The sky is falling for psychiatry

[cinephile]

Well well well! I must say I'm savoring seeing psychiatry taking more and more hits! Now it seems the results of another big study (the CO-MED study) haven't exactly panned out. Basically, this study sought to see if polydrugging therapy was more effective than monotherapy (treating patients with only one antidepressant). And, of course, the results speak for themselves: it's turned out to be a big so-what. I'm sure the bigpharma executives and the pharmawhore psychiatrists are all collectively ripping off their toupees and stamping on them right now! Below are the actual words from the conclusion of the study:

 

Neither medication combination outperformed monotherapy. The combination of extended-release venlafaxine plus mirtazapine may have a greater risk of adverse events.

Read more about this at 1boringoldman (scroll down a few entries to find the post, titled "another dud"): Another dud

 

[blog post is http://1boringoldman.com/index.php/2011/05/03/another-dud/ ]

 

Oops. Well doesn't that just suck for psychiatry? It amuses me to no end that the psychiatric establishment is rapidly coming to the conclusion that their precious drugs are no more effective than placebo, so they're desperately throwing studies like this together to wring at least SOME use out of these drugs, and EVERY TIME they get cheese on their face. Of course, they still have one more ace up their sleeve to find some use for their pills: personalized medicine (see my post on that here: Personalized medicine).

 

In light of all these failed studies, I'd like to quote one reader's comment on this post:

 

Let's see if I have this straight. STAR*D and CO-MED were two enormous, extremely well-funded studies of antidepressant effectiveness. (I'll ignore the investigators' shenanigans for now.) Both of them gave equivocal results, showing (a) no particular drug or drug combo does better than any other, and b: drug treatment in general is fairly ineffective.

 

There are only three possible explanations for this: (1) The drugs DO work, we're just not using them right (and thus we must await the era of personalized medicine); (2) The drugs are simply expensive placebos and do nothing to the biology of depression; or (3) we've been wrong about "depression" all along.

 

If (2) or (3) are correct, then I agree with Tom. Psychiatry as we know it will soon cease to exist.

I think the timing of this crisis for psychiatry is amazing for all of us here on SA. We've long since woken up to psychiatry's toxic imbecility (to borrow a Frank Zappa song-title, psychiatrists are often "treacherous cretins.") and, knock on wood, I'll be med-free this time next year and will be in a wonderful place to watch the publication of the new DSM and any further decay of psychiatry. It will be utterly surreal, I tell ya. Mark my words: the next few years for psychiatry will be VERY interesting.

 

Us patients, who have been wronged for so long, will have our moment. I guarantee you that.

 

**PS: WOW! I just saw a comment on this post at 1boringoldman where someone posted the "conflict of interest" disclosures for the clinical researchers in the study! Holy conflicts of interest, batman! Take a look at this list! This is what it looks like, folks, when greed runs unchecked with no government regulation or oversight. And the poster had a great point: do these psychiatrists have ANY time to see patients, or are they too busy making fast cash from bigpharma? I remember reading in UNHINGED (Dan Carlat's book) that one psychiatrist said they were so busy whoring for big pharma (they didn't say "whoring" of course lol) that they almost didn't have time to see their patients!

 

So sorry to waste space, but I decided to copy here (for shock value) the disclosures list on the CO-MED study:

 

