SSRI drugs based on fabricated medical myths, says psychiatrist

(NaturalNews) The science backing selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, or SSRIs, as an effective remedy for increasing serotonin levels in the brain and helping depression sufferers achieve mental "balance" is entirely nonexistent, warns a prominent psychiatrist in a new peer-reviewed editorial published in the esteemed British Medical Journal (BMJ).

Professor David Healy, head of the Hergest psychiatry unit at the North Wales-based Ysbyty Gwynedd Hospital in the U.K., says the entire premise behind SSRIs and how they supposedly work is "based on a myth." Healy warns that the drugs, which have been linked to provoking both suicidal and homicidal tendencies in some users, have never been scientifically shown to balance anything in the brain.

The common misconception that SSRIs help increase serotonin levels and correct chemical imbalances in the brain originated out of crafty marketing rather than laboratory testing, he says. Moreover, the only reason that many patients continue to use these dangerous drugs is false hope that they work, which has never been proven.

"For doctors it provided an easy short hand for communication with patients," warns Healy about the myth that SSRIs somehow normalize chemical imbalances in the brains of patients with depression despite the fact that they have never actually been proven to do so.

"For patients, the idea of correcting an abnormality has a moral force that can be expected to overcome the scruples some might have had about taking a tranquilizer, especially when packaged in the appealing form that distress is not a weakness."

By definition, SSRIs are unproven quack medicine

Tranquilizers, of course, were the pharmaceutical predecessor of SSRIs. They were phased out in the 1980s when concerns about their safety and effectiveness were brought to light. They were replaced by SSRIs, which were believed to be safer and more effective.

Nobody really knows exactly how SSRIs actually work, and credible scientific evidence proving any sort of efficacy is entirely lacking. In essence, SSRIs are nothing more than high-profit quack medicine, by definition, and they can even be thought of as deadly, high-profit quack medicine, as evidenced by the thousands of cases of serious injury and/or death associated with their use.

"The emerging sciences of the brain offer enormous scope to deploy any amount of neurobabble," chides Healy about the junk science that paved the way for SSRIs to become conventionally accepted "medicine." "We need to understand the language we use. Until then, so long, and thanks for all the serotonin."

Science abandoned as pro-SSRI shills argue that psych drugs just work, even without evidence

Amazingly, if SSRIs were dietary supplements, the same arguments now being used in their defense by the psychiatric industry would be laughed out of the conversation as pure hearsay. The following statement made by Dr. Paul Keedwell, a consultant psychiatrist and specialist in mood disorders who attempted to defend the use of SSRIs following the publishing of Healy's paper, illustrated this point perfectly when he said, "In the real world of the clinic, SSRIs are undeniably effective in treating individuals with major depression."

Another pro-SSRI shill by the name of Professor Sir Simon Wessely, president of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, offered his two cents, stating, "That antidepressants are helpful in depression, together with psychological treatments, is established. How they do this is not."

Both of these statements in defense of SSRIs would never fly if the subject of the argument was, say, walnuts as a promoter of cardiovascular health or cannabis as a treatment for cancer. The "because science!" brigade would immediately unleash the hound dogs who would incessantly bark about how "correlation doesn't equal causation" and "where are the double-blind, placebo-controlled studies proving efficacy?"

Somehow it's okay to provide circumstantial evidence in support of SSRIs with claims that they work simply because some psychiatrists have witnessed improvements in their patients. However, when the same evidence is presented in support of natural cures, all bets are off and the treatment is immediately dubbed as quackery.

Guess what, skeptics? You can't have it both ways.

Sources:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk

http://www.ssristories.net