Little evidence of anti-depressant benefits but ample evidence of harm they do
I agree wholeheartedly with James Jopling’s article “Suicide can be prevented – and those left scarred are helping us to take action” (27 December) and am heartened that a cross-party parliamentary approach to this is evident.
It is clearly of great concern that the suicide rate in Scotland has risen for the first time in six years, particularly when anti-depressant prescribing is at an all-time high.
It is also worrying that, of those who took their own lives, “Over half (59 per cent) had at least one mental health drug prescription dispensed within 12 months of death. Over four out of five (82 per cent) of these individuals were prescribed an antidepressant drug, alone or in combination with other medication” (NHS Scotland Information Services Division report).
Any suicide prevention strategy must include a robust discussion about the adverse effects of the drugs so commonly prescribed for emotional and psychological difficulties.
It is only recently that I found out that there were completed suicides during clinical trials of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors involving healthy volunteers, so clearly these drugs can have a lethal effect on those with no previous history of mental illness.
Yet all too often the suicidal thoughts created by the drugs are taken as manifestations of pre-existing depression. I only tried to take my own life after being prescribed a benzodiazepine, many more attempts followed after being prescribed anti-depressants. Never was there any discussion with me about the role the drugs might be playing in my deteriorating mental health. The drugs are held out as antidepressants after all.
When very difficult questions are asked about these drugs, the response from psychiatry is that they are “safe and effective”. Where is the research evidence to demonstrate this? What attempts are made to identify those who take their own lives because of the drugs? What attempts are made to quantify the iatrogenic harm from these drugs?
We are told they save lives, they transform lives. Where is the research evidence which demonstrates this? How many lives are saved, how many are lost? How many are transformed, how many are destroyed? There is very little hard evidence which demonstrates the benefits of these drugs, but ample evidence of the damage they do. This is not an attempt to demonise the drugs. The public has a right to know the facts and not be fed platitudes and misinformation.
Patients are being left in dreadful states of ill-health, physically, mentally and emotionally, and widespread systemic denial by the medical profession is compounding the mental distress This is totally contrary to the stated objectives of government policy on mental health and suicide prevention and the complete antithesis of medical “care”.
FIONA FRENCH Hilton Heights, Aberdeen