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LET THEM EAT PROZAC -
DAVID HEALY

The Unhealthy Relationship Between The Pharmaceutical Industry And Depression

New York University Press $29.99

By Chris Johnstone
Contact the author by e-mail at christopher.johnstone@ntlworld.com

This is a wonderful book. It has many strands, but the main theme is about whether SSRIs cause suicidal thoughts and whether SSRIs increase the risk of suicide. This was the topic of a recent BMJ cover and the cumulative graph of meta-analyses shows that SSRIs do increase the risk of suicidal thoughts and suicide. Healy was one of the authors of this definitive article.

Healy has believed that SSRIs are more dangerous than drug companies are willing to admit. This book describes his journey proving his belief and the lengths Pharma went to stop him. Along the way he describes the birth of antidepressants (he has written a definitive history of the creation of psychopharmacology), how drug companies initially did not value antidepressants and how they came to love them. He describes his role in working for drug companies and then acting as an expert witness against them in several trials. At one time he finds himself working for lawyers funded by the Church of Scientology. At times the book whizzes along at the speed of a thriller.

His description of large psychiatric meetings is positively Hogarthian. Famous speakers delivering papers written for them by drug companies, which they have not even read prior to speaking. Drug companies funding most people who are there. Halls of stalls giving away every type of gift/bribe to complicit professionals. He describes how many articles by 'eminent' psychiatrists are ghost written by drug companies. He also describes how much money can be made by complying with Pharma. GPs are not exempt from his just wrath.

This is upsetting enough. But the way in which the pharmaceutical industry has led the medical profession by the nose is much worse. I started in general practice seventeen years ago. I remember my evangelical crusade against benzodiazepines. I thought I was an individual fighting the rising tide of Valium. How wrong I was. Valium and its compatriots was off patent and held little attraction for drug comapnies. A new generation of expensive pyschoactive drugs was on the way. Funded and supported by the drug industry, anxiety became a thing of the past and depression became the new illness/epidemic which had to be treated. Think of all the depression campaigns of the eighties and nineties. Most were partially or wholly funded by Pharma. A current example is the way osteoporosis and osteopaenia are now being pushed as “epidemics”. I understood how a lot of 'independent' thinking was being manipulated by Pharma and the drive for profits.

The most frightening chapter follows the experiences of healthy volunteers who took SSRIs. Up until this point the drug companies blamed any suicidal ideation or suicides on the illness, depression, not the drug. This study, run by Healy, showed that healthy volunteers on SSRIs may have severe suicidal ideation. The volunteers had enough sense to stop the drug. Patients , who are told by their GP to stay on the drug for a month, may not feel they can stop the drug and go on to kill themselves or others. Eventually Healy was allowed access to the drug companies' hidden files on their own healthy volunteer studies. These studies showed that the drug companies had had the same results and not only was suicidal ideation reported, one healthy subject actually committed suicide. These reports were initially suppressed for many years by the drug companies.

This is a sobering book for all GPs, especially those who think they think for themselves and are not influenced by Pharma. It shows how powerful the companies are at influencing how and what we think about illness, let alone what we prescribe.

Log on to Amazon now and buy this book.

Other hoolet online articles by Chris Johnstone can be found at:
hoolet edition 51 - Enough And No More
hoolet edition 50 - Now We Are 50
hoolet edition 49 - The Policy Palsy
hoolet edition 48 - The Last Waltz
hoolet edition 47 - The Old New Contract
hoolet edition 46 - Teaching to the Converted
hoolet edition 45 - Turkeys Voting For Christmas
hoolet edition 44 - That's a nasty QOF
hoolet edition 43 - Calm Down, Calm Down, It's only the NHS
hoolet edition 42 - Perpetually Fooled Initiative
hoolet edition 41 - Crisis? What Crisis?
hoolet edition 40 - Doing What You Are Told
hoolet edition 39 - A History of hoolets
hoolet edition 38 - Where did it all go wrong?
hoolet edition 37 - Commodificationalising the NHS
hoolet edition 36 - The Cost of Everything and the Value of Nothing
hoolet edition 35 - Much Too Much, Much Too Soon
hoolet edition 34 - What Shall It Profit a Government?
hoolet edition 33 - A Long Career in Applied Cynicism
hoolet edition 32 - My Greatest Pleasure
hoolet edition 31 - Goodbye to the NHS
hoolet edition 30 - The National Health Service is Sorry
hoolet edition 29 - MMR More Media Rubbish
hoolet edition 28 - A Life of Pleasure
hoolet edition 27 - Barricade medicine

Other hoolet reviews by Chris Johnstone:
Bad Medicine
Armed Madhouse
The Bullet Trick
The Medical Detective
Plundering the Public Sector

hoolet is the magazine of RCGP Scotland. It is supported intellectually, financially and emotionally by RCGP Scotland.

This issue maintained by Robert Hallam.