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Sixty years ago, studies were done comparing antidepressants with what is called “active placebos,” drugs that mimic the side effects of antidepressants. The conclusion? Almost no difference in outcome. Reading about the results of these 1960s studies was a lightbulb moment for British psychiatrist Dr Joanna Moncrieff. She was...

12,372 views • 8 months ago •via X (Twitter)

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Jan Jekielek's profile picture
Jan Jekielek8 months ago

“So instead of questioning why we were prescribing these drugs so widely and trying to rein in the prescribing, leading psychiatric researchers found ways to present the evidence that made it look a little bit better,” she said. 🔴 WATCH FULL:

SavvyOldNurse's profile picture
SavvyOldNurse8 months ago

Without the drugs, psychiatrists have little to offer. The psychotherapy they formerly offered has been farmed out to therapists (many of which are unhinged leftists), and it takes far too much time to be able to treat all those who are seeking mental health treatment now.

Janmar Kaczynski's profile picture
Janmar Kaczynski8 months ago

Antidepressants and the myth of "it's just a chemical imbalance" . As ubiquitous and impact full as "just Google it" has been . "Settled science" by media messaging .

Aine's profile picture
Aine8 months ago

Except SSRIs are more than placebo. They are potentially very harmful. @joannamoncrieff @PTMFramework @DrDavidHealy @DrTerryLynch

Lex's profile picture
Lex8 months ago

I was told using active placebos was unethical. I had no idea this had been done. Who made it unethical? Simple vitamins can be used.

Bipolar Point of View's profile picture
Bipolar Point of View8 months ago

And yet, the *right* antidepressants worked very well for me: imipramine, then later, mirtazapine.

Sandiz's profile picture
Sandiz8 months ago

This is a selective and misleading framing. Early “active placebo” studies were small, methodologically weak, and predate modern diagnostic criteria. More recent large meta-analyses show antidepressants outperform placebo, particularly in moderate–severe depression. Small average effect sizes ≠ no real benefit for individuals. That’s a statistical misunderstanding. Side effects and withdrawal risks are real and should be handled transparently, but presenting antidepressants as broadly ineffective or placebo-only is not supported by the totality of evidence. Precision matters. Oversimplification helps no one.

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A professor of clinical psychiatry wrote that RFK is suggesting "without credible evidence" that antidepressants may be linked to violent behavior. As a psychiatrist who studies these side effects, I have to be honest: the evidence exists, and it's been sitting in the drug labels for years. Irritability and aggression are listed adverse reactions. In rare cases, mania and psychosis. This is not a common side effect, and I want to be clear about that. But rare is not the same as nonexistent, and the whole country just watched the Lindsay Clancy trial, where the defense argued exactly this. Dismissing it as baseless doesn't protect patients. It just guarantees the next family won't see it coming. The other argument is that questioning antidepressant prescribing stigmatizes depressed people as weak rather than medically ill. I'd flip that completely. Seventeen percent of Americans are on antidepressants. That number is not proof of an epidemic of broken brains. It's a reflection of how we handle sadness, anxiety, and struggle as a country: we medicate it. The people on these drugs have real, painful problems. They deserve better than a prescription and a follow-up in six months. In my experience, most depression traces to a mix you can actually address. Physical: 60% of our calories now come from ultra-processed food, the average American takes 4,000 steps a day when we need around 7,000, and drugs and alcohol are in the mix more than we admit. Psychological: social isolation and a lack of meaning and purpose. Fix those, connect people with therapists who can coach them through the rest, and a great deal of depression resolves without a pill. Wanting fewer Americans on antidepressants isn't stigma. It's ambition for their actual recovery.

Dr. Josef

22,152 views • 24 days ago

Three things about antidepressants that almost nobody knows, and each one should bother you more than the last. First: when your doctor says Prozac, Lexapro, or Zoloft is "safe and effective," the honest version of that sentence is "safe and effective for the year it was studied." The FDA's own chief medical and scientific officer, Vinay Prasad, looked at the ten most prescribed antidepressants in America. Not one has a double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled trial longer than a year. Seventeen percent of the population takes these drugs, many for decades, and beyond year one, nobody actually knows whether the benefits outweigh the risks. The public believes these are among the most-studied drugs in history. Long term, they barely qualify as studied at all. Second: the FDA requires no studies on how to get people off these medications after long-term use. None. Millions of people have been on them for years, and the science of safely discontinuing them is a black hole that no drug company has ever been required to fill. Third, and this is the one I want you to sit with: they aren't even required to make doses you can taper from. Coming off safely means small reductions, far smaller than the tablets that exist. So when people ask me why antidepressant use keeps climbing every year, "the world is more stressful" is only part of the answer. Some of it is simpler and worse: people get on, discover there's no off-ramp built, and stay stuck. We built a system with an entrance and no exit. That's not a mental health epidemic. That's a design flaw.

