Are Antidepressants a Scam? 5 Myths About How to Treat Depression

Continued from previous page

In Step One of STAR*D, all depressed patients were given the antidepressant Celexa, and in Step Two, patients who failed to respond to Celexa were divided into different groups and received other treatments (mostly different drug treatments) in place of or in addition to Celexa. If their second treatment failed, there was a third and, if necessary, a fourth treatment step. 

In every STAR*D treatment step, remission rates were either equal to or significantly lower than the customary placebo performance in other antidepressant studies, but to the exasperation of many scientists, there was no placebo control in this $35 million U.S. taxpayer funded STAR*D study. (STAR*D researchers disclosed receiving consulting and speaker fees from the pharmaceutical companies which manufacture the antidepressants studied in STAR*D.)

In March 2006, NIMH triumphantly announced that 50 percent of depressed people saw remission of symptoms after the first two STAR*D steps. However, NIMH failed to mention in its press release that in the same time it took to complete these first two steps—slightly over 6 months—previous research shows that depressed people receiving no treatment at all have a spontaneous remission rate of 50 percent. 

In November 2006, following the completion of all four STAR*D steps, STAR*D authors claimed a 67 percent cumulative remission rate, which again exasperated many scientists because this number failed to incorporate STAR*D’s extremely high relapse and dropout rates. In an American Journal of Psychiatry editorial that accompanied STAR*D authors’ report, J. Craig Nelson, M.D, stated, “I found a cumulative sustained recovery rate of 43 percent after four treatments, using a method similar to the authors but taking relapse rates into account.” However, even 43 percent turns out to be an inflated rate.

Separate analyses of STAR*D in 2010 by psychologist Ed Pigott and medical reporter Robert Whitaker revealed that STAR*D researchers had inflated remission numbers by switching mid-study to a more lenient measurement, and also by including patients who were not depressed enough at baseline to meet study criteria. But even taking the STAR*D data as is, Pigott’s analysis revealed that less than 3 percent of the entire group of depressed patients who began the STAR*D study can be ascertained as having a sustained remission (i.e., actually participated in the final assessment without relapsing and/or dropping out).

Myth 3: Electroconvulsive Treatment (ECT) is an Effective Last Resort

Andrew Solomon in The Noonday Demon also states, “ECT seems to have some significant impact between 75 and 90 percent of the time. About half of those who have improved on ECT still feel good a year after treatment.” Is ECT really that effective?

In 2004, researcher Joan Prudic, M.D. and her team at New York State Psychiatric Institute conducted a major study of ECT, which involved 347 patients at seven hospitals. Reported were both the immediate outcomes and the outcomes over a 24-week follow-up period. With respect to immediate outcomes, Prudic reported: “In contrast to the 70 to 90 percent remission rates expected with ECT, remission rates, depending on criteria, were 30.3 to 46.7 percent.” Even worse for ECT advocates, Prudic noted that, “10 days after ECT, patients had lost 40 percent of the improvement.”

There are also studies comparing ECT with a placebo (called “sham ECT”). In sham ECT, patients receive muscle-relaxing and anesthetizing drugs that routinely accompany ECT, and they are hooked up to the ECT apparatus, but they receive no electric voltage. Psychiatrist Colin Ross reports, “No study has demonstrated a significant difference between real and placebo (sham) ECT at 1 month post-treatment.” 

Myth 4: Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT) is the Best Psychotherapy for Depression