Dr. Rush has received consulting fees from Advanced Neuromodulation Systems, Best Practice Project Management, Brain Resource, Otsuka, and the University of Michigan; he has received consultant/speaker fees from Forest; he has received consultant fees from and owns stock in Pfizer; he has received author royalties from Guilford Publications, Healthcare Technology Systems, and the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center; and he has received research support from the National Institute of Mental Health. Dr. Trivedi has received research support from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, Corcept, Cyberonics, Merck, NARSAD, the National Institute of Mental Health, the National Institute on Drug Abuse, Novartis, Pharmacia & Upjohn, Predix (EPIX), Solvay, and Targacept; he has received consulting and speaker fees from Abbott, Abdi Ibrahim, Akzo (Organon), AstraZeneca, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Cephalon, Eli Lilly, Evotec, Fabre Kramer, Forest, GlaxoSmithKline, Janssen, Johnson & Johnson, Meade Johnson, Medtronic, Neuronetics, Otsuka, Parke-Davis, Pfizer, Sepracor, Shire Development, VantagePoint, and Wyeth. Dr. Fava has received research support from Abbott, Alkermes, Aspect Medical Systems, AstraZeneca, BioResearch, BrainCells, Bristol-Myers Squibb, CeNeRx BioPharma, Cephalon, Clinical Trials Solutions, Clintara, Covidien, Eli Lilly, EnVivo, Euthymics Bioscience, Forest, Ganeden Biotech, GlaxoSmithKline, Icon Clinical Research, i3 Innovus/Ingenix, Johnson & Johnson, Lichtwer, Lorex, NARSAD, the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, the National Institute on Drug Abuse, NIMH, Novartis, Organon, Pamlab, Pfizer, Pharmavite, Photothera, RCT Logic, Roche, Sanofi-Aventis, Shire, Solvay, Synthelabo, and Wyeth; he has served as adviser or consultant to Abbott, Affectis, Alkermes, Amarin, Aspect Medical Systems, AstraZeneca, Auspex, Bayer, Best Practice Project Management, BioMarin, Biovail, BrainCells, Bristol-Myers Squibb, CeNeRx BioPharma, Cephalon, Clinical Trials Solutions, CNS Response, Compellis, Cypress, DiagnoSearch Life Sciences, Dinippon Sumitomo, DOV, Edgemont, Eisai, Eli Lilly, ePharmaSolutions, EPIX, Euthymics Bioscience, Fabre-Kramer, Forest, GenOmind, GlaxoSmithKline, Grunenthal, i3 Innovus/Ingenix, Janssen, Jazz, Johnson & Johnson, Knoll, Labopharm, Lorex, Lundbeck, MedAvante, Merck, MSI Methylation Sciences, Naurex, Neuronetics, NextWave, Novartis, Nutrition 21, Orexigen, Organon, Otsuka, Pamlab, Pfizer, PharmaStar, Pharmavite, PharmoRx, Precision Human Biolaboratory, Prexa, PsychoGenics, Psylin Neurosciences, Puretech Ventures, RCT Logic, Rexahn, Ridge Diagnostics, Roche, Sanofi-Aventis, Schering-Plough, Sepracor, Servier, Solvay, Somaxon, Somerset, Sunovion, Synthelabo, Takeda, Tal Medical, Tetragenex, Transcept, TransForm, and Vanda; he has received speaking or publishing fees from Adamed, Advanced Meeting Partners, the American Psychiatric Association, the American Society of Clinical Psychopharmacology, AstraZeneca, Belvoir Media Group, Boehringer Ingelheim, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Cephalon, CME Institute/Physicians Postgraduate Press, Eli Lilly, Forest, GlaxoSmithKline, Imedex, MGH Psychiatry Academy/ Primedia, MGH Psychiatry Academy/Reed Elsevier, Novartis, Organon, Pfizer, PharmaStar, United BioSource, and Wyeth; he owns stock in Compellis; he has a patent for SPCD, a patent application for a combination of azapirones and bupropion in major depressive disorder, and a patent for research and licensing of SPCD with RCT Logic and Lippincott, Williams & Wilkins; and he receives copyright royalties for the MGH CPFQ, SFI, ATRQ, DESS, and SAFER. Dr. Kurian has received research support from Evotec, Pfizer, and Targacept. Dr. Warden has owned stock in Bristol-Myers Squibb and Pfizer in the past 5 years. Dr. Husain has received research support from Cyberonics, Magstim, Neuronetics, NIH/NIMH, the Stanley Foundation, and St. Jude Medical; he has also served on advisory boards for AstraZeneca, BMS, Forest, and Novartis. Dr. Cook has served as an adviser and consultant for Ascend Media, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Cyberonics, Janssen, NeuroSigma, and the U.S. Departments of Defense and of Justice; he has served on the speakers bureaus for Bristol-Myers Squibb, Neuronetics, and Wyeth/Pfizer; he has received research support from Aspect Medical Systems/Covidien, Cyberonics, Eli Lilly, Neuronetics, NIH, Novartis, Pfizer, and Sepracor; his patents on biomedical devices are assigned to the Regents of the University of California. Dr. Shelton has received grant/research support from Abbott, AstraZeneca, Eli Lilly, GlaxoSmithKline, Janssen, Pamlab, Pfizer, Sanofi, and Wyeth; he has been a paid consultant to Evotec, Janssen, and Sierra Neuropharmaceuticals; and he has served on speakers bureaus for Abbott, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Eli Lilly, GlaxoSmithKline, Janssen, and Wyeth. Dr. Lesser has received research support from Aspect Medical Systems and NIMH. Dr. Kornstein has received grants/research support from Boehringer-Ingelheim, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Eli Lilly, Forest, the National Institute of Mental Health, Novartis, Pfizer, Rexahn, Takeda, and Wyeth; she has served on advisory boards for Bristol-Myers Squibb, Dey, Eli Lilly, Forest, Pfizer, PGx Health, Takeda, and Weth; and she has received book royalties from Guilford Press. Dr. isniewski reports financial relationships with Cyberonics (2005– 009), ImaRx Therapeutics (2006 ), Bristol-Myers Squibb (2007–2008 ), Oanon (2007), Case-Western University (2007), Singapore Clinical Rsearch Institute (2009), Dey (2010), and Venebio (2010).

 

Do these people have any time to see patients? (Serious question.)

Edited May 16, 2011 by surviving
added link

[cinephile]

Almost forgot: the boring man himself ("Mickey") wrote a great reminder on this post of what psychiatry USED to be, and how it's been hijacked by sociopathic, greedy pharmaceutical workers and corrupt psychiatrists. I'm sure he'd agree it would be a fine day if we returned to the days of social psychiatrists like Peter Breggin and Loren Mosher. Maybe that will be the ultimate good of the fall of psychopharmacology: a return to social/talk therapy psychiatry:

 

Psychiatrists had plenty to do before there were antidepressants, before Prozac. The notion that the fate of Psychiatry hinges on the neuroscience of a particular class of drugs is a relatively recent idea, created by a small group of people – not our best or brightest. Ironically, they're also the people who are writing books or running studies that attempt to transfer the treatment of mentally ill people to primary care physicians. Ultimately, both ideas – Psychiatry is equated with drug treatment and drug treatment can be done by primary care physicians – arose in the marketing departments of Pharma.

[Healing]

Great stuff, Cine! Thanks for reporting. It *is* exciting to watch the Berlin Wall of Psychiatry crumble.

[Altostrata]

The name Dr. Rush rang a bell -- that would be A. John Rush, M.D., a co-author and shill for the STAR*D study:

 

http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/content/full/164/2/201

 

(Also glad the boring old man called out Dr. Maurizio Fava, a leading member of the Harvard pro-pharma paper mill, at http://1boringoldman.com/index.php/2011/05/04/the-list-2/.)

[compsports]

Polydrugging worked great for me

 

CS

[Neuroplastic]

The Ultimate Lie will eventually be out. The whole system was unsustainable in the long run. With our forum we may greatly speed up the process of the Lie's decay. Let us keep growing!