The Dangers of Antidepressants
- Kerry Thomas
- Sep 27, 2019
- 7 min read
Updated: Dec 10, 2019
Article written by Kerry Thomas M.Ed., LPC
Could it be possible that your antidepressants might be making you feel worse?
I want to talk with you about the dangers of psychiatric medication. Why? Because it seems that most people who are taking them - and those numbers are skyrocketing as I type this- don’t seem to be getting this information from their prescribers. I think you have a right to understand the real potential for harm associated with what you may be putting in your body. In medicine we call this informed consent. However, most people who are being prescribed these chemical compounds have no idea of the dangers associated with what they are taking because they have not been told.
You see, if you are taking antidepressants in order to elevate your mood, you might be surprised to hear that these compounds could actually be making you feel much, much worse. In fact, there are many within the mental health community who are raising alarms at how these medications are being linked to prolonged periods of depression and increasing severity levels of depression. In other words, there are now lots of well-informed people – in the face of the hard data gathered from an increasing number of studies – that are asking the disconcerting question, “are these drugs making people better or worse?”
“Antidepressant use in the United States has increased nearly 400% in the last two decades”
Once reserved for the mentally ill, you would be hard pressed nowadays to find someone who hasn’t ever taken some form of psychiatric medication at some point in their lives. These compounds have become so common in our culture over the years and are now being prescribed for everything from learning challenges to bedwetting, aggression, juvenile delinquency, criminality, drug addiction, and smoking, to handling all sorts of other fears and problems from the cradle to the grave. In fact, they are so commonly prescribed that for many people, the idea of living “life without drugs” would be unimaginable. That is a scary realization. We have turned the human experience into a diagnosable disease.
In 2011, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that antidepressant use in the United States has increased nearly 400% in the last two decades, making antidepressants the most frequently used class of medications by American’s ages 18-44 years of age.
In fact, we are taking so many antidepressants that according to Alex Ford, a marine biologist from Portsmouth’s Institute of Marine Biology, antidepressants as well as antianxiety medications are turning up in the chemical analyses of the surface water, ground water, soil samples, drinking water and even accumulating in the wildlife tissues. In response to the findings of the study, Ford himself concluded rather bleakly that "Our aquatic life is bathing in a soup of antidepressants.”
“Antidepressants lead to an increase in both the severity of depression and in the duration of the depressive episode.”
Several scientific studies have supported the hard-to-swallow conclusion that antidepressants do, in fact, lead to an increase in both the severity of depression and in the duration of the depressive episode. Findings from one 2010 scientific study out of the University of Louisville School of Medicine lead the study authors to conclude that any initial improvements as a result of taking antidepressants are often followed by treatment resistance and worsening depression. In fact, they stated that “There are reasons to believe that antidepressant treatment itself may contribute to a chronic depressive syndrome.”
Further, they noted that continuing AD treatment in people who had been given a bipolar diagnosis tripled the likelihood of future depression episodes compared to those who discontinued the medication. (1)
According to a 2006 article entitled Do Antidepressants Cure or Create Abnormal Brain States by Dr. Joanna Moncrieff, a psychiatrist and professor at University College in London, “Recent sharp increases in antidepressant use have been accompanied by increased prevalence and duration of depressive episodes. Studies have also shown that depressive episodes are more frequent and last longer among antidepressant users as opposed to nonusers, and that sickness absence is more prolonged. Follow-up studies of people treated for depression indicate high levels of nonrecovery or relapse.” (4)
“Antidepressants increase the brain’s susceptibility to future depressive episodes after they have been discontinued.”
Another 2012 article published in Frontiers in Psychology Social and Evolutionary Neuroscience by lead author Dr. Paul W. Andrews from the Department of Psychology, Neuroscience and Behavior at McMaster University states, “while antidepressants are modestly effective in reducing depressive symptoms, they increase the brain’s susceptibility to future episodes after they have been discontinued.” (5)
Furthermore, a study done in 2003 published in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry demonstrated just that. According to the study, their findings demonstrated, “Very unfavorable long-term outcomes of major depression [when] treated by pharmacological means.” These unfavorable outcomes included depression-inducing effects with mood and anxiety disturbances, antidepressant induced switching to bipolar disorder, as well as serious withdrawal effects when the medication is stopped. (2)
In 1987, the year prior to the introduction of the first commonly prescribed psychiatric medication, Prozac, the rate of disability due to depression was 1 out of every 184 Americans. Within two decades that number doubled to 1 out of every 76 Americans who now reported to be so depressed that they were deemed “disabled” by these symptoms.
Again, this negative outcome was determined in the 20-year time period immediately following the mass introduction of Prozac.
Wouldn’t we expect these numbers to be falling and not rising if the medications were so effective?
Perhaps the most telling piece of data that clearly indicates an increase in depressive symptoms with antidepressants is the increased risk of suicide associated with taking them.
