‘Medications’ at Psychology, Philosophy and Real Life

With the psychiatric side effects of rimonabant (sold as Acomplia in Europe and as Zimulti elsewhere) turning out to be even worse than originally thought, and the effectiveness of this new weight loss drug turning out to be pretty minimal, Sanofi-Aventis has yanked it from the market following a decision by European regulators to suspend marketing approval.

A company in the USA produces children’s placebo tablets, cure-alls containing absolutely no active substances, selling in effect the illusion that there is a pill for every kind of distress.

Compared with placebo, the new-generation antidepressants do not produce clinically significant improvements in depression in patients who initially have moderate or even very severe depression. That’s according to a new meta-analysis of clinical trials research. A triumph for the placebo effect! How does it work?

New concise clinical trials lists and research article abstracts are now available in our medications centre, replacing the comprehensive (but difficult to navigate) set of mental health research abstracts we’ve been accumulating for a few years. If you’re looking for the latest research information on common mental health medications, please check them out and let us know what you think!

A new study shows that the results of around a third of drug trials have not been released. Once these are taken into account, the advantage of antidepressants over placebos shrinks significantly. This amounts to seriously misleading the public about the drugs’ effectiveness.