Reanalysis of regulatory data finds that attempted suicides were excluded from the final journal publication, and the journal has not corrected the record.
May 10, 2023·edited May 10, 2023Liked by Maryanne Demasi, PhD
Thanks Maryanne. Such a decent service you provide to good people. Your guardianship is noted. How in hell did humanity get to this place? When did we, as a society, become so lazy as to allow scoundrels to run amok as they do? Jordan B. Peterson once said, "Civil responsibility abdicated will be vacuumed up by scoundrels". And the scoundrels abound and can be found editing medical journals, running pharmaceutical companies and even peer reviewing (I wonder if peer actually stands for Pernicious Evil Evading Regulation). I wonder if these people, driving their Ferraris, even bother to stop for a mother and her children to cross a road on a pedestrian crossing, given their flagrant disregard for the lives of kids, the suffering of mothers and the general welfare of families. They should really be banished from society. If our Politicians had any sense of personal morality, they would take the responsibility of drug regulation and monitoring away from these people and place it in the hands of a room filled with Mothers.
To me the underlying issue is that these drugs are directly advertised to patients (in some countries) who are told their depression is caused by an imbalance (deficiency) of some brain neurotransmitters (brain chemicals). It's more likely than not that this narrative is false. More likley the medicine will put you in an unpleasant agitated state (which can lead to risk-taking and impulsivity).
All ages, as some people are either on medication that does nothing or is harmful as their body doesn't make certain enzymes to metabolise medication. It's a test for under $200 that can be useful for a lifetime. There are multiple labs that can do it here is one. It can be saliva or a blood draw .
I have a friend whose son committed suicide not long after starting an SSRI, which have had a Black Box warning on them since 2004 for children and adolescents. There have been successful lawsuits against drug companies for failure to warn of this danger, but I think that was before the Black Box warning. Now the onus is on the child's parents to be watchful for suicide attempts, which is unfortunate. My friend tried but she couldn't have eyes on her teenage son 24-7. I would think that leaving critical data out of a study would be considered fraudulent in a court of law. We can argue about interpretation of data, as some have done by stating this population is already at high risk of suicide. But when data is actually omitted or falsified, how would you know? This reminds me of the case of the bogus data used by Andrew Wakefield in his false claims about vaccines and autism. He fooled The Lancet because they didn't think somebody would actually make sh*t up for money (really?), which was finally exposed by investigative journalist, Brian Deer (link below - for people who want to take a deep dive into Wakefield's fraudulent methods and motives, I recommend the links in the 3 parts, or the book written by Deer). Wakefield is still peddling bogus claims about vaccines, and people are still being fooled by him. It's not ALWAYS big pharma who cheat, and thank goodness for investigative journalists, but often the damage has already been done.
In our organisation we do a PGX panel, this is a great filter to see if a person is going to have a negative reaction to medication. I do think it should be done more often.
Thanks Maryanne. Such a decent service you provide to good people. Your guardianship is noted. How in hell did humanity get to this place? When did we, as a society, become so lazy as to allow scoundrels to run amok as they do? Jordan B. Peterson once said, "Civil responsibility abdicated will be vacuumed up by scoundrels". And the scoundrels abound and can be found editing medical journals, running pharmaceutical companies and even peer reviewing (I wonder if peer actually stands for Pernicious Evil Evading Regulation). I wonder if these people, driving their Ferraris, even bother to stop for a mother and her children to cross a road on a pedestrian crossing, given their flagrant disregard for the lives of kids, the suffering of mothers and the general welfare of families. They should really be banished from society. If our Politicians had any sense of personal morality, they would take the responsibility of drug regulation and monitoring away from these people and place it in the hands of a room filled with Mothers.
Fascinating... great reporting as usual. A good friends teenage son has been taking it a few years, I see zero benefit in my anecdote.
To me the underlying issue is that these drugs are directly advertised to patients (in some countries) who are told their depression is caused by an imbalance (deficiency) of some brain neurotransmitters (brain chemicals). It's more likely than not that this narrative is false. More likley the medicine will put you in an unpleasant agitated state (which can lead to risk-taking and impulsivity).
Dear Maryanne, do you know of anyone looking at Zoloft?
All ages, as some people are either on medication that does nothing or is harmful as their body doesn't make certain enzymes to metabolise medication. It's a test for under $200 that can be useful for a lifetime. There are multiple labs that can do it here is one. It can be saliva or a blood draw .
https://www.sonicgenetics.com.au/patient/test-information/pharmacogenomics/?gad=1&gclid=CjwKCAjwjYKjBhB5EiwAiFdSfmlxA8nJfKH0h0PldjPJYgRWOHKl9h89alzZdSk1Z16l-deL0D_YrxoC90QQAvD_BwE
I have a friend whose son committed suicide not long after starting an SSRI, which have had a Black Box warning on them since 2004 for children and adolescents. There have been successful lawsuits against drug companies for failure to warn of this danger, but I think that was before the Black Box warning. Now the onus is on the child's parents to be watchful for suicide attempts, which is unfortunate. My friend tried but she couldn't have eyes on her teenage son 24-7. I would think that leaving critical data out of a study would be considered fraudulent in a court of law. We can argue about interpretation of data, as some have done by stating this population is already at high risk of suicide. But when data is actually omitted or falsified, how would you know? This reminds me of the case of the bogus data used by Andrew Wakefield in his false claims about vaccines and autism. He fooled The Lancet because they didn't think somebody would actually make sh*t up for money (really?), which was finally exposed by investigative journalist, Brian Deer (link below - for people who want to take a deep dive into Wakefield's fraudulent methods and motives, I recommend the links in the 3 parts, or the book written by Deer). Wakefield is still peddling bogus claims about vaccines, and people are still being fooled by him. It's not ALWAYS big pharma who cheat, and thank goodness for investigative journalists, but often the damage has already been done.
https://www.immunize.org/bmj-deer-mmr-wakefield/
In our organisation we do a PGX panel, this is a great filter to see if a person is going to have a negative reaction to medication. I do think it should be done more often.