Below are some comments from the guests and hosts that seem to be at odds with the scientific literature.

Andrew Leuchter: “In those studies where this increase[d] thoughts about suicide and agitation were noted, actually, there were no suicides - that people thought about it but they didn’t act on it.”

This is a problematic statement. For instance in 1991 Glaxo submitted an analysis and reported that there were five suicides in the drug group. People might argue about the statistical significance compared to the placebo group but at least according to the FDA and Glaxo he has misspoken. What they most likely meant to say was that there were no reported suicides in the studies looking at the use of antidepressants in children. However even this is problematic as the case of Traci Johnson shows.

Goodwin: “There is no credible scientific evidence linking antidepressants to suicide or violence.”

This is a rather flippant statement about a large body of data, and again at odds with the FDA, as presumably the FDA believes that their decision to place a box warning on the SSRIs was based on an analysis of the scientific evidence. Goodwin not might agree with the data, but according to Healy (Lines of Evidence, 2003) there were more suicides and more thoughts about suicide in the trials for every single antidepressant studied. In the Zoloft group there were two suicides and in the Paxil group there were five.

Both Goodwin and the guests disagree with the latest meta-analysis finding that the SSRIs barely beat placebo in the short term trials designed to get the medications approved by the FDA. Their main point is that the trials were only designed to get the drug approved and not designed to really investigate the drug’s true efficacy. I salute them for their admission that these trials are more of a marketing exercise than scientific exploration but I imagine that the professors listed as authors, who are supposedly scientists might take exception to this. The universities these professors work at might also be concerned about how this fits into their mission. In addition, the hosts then rely on the STAR-D study as evidence that the medications work. The problem with the STAR-D study? It was not a placebo controlled trial.

-Jonathan Leo