Although most physicians probably consider depression less a disease than a natural emotional response to life's knocks, far too many of them reach for the antidepressant prescription pad when patients describe feelings of sadness, despair, and discouragement with life. The result is part of our widespread acceptance of pharmaceuticals for every little thing that bothers us, and a concurrent explosion in the numbers of Americans who need drug detox just to get off their prescription drugs.

The unproven theory behind the antidepressants, particularly those called Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors (SSRIs), suggests that depression is, basically a deficiency in serotonin. However, there are no scientific tests to indicate whether more or less serotonin is needed to control depression or anxiety, or if it even does.

In fact, evidence is mounting that some people react adversely to higher levels of serotonin. Instead of feeling calmer, they suffer severe and even dangerous side effects, up to and including random violence, murders and suicides. A recent study from Sweden by Dr. Rickard Ljung revealed that 52% of the 377 women who committed suicide in 2006 had filled prescriptions for antidepressants within 3 months of their deaths, and another 8% had filled prescriptions for antipsychotics. And many of the so-called "school shooters" in recent years were reported to have been taking psychotropic drugs, most of them SSRI antidepressants. Timely drug detox for SSRIs could have prevented most or all of these tragedies.

A group of American academics last year, struck by the utter lack of science, assessed all the research studies into antidepressants. They found 37 studies that showed positive results were published, but 22 others that showed negative results were not. They also learned that 11 other negative studies were published after being edited to sound more positive. And other studies have conclusively shown that antidepressants have no more positive effects on depression than a placebo sugar pill, while others showed that exercise was just as effective.

Meanwhile, the pharmaceutical companies are raking in a fortune for drugs no more effective than 19th century snake oil and infinitely more dangerous. Nearly 110 million prescriptions for SSRIs were written in the US in 2006 along with 85 million more for other antidepressants, making a grand total of 195 million antidepressant prescriptions – one antidepressant prescription for two out of every three men, women and children in the country. As if these statistics weren't depressing enough in themselves, some people are giving Prozac to their pets. Picture all these people and their dogs arriving at the same time for drug detox. We're going to need animal drug detox centers if this insanity continues.

Antidepressants aren't addictive like caffeine, nicotine, or illicit stimulants like cocaine and methamphetamine. They don't cause uncontrollable urges to increase the dose to attain euphoria like the most addictive drugs addressed in drug detox. But they can create tolerance – you need more of the drug over time. And they can cause severe dependency and withdrawal – trying to stop often produces adverse effects that only a medical drug detox can safely manage. The fact that antidepressants cause real dependencies that lead to withdrawal and drug detox has been verified by the World Health Organization, which has called SSRIs like Zoloft, Prozac, Lexapro, Paxil and others among the most dependency-inducing substances in existence.

America is in a bad way with its reliance on prescription drugs, and the pharmaceutical industry continues to look for new ailments that can be given scientific-sounding scary names and for which it can promote more pills. Instead of getting help to deal with the difficult situations affecting our emotional lives, we are masking our natural emotions in a toxic cloud of brain-damaging chemicals. And when we discover we can't stop taking them, we head back to the doctor for a different pill. But if we really examine and take to heart the damning evidence surrounding antidepressants, we'll head for the nearest prescription drug detox program and kick those antidepressants and all the other unnecessary drugs we're taking once and for all.

Autor: Rod MacTaggart

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