Did you even know that antidepressants have actually been linked to an increased risk of suicide?
Could this be true?
Well, the numbers of people suffering extreme symptoms of depression leading to suicidal ideation or suicide attempts sure seem to be sky-rocketing out of sight while the number of prescriptions for antidepressants topped 25 billion in 2007 alone (and likely are much higher now). In an article in The New York Times dated April of 2016 that was based on data from the National Center for Health statistics, The New York Times declared that the number of US suicides was at a 30- year high.
In fact, in 2004 the FDA asked that a black box warning be placed on the inserts of 10
different antidepressants due to the risk of increasing depression and suicide.
In the review of the literature and meta-analysis of 70 clinical trials which looked for the data on the increased risk of suicidality, the study authors concluded, “in children and adolescents the risk of suicidality and aggression doubled.” However, the study authors were incapable of reaching any conclusive understanding of the risk to adults as the study data was inconclusive and intentionally ambiguous. This seems to be quite common. In other words, well, I will let Dr. Peter Gotzsche say it better:
“It is more difficult to know what the risk is in adults, as there has been massive underreporting and even fraud in the reporting of suicides, suicide attempts and suicidal thoughts in the placebo-controlled trials (1,2). The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has contributed to the obscurity by downplaying the problems, by choosing to trust the drug companies, by suppressing important information, and by other means.”
It may be interesting to you to know that at least 40% of the FDA’s operating budget is paid for by the pharmaceutical companies themselves. (6)
In fact, the coverup conducted intentionally by Eli Lilly to hide the fact that their antidepressant Prozac was shown to increase the likelihood of suicides in their studies is incredibly alarming. Had it not been for an anonymous insider who sent the documentation to the British Medical Journal, we would all still be in the dark. But have you even heard about this?
In an article by Dr. Peter Breggin he summarizes the findings in the documents. According to him, “The second group of documents is a July 1985 in-house analysis by Eli Lilly in which the company found a large statistically significant increase in suicide attempts for patients taking Prozac during their placebo controlled clinical trials. Twelve suicide attempts were found in the Prozac group and only one each in the control group and the comparison drug, a tricyclic antidepressant.” (7)
Dr. Bart Billings, Ph.D., a retired Army Colonel and former military psychologist and founder and director of the military-wide Human Assistance Rapid Response Team (HARRT) program, has expressed no doubt that the cause of the suicides among the troops is the direct result of the use of psychiatric drugs.
“I’m 100 percent convinced,” says Dr. Billings, “I’ve seen it and talked to hundreds of these guys. These medications really interfere with the brain’s ability to normalize itself and adjust. It’s hard to make a choice on how to recover if your brain isn’t operating the way it should be.”
Now you might be inclined to believe, as I once did, that of course people who attempt suicide could/would be taking antidepressants. But what some of the studies have suggested is that even when these medications are given to healthy people who aren’t even depressed, even many of these mentally healthy people become suicidal as a result.
Now I know I have thrown a lot at you that is disturbing and challenges everything you have probably ever been told about antidepressants. It is for sure a lot to consider. And I hate beyond words to be the bearer of bad news. But when you stop to consider the real world consequences in light of what I shared earlier with regard to how these medications are now showing up in the drinking water that is coming into all of our homes, what it means is that we are all essentially taking antidepressant medication whether we want to or not.
Just thought you might want to know.
Kerry Thomas M.Ed., LPC is a Cognitive Behavioral Therapist with 20 years of experience specializing in the treatment of eating disorders, depression, and anxiety in both adolescents and adults. Her therapeutic approach integrates traditional as well as holistic methods of addressing mental and emotional wellness. Kerry has worked with clients all around the United States as well as internationally. Kerry can be reached at klthomas14@hotmail.com.
Sources:
1)TARDIVE DYSPHORIA: THE ROLE OF LONG TERM ANTIDEPRESSANT USE IN-INDUCING CHRONIC DEPRESSION,
Dr. Rif S. Al-Mallakh
2)Can Long-Term Treatment With Antidepressant Drugs Worsen the Course of Depression? Dr.Giovanni A Fava
3) New Research: Antidepressants Can Cause Long-Term
Depression, by Dr. Peter Breggin
4) Studies have also shown that depressive episodes are more frequent and last longer among antidepressant users than among nonusers
5) Primum Non Nocere: An Evolutionary Analysis of Whether Antidepressants Do More Harm than Good. Dr. Paul W. Andrews
6) Antidepressants increase the Risk of Suicide and Violence at all ages. Dr. Peter Gotzsche.
7) An Examination of Eli Lilly and Company’s Contentions that the BMJ Prozac Documents were Never Missing and Have No Significance. Dr. Peter Breggin
https://breggin.com/an-examination-of-eli-lillys-contention-the-bmj-prozac-documents-were-never-missing/
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