Only effective for small group

In one of the largest studies of modern antidepressant drugs, results showed that they have no clinically significant effect. In other words, they just don’t work.

The findings will send shock waves through the medical profession and patients and raise serious questions about the regulation of the multinational pharmaceutical industry, which was accused of withholding data on the drugs.

Alan Johnson, the Health Secretary of the United Kingdom, announced that 3,600 therapists are to be trained during the next three years to provide nationwide access through the GP service to “talking treatments” for depression, instead of relying on drugs in a £170 million (about RM1.1 billion) scheme.

New antidepressant drugs like Prozac and Seroxat were popular during the late 1980s, and were heavily promoted by drug companies as a safer drug with fewer side effects compared to older tricyclic antidepressants. In the study, of a 47 clinical trials, published and unpublished, submitted to the Food and Drug Administration in the U.S., the drugs were only effective only in a small group of extremely depressed individuals.