Robert Whitaker: More evidence antidepressants causing disability

[Altostrata]

Claims for mental health disability have risen worldwide, parallel to increases in antidepressant usage, Whitaker reports in a new article on his blog http://tinyurl.com/4xozlz6

 

After reviewing statistics from New Zealand, Australia, and Iceland, Whitaker concludes:

 

"....

One common criticism of Anatomy of an Epidemic has been that I mistake "correlation for causation." The fact that disability numbers have soared during a time of sharply increased usage of psychiatric drugs doesn't prove that the drugs are causing the rise in disability, the critcs say. I agree, but in fact, in my book, I used the disability data merely as a starting point for questioning our drug-based paradigm of care. However, as I now find the same correlation occurring in country after country, I would say this is a case of more and more "smoke" appearing, and at some point, you have to ask when such correlational data provides evidence of a "fire."

 

The drug-based paradigm of care that we have adopted in the United States, which took off in 1987 with the arrival of Prozac on the market, has taken hold in many Western countries. I wish that a researcher could take the time to chart usage of psychiatric drugs in fifteen "developed" countries over the past 20 years, and chart the number of people on government disability due to mental illness during that period (and the prevalence of bipolar spectrum disorder in those countries.) If that could be done, I think that the pattern that shows up in the United States, Australia, New Zealand, and Iceland would, quite unfortunately, be found again and again.

 

And if that fact were documented, I wonder whether the defenders of our current paradigm of care would once again shout: Correlation is not causation! Or would it be taken as evidence that something is quite amiss with this paradigm of care?

...."

[cinephile]

This is great stuff Alto. Quite striking too. Even I was a little surprised that the disability rates of other countries have risen similar to the US since the introduction of psych meds. This is great ammo for the "correlation does not equal causation" crowd, even though I have a suspicion that the most hard-core among them (Pies!) will NEVER get it. YES, I'm sure there are some in each of these countries who are gaming the system to get some free $, but the fact that this is happening in more and more countries that have a similar psychiatric model of care is indeed eerie. Something smells here...

 

PS: The link doesn't work. Here it is again: http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/mad-in-america/201109/anatomy-epidemic-down-under

[compsports]

This is great stuff Alto. Quite striking too. Even I was a little surprised that the disability rates of other countries have risen similar to the US since the introduction of psych meds. This is great ammo for the "correlation does not equal causation" crowd, even though I have a suspicion that the most hard-core among them (Pies!) will NEVER get it. YES, I'm sure there are some in each of these countries who are gaming the system to get some free $, but the fact that this is happening in more and more countries that have a similar psychiatric model of care is indeed eerie. Something smells here...

 

PS: The link doesn't work. Here it is again: http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/mad-in-america/201109/anatomy-epidemic-down-under

 

Whitaker could find this to be the case in 100 counties and the causation doesn't equal correlation crowd would come up with some reason why he was wrong. They just want to believe that their meds cause harm no matter what the evidence is.

 

CS

[Altostrata]

Damn, tinyurl can't tell from punctuation. Link now works.

 

Yes, it's true, opponents will argue people are gaming the system everywhere.