Dr. Josef

17,473 views • 22 days ago

Antidepressants: The Lifelong Sentence? How SSRIs Are Linked to Heart Disease, Suicidal Thoughts, and a Debunked Science—While Withdrawal Leaves Patients with ‘Brain Zaps’ and Permanent Sexual Dysfunction A new report in The Lancet confirms what many have feared: the pandemic didn’t just disrupt lives—it shattered mental health. Depression and anxiety in young people surged by over 50% from 2010–2019, and COVID-19 added 53 million new cases of major depressive disorder and 76 million anxiety disorders globally. In the U.S., nearly 1 in 3 adults reported symptoms of anxiety or depression last summer. The response? A 64% spike in antidepressant prescriptions for young people since 2020, with girls aged 12–17 seeing a 130% increase. But here’s the catch: Antidepressants, especially SSRIs, are now a lifelong sentence for millions. A UK study of 220,000 patients linked long-term use to higher risks of coronary heart disease, stroke, and all-cause mortality. Even the FDA’s black-box warning on drugs like Zoloft admits they can increase suicidal thoughts in young adults—the very outcome they’re meant to prevent. The serotonin theory of depression? Debunked. A landmark Nature review found no convincing evidence that depression is caused by low serotonin. Yet, Big Pharma’s marketing machine keeps pushing these drugs as the first-line solution, despite decades of questionable efficacy and mounting side effects. Withdrawal is a nightmare. Patients report "brain zaps"—electric shocks in the brain—alongside cognitive impairment and crippling anxiety. And now, a hidden epidemic: post-SSRI sexual dysfunction, where genital numbness, loss of attraction, and emotional flatlining persist even after stopping the drugs. Some never recover. Doctors dismissed these symptoms for years, blaming depression itself. Now, the European Medicines Agency has issued a black-box warning for permanent sexual dysfunction after SSRI use. Yet, in a move that defies logic, regulators are now pushing for over-the-counter antidepressants. No new clinical trials. No reckoning with the addiction, withdrawal horrors, or long-term brain changes. Just a green light to dole out mind-altering drugs like candy—echoing Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, where SOMA kept the masses docile and compliant. School shootings? Gender dysphoria in teens? Sexual dysfunction ruining marriages? The data demands we ask: Are SSRIs fueling these crises? Many mass shooters were on—or withdrawing from—these drugs. Detransitioners describe how antidepressants warped their sense of self. And sex offenders are prescribed SSRIs to kill their libido—so why are we surprised when patients lose their sexuality forever? This isn’t about denying help to those in pain. It’s about demanding transparency, alternatives, and real science. If the serotonin theory is dead, why are we still gambling with millions of lives? Why are regulators fast-tracking OTC access while ignoring the withdrawal nightmares, the permanent damage, the lack of long-term safety data? The system is broken. Pharma profits. Patients suffer. And now, they want to make it easier than ever to get hooked. We can’t stay silent.

Camus

41,855 views • 11 months ago

‼️The Drug They're Giving Seven-Year-Olds Has a 59% Rate of Permanent Sexual Dysfunction Danielle Gansky was seven years old when she was first prescribed psychiatric medication. The side effects were misread as worsening mental illness, so more drugs were added to treat the symptoms the first drugs had caused. By the time she decided to come off them, the withdrawal felt, in her words, like being dropped into a living nightmare of nonstop physical and psychological torment. Being alive simply felt unbearable. And then there was Lauren, who stood up and testified about something indescribable - Post-SSRI Sexual Dysfunction. She suffers from complete genital numbness. She has ZERO sensation. At 23, she described it as a form of chemical castration. It is permanent and caused by medications prescribed to children who had no idea what they were agreeing to. She cannot feel love for her own mother. She cannot feel a connection to her friends. She was neurologically severed by drugs given to her before she was old enough to understand what was being taken from her. 50% to 70% of SSRI patients experience sexual side effects. There is no black box warning, and no requirement to tell parents that the medication they are giving their seven-year-old carries a greater than 50% chance of permanent sexual dysfunction. It is absolutely horrific. Del walked out of that conversation and called Aaron Siri. A new lawsuit is being filed. That is what this community makes possible: the moment a story becomes this outrageous, the resources exist to do something about it. Though we walk through the valley of the shadow of death, we fear no evil here at The HighWire. And neither do you.

The HighWire

15,074 views • 4 months ago

Modern psychiatry rests on a made up narrative, says Robert Whitaker, publisher of Mad In America. Here’s how two studies on schizophrenia made him realize things were amiss: “One was a study by Harvard researchers published in 1994 which looked at longer term outcomes for schizophrenia patients, and they said they had *declined* since the 1970s—not improved—and were now no better than they had been in the first third of the 20th century. Now we look back at the first third of the 20th century as these dark ages. So how can it be that with these modern drugs that fix chemical imbalances, we are no better [off]?” The second study was done by the World Health Organization that compared outcomes for patients in three developing countries - India, Colombia, Nigeria - to longer term outcomes in the US and five other developed countries: “The outcomes in the developing countries were much, much better than in the developed countries—so much so that they concluded that living in a developed country is a strong predictor that you won't have a good outcome if you're diagnosed with schizophrenia.” And here’s the big difference: In the developing countries, they used the antipsychotic drugs *short-term* instead of long-term like they do in America. Whitaker decided he needed to investigate further, and that’s when he realized there was no basis to the idea that these drugs are fixing chemical imbalances in the brain, contrary to what we’d been told for decades. “I started calling up people… who had told me that the drugs fixed the chemical imbalance in the brain. I said: ‘Can you just show me where you found that too much dopamine is the cause of schizophrenia? Or can you show me where you actually found that too little serotonin is the cause of depression?’ And I swear to God, here's what they said: ‘Oh, we didn't actually find that. That's a metaphor for explaining why they should take the drugs - like insulin for diabetes.’ And I said: ‘I understand that like insulin for diabetes is a metaphor, but, surely, you actually found these chemical imbalances. And I just want to read the research where you did.’ And the first person says: ‘No, we didn't really find it.’ Second person: ‘No, we didn't really find it.’ And then I went to the makers of Risperdal, which is a second generation atypical, and Risperdal was being marketed as fixing not only a dopamine imbalance in the brain, but as a serotonin imbalance in the brain. “And I actually managed at that time to get to the actual researchers, and you know what they said? ‘Yeah, that's just such nonsense…I'm sort of embarrassed that we say this,’” he told me.

Jan Jekielek

62,889 views • 10 months ago