Pay Off or Pay Out: What Pharma Corps Will Do to Sell You Drugs

Despite the dominant presence of pharmaceutical companies in psychiatry and their influence over clinical trials and research, the direction and focus of some current blogs I have explored reveal that there are others beside myself who are concerned with the current trend of drug treatment in the United States and the role these corporations are playing in it. The first post: “Drug Research: To Test or to Tout?” specifically addresses the issue of corporations such as Eli Lilly paying off state officials to get atypical antipsychotics put at the front of the market, causing doctors to prescribe patients drugs that cost far more and prove no more effective than their predecessors. These drugs, unlike ones before them, are also known to cause diabetes and severe weight gain. It follows the successes of Allen Jones, one of the current legal heads of the anti-pharmaceutical movement in psychiatry. The second post: “Pharma Pursues Its Wet Dream Legal Fantasy, Gets Paxil and Zoloft Suicide Lawsuits Denied” is a response to a current legal matter which has claimed Paxil and Zoloft victor of suicide lawsuits against their anti-depressant medications. Apparently, Zoloft and Paxil did not include increased risk of suicide on their lists of side effects despite several studies proving this to be true, and they are not being held accountable for risking the lives of consumers. However, the outcome of the case isn’t as important as the case itself. The fact that Zoloft and Paxil manufacturers attempted to hide such severe and fatal side effects from patients reveals the nature of the corporations producing them, and what they will do in order to increase sales. I have offered my own comments on both of these posts below, responding to the current issues with pharmaceutical companies and offering my own opinions and analysis.

Comment: "Drug Research: To Test or to Tout?"

First I would like to thank you for drawing the public eye to the questionable ethics of pharmaceutical corporations such as Eli Lilly. After having done extensive research on the effectiveness of atypical antipsychotics and their predecessors, it comes as no surprise to me that these new drugs are no more effective and pharmaceutical companies are doing everything they can to cash in on them anyway. Although this article does not address the greater issue of the severe negative effects of antipsychotics in general, giving consumers a reason to question their prescriptions and begin researching these drugs themselves is the ultimate goal, and this is definitely the type of provocative post that could cause such a phenomenon. It is important that patients realize that they can not rely solely on FDA approval as evidence that medications are safe and effective; that much of what the FDA approves is influenced by biased research conducted by these corporations, and that even those that the FDA attempts to restrain manage to spearhead through direct marketing to practicing physicians. In criticism, however, I would like to mention that many sources and studies are alluded to, but no direct references or links to references are given besides the link to the St. Petersburg Times. When confronting an issue of such a purely scientific nature with so much contention in the research field, linking to authoritative electronic resources is truly a necessity in order to drive home the point. Although a minor issue, I also believe this post could have been improved upon by use of graphics or visual media, as these elements are essential in harnessing a would-be reader’s attention. I only offer these suggestions because I truly believe in what your blog is doing. I am an avid reader of Atypical Antipsychotics and look forward to many more insightful posts in the future.

Comment: "Pharma Pursues its Wet Dream Legal Phantasy, Gets Paxil and Zoloft Suicide Lawsuits Denied"

Philip:I’d like to start by thanking you for attacking the growing issue of pharmaceutical companies in an argumentative fashion that demands attention. I too believe that the growing power of the already colossal Big Pharma within the legal and research spheres is a frightening problem. However, I would like to contest your comment that “We all know that pharma companies dream about little but money and will go to damn near any length to create a market, hide problems with their drugs from the public and regulators, and manipulate their way to the latest blockbuster.” It is my belief that an epidemic of patient ignorance is the only thing truly responsible for these drugs becoming “the latest blockbuster.” If people understood that their marketing, their labels, and the doctors who prescribe them are not to be trusted, I would hope that sales would be on the decrease instead of the rise. Just from my personal experience with individuals on anti-depressants and anti-psychotic medications, I can say that there are still too many people who trust their drugs more than they trust themselves to cope with a problem. I agree with your response to the third circuit court’s ruling and I have little doubt that the reason for this ruling is checks being written on both sides of the table – in fact I just commented on another blog that addressed this issue in particular. The bigger pharmaceutical corporations get, the less chance anyone has of tackling them through the court system. This is why I believe our primary goal should be raising the awareness of consumers about the ineffective and destructive nature of antipsychotic and anti-depressant drugs. Your indirect approach to this matter is quite effective. If people start asking why Big Pharma would hide the suicide risk on drug labels, maybe they’ll start asking why doctors are prescribing them, and why they don’t seem to be getting any better. I appreciate your post and hope to see more like it in the future.

