have described, and not just some situational blues. And you try Prozac for the first time. And within 3 to 4 weeks your brain starts waking up. You feel alive and awake. You feel joy of being alive. It is literally like waking up from a nightmare. The effects are so profound that it is impossible to truly describe. And you continue to see improvements as the weeks go by. This is what many people who have suffered from real depression have experienced. One of the most common comments that I have heard from people who suffer from real depression who have found an antidepressant that works is..."I didn't realize how depressed I actually was". People make these comments because you just get so use to feeling the way that you do that you don't realize how abnormal it is.
So I am not here just to express an opinion, but rather to state a fact. Antidepressants can be an absolute "Godsend", nothing short of a miracle, for a person who suffers from real depression. And any researcher who denies this is a quack.. a fraud. Or just out to make a name for himself and get some recognition for some piece of research. But by not clearly stating the facts, he does a great disservice to his profession, and an even greater disservice to those who suffer from a mental illness. I don't think that this guy is being clear enough. Most people are going to see this show and only hear that antidepressants don't work, period, and that depression is just all in your head....something that you can just wish away with a sugar pill. Well, this may be true of the situational blues that most people will go through from time to time. But this is not true of real depression. And again, this is not just an opinion. This is a well known fact that any professional should not be confused about. Chuck - Reply to this comment
- More information about the Harvard-wide program in placebo studies can be found here: www.programinplacebostudies.org
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- "I feel that your story added to the stigma of mental health issues:
And I feel there is none, I part company with people assigning "stigmas." It is an act of cowardice.
What are my experiences with having depression and seeking treatment? I have been abused, I have been ignored, and I have been helped. It all depends on where one turns.
Research on depression, all mental illnesses, is nowhere as advanced as research on most physical illnesses. From that we all suffer.
Harold A. Maio, retired mental health editor - Reply to this comment
- My concern with the telecast is that persons who are on an antidepressant may think it's okay to just discontinue taking them since they are no better than a placebo. Leslie said at the end of the piece not to quit taking them without talking to a person's doctor, but I wonder how many folks will not pay attention to this part and just cold turkey and pay the consequences. There are huge side effects to these awful drugs, and if one cold turkeys, suicide could seem like the only answer very quickly. Someone might die. I am having to taper very very slowly to get off the quack of a drug I am taking. Over the last ten years, it has turned me into a cranky, short-tempered zombie. I am only halfway tapered off of it, and I already have a vast improvement in my temperment and outlook on life. I feel the story needed to say much more about the horrid side effects of antidepressants and the way Big Pharma pushes them as a cure for more and more issues. They're only looking to make more BILLIONS, and they get their reps to off-label market them. Just read any whistle blower books on the pharmaceutical industry. They're not concerned for our health, just in making more dollars. My biggest fear is that folks will cold turkey and hurt themselves.
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- Antidepressants are prescribed far too often to young adults, as well as other age groups, as a primary solution to coping with life's ups and downs. Primary care doctor's need to explore prescribing healthier alternative lifestyles which include exercise, diet and talk therapy. I believe the side effects of Antidepressants can be devastating on the human body for the short and long term. Antidepressants should be the the last resort.
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- For some reason my previous comments either haven't appeared yet or aren't going to. I'll post this updated comment one last time just and hope that my other ones don't pop up later.
I think an even much more important issue is that raised by Robert Whitaker in his books Mad in America and Anatomy of An Epidemic. Impeccably researched, his books tell of an epidemic of drug-induced mental illness -- including a four-fold rise in people on government disability for mentally illness in the last 30 years -- due to the brain damaging effects of these drugs and how multiple long term studies show that severely mentally ill patients, notably schizophrenics, do better off neuroleptic "antipsychotic" drugs than the patients who are on them. Considering that many people diagnosed with schizophrenia are forced to take them either by family or court order, I think that should be the most important issue for the media to be investigating.
I'm actually surprised that he wasn't featured here instead of Kirsch. After all, it was Whitaker who made Kirschs work known. That and both of Whitaker's books have received lots of awards, including being named the most important psychiatric book of the 20th century by The Journal of America Physicians and Surgeons and the Investigative Reporters and Editors award for best investigative journalism in 2010. It really should have been Whitaker on 60 minutes. He is the upmost authority on what's wrong with psychiatry and it's drugs today. - Reply to this comment
- Finally, science is getting it. Our thoughts are what drives us. If we believe we'll get well, we will. If believe we won't get well, we won't. Plain and simple.
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- So as long as I believe antidepressants work, a sugar pill will do just as good or better. So if you give me a sugar pill and I believe it will work because I believe antidepressants work - its works. So 60 Minutes showed all these people saying antidepressants don't really do anything at all to help with depression.... where does that leave me?
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- I don't like to take pills and wait until I've been in pain for days before taking a pill. When I finally take a pill, I think to myself this is going to help and before I even swallow the pill the pain goes away. I've often wished I could buy Placebo pills because obviously it would work as well as the pill I'm taking without the possibility of side affects.
SO WHERE CAN I GET PLACEBO PILLS - think of all the lives that could be saved with placebos, i.e., Michael Jackson, Whitney Houston and on, and on, and on. - Reply to this comment