No Easy Way Out: The Depressing Reality of Anti-Depressants

The drawing to the rightis something I created in response to a disorder that I have experienced first hand: clinical depression. It is a work I created in expression of my fundamental belief that the power to overcome hardship and emotional trauma lies within nothing so much as the self. Depression is one of the most commonly treated psychiatric disorders in the United States, with anti-depressants being among the leading medications in sales within the pharmaceutical market. However, despite their popularity, the effectiveness of these drugs in the treatment of depression is not as miraculous as consumers would be led to believe. This is because no matter how well anti-depressants treat depression’s symptoms, they cannot treat the cause.

It is widely held that depression is caused by a chemical imbalance of the brain; that, because depression is caused by a chemical imbalance, it is something that a victim suffering from this illness has no control over. However, in spite of this common belief, there is little evidence to support it outside of research funded by the pharmaceutical companies which produce these drugs themselves. According to neuroscientist Elliot Valenstein “no biochemical or anatomical traits have been found to reliably distinguish the brains of the depressed, and attempts to prove the chemical deficiency hypothesis of depression have been in vain.” This would suggest that clinical depression is a very natural condition caused primarily by life experiences.

Whether or not antidepressants treat the cause, however, they will remain titans within the pharmaceutical market for the treatment of depression’s symptoms due to their heavily marketed effectiveness; for, as my previous posts have shown, the majority of psychiatrists and patients in the United States are already more concerned with alleviating the symptoms of mental illnesses rather than finding ways to cope with them. The majority of patients just want to feel better, whether their problems get solved or not. However, unlike anti-psychotics, an overwhelming amount of evidence suggests that antidepressants fail to treat even the symptoms of depression at a significantly higher rate than placebos. One of the largest studies ever done on anti-depressant drugs has concluded that they have “no clinically significant effect.” In this study, researchers conducted an analysis of the 47 published and unpublished clinical trials submitted to the Food and Drug Administration in the US made in support of the best known antidepressant drugs, including: Prozac, Seroxat and Efexor. The results proved the drugs ineffective in all but a very small portion of the most severely depressed.

It is of such importance for patients to be aware of what antidepressants do not do because of what they have been proven to be capable of. Long term doses of anti-depressants can actually lead to the patient becoming more depressed. This is because many of the side effects of antidepressants such as weight gain, sexual dysfunction and anxiety can cause a depressed state in people or make their depression more severe. Since depression is often if not always the result of life problems, adding more difficulties and stress on to those that drove the patient to take the medication in the first place can only cause the psychological state of the individual to worsen. Not only this, but according to Peter Breggin, M.D., the methods by which antidepressants reach–or attempt to reach–their desired effect inhibits the brain’s function and can lead to permanent, irreparable brain damage. There are also several published research studies which suggest that antidepressants increase a patient’s likelihood of attempting suicide–especially in the case of adolescents. These results can be especially problematic due to the deceiving nature of antidepressant withdrawal symptoms such as crying spells, irritability, anxiety and agitation. These symptoms can lead a patient to believe their depression has actually worsened and further medication is needed when such is not the case.

Although it is puzzling that antidepressant medications remain so widely trusted, believed in, and consumed in light of all the research that suggest their relative ineffectiveness, even more confounding is the use of off-label anti-psychotic drugs to treat depression. Currently twenty-one percent of anti-psychotics are prescribed for symptoms not indicated on the label and one of the few other disorders for which they are prescribed is depression. Considering several studies have shown, with little opposition, that anti-psychotics have absolutely no positive effect on depression, one need only read my prior posts on the negative effects of anti-psychotic pharmaceuticals to understand how grave an issue this is.

Why are antidepressants being prescribed when their effectiveness has such limited value and their side effects are so severe? Why are anti-psychotics being prescribed for something they do nothing about? For the same reasons that children younger than five are being prescribed them before they can say “I’m sad” and 67% of pharmaceutical companies negative research results remained unpublished (see chart). The majority of researchers involved in data collection are being sponsored by - or hold shares in - the very corporations producing the drugs, the doctors are getting paid to prescribe them, and the patients demand expensive placebos that make them feel better about the situations they don’t want to cope with.