Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Prozac 'no better than placebo' for treating children with depression, experts

theguardian.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

231–240 of 561 posts

Re: Prozac 'no better than placebo' for treating children with depression, experts

#231

Post by ckw »

ksenzee wrote: post #207
ckw wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is one of the most shocking things I have ever read. There is a black box warning for Prozac: ‘Warning: Suicidality and Antidepressant Drugs Increased risk of suicidal thinking and behavior in children, adolescents, and young adults taking antidepressants for Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) and other psychiatric disorders’ Read the package insert: https://www.accessdata.fda.gov/drugsatfda_docs/label/2011/01... T…

Note that the black box warning has nothing to do with long-term effects of the medication. It was added specifically because kids were killing themselves within weeks of starting the medication. > This is one of the most shocking things I have ever read. Good grief. I hope you're exaggerating for effect.

Death is a long term effect. And I am not exaggerating. I did not feel the need to list any of the myriad other potential long term effects because death seemed sufficiently serious.

Edit: in case the OP is reading, I should say also that the package insert won’t mention many other potential long term effects addressed in the literature, like extra pyramidal symptoms (akathisia, Parkinsonism, dystonia, tardive dyskinesia).

Another edit: ask GPT-5 ‘What are the long term side effects of Prozac use which aren’t addressed in the package insert?’ for a list.

Re: Prozac 'no better than placebo' for treating children with depression, experts

#233

Post by 331c8c71 »

hirvi74 wrote: post #43

I can't bring myself to try an SSRI. I just cannot do it. I've got a prescription for an NDRI on my desk, and I still won't take it. I am not anti-psychiatry either. I take psychiatric medication for a different condition already. But something about anti-depressants just doesn't sit well with me. As crazy as it may sound, I think a lot of my depression stems from living a life that is not true to myself and due to c…

I'm with you on this. People who pathologize themselves or others - assuming they're malfunctioning rather than acknowledging they might simply be living a life that doesn't fit - have a very limited way of looking at things.

Re: Prozac 'no better than placebo' for treating children with depression, experts

#234

Post by jdietrich »

Razengan wrote: post #224
jdietrich wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If someone is sad for a specific, identifiable and tractable reason, then they are experiencing a categorically different phenomenon to someone who just feels sad all of the time regardless of their life circumstances. One of the key diagnostic criteria for melancholic depression - what we might lazily and inaccurately call biological or "real" depression - is mood unreactivity. Someone with severe melancholic depres…

> Trying to help those people with talk therapy or exercise or companionship would be as futile as using those things to treat hepatitis or gangrene. I get what you want to say, but to nitpick the analogy: If the "treatment" for gangrene is amputation, then that's not really "fixing" anything. That's just the scorched earth strategy of destroying the afflicted along with the affliction. Like lobotomies. What do peopl…

>Like lobotomies. What do people think of them now?

Lobotomy was in fact an effective treatment (albeit with extremely severe side-effects), but we now have much better and safer treatments available. The abandonment of lobotomy was fundamentally driven by the invention of effective antidepressants, antipsychotics and mood stabilisers. Neurosurgery is still offered to an extremely small proportion of patients suffering from very severe and treatment-resistant depression and OCD.

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/bjpsych-advances/art...

Re: Prozac 'no better than placebo' for treating children with depression, experts

#235

Post by Terr_ »

robertakarobin wrote: post #108

I was very young when my mom started Prozac but do remember how angry and sad she was before compared to after. Years later there was a time when me and my sister noticed our mom was acting a bit strange -- more snappish and irritable than usual, and she even started dressing differently. Then at dinner she announced proudly that she had been off Prozac for a month. My sister and I looked at each other and at the sam…

> My sister and I looked at each other and at the same time went, "Ohhhh!"

I suppose the next step would be to upgrade from single-blind to double-blind, so that your mom won't know which month is the placebo month...

Re: Prozac 'no better than placebo' for treating children with depression, experts

#236

Post by 331c8c71 »

denverllc wrote: post #227
atbpaca wrote: post #138

Here the context is prozac FOR CHILDREN, not in general. Yet some people make a point in commenting that SSRIs are ineffective in general because they believe in some big pharma conspiracy. This is spreading misinformation. The truth is that SSRIs are modestly more effective than a placebo for approximately >> one third of the individuals << who try them. In other words, SSRIs are effective for more than 60-66% of ad…

> they believe in some big pharma conspiracy See: the Sackler family

Also pfizergate featuring von der leyen.

Re: Prozac 'no better than placebo' for treating children with depression, experts

#237

Post by robertakarobin »

ckw wrote: post #189
robertakarobin wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to our pediatrician there are no known long-term effects of juvenile Prozac use. The effects may exist, but if they do they are of sufficiently low significance as to not have been detected yet. Interestingly the one possible effect she's aware of is that there may be a correlation with not growing as tall physically as one might otherwise. The data is not conclusive, but it gives me something to blame for…

This is one of the most shocking things I have ever read. There is a black box warning for Prozac: ‘Warning: Suicidality and Antidepressant Drugs Increased risk of suicidal thinking and behavior in children, adolescents, and young adults taking antidepressants for Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) and other psychiatric disorders’ Read the package insert: https://www.accessdata.fda.gov/drugsatfda_docs/label/2011/01... T…

We were certainly informed of this. I didn't count it among the long-term health effects. I'm an educated and skeptical person but have never found any reason to distrust my physicians.

Re: Prozac 'no better than placebo' for treating children with depression, experts

#238

Post by 331c8c71 »

ipnon wrote: post #16
fgonzag wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same here, after struggling for 39 years, glp-1 + SSRI + ADHD meds have made me a normal productive human, and 2 years ago I had pretty much given up on the possibility. Having a child forced me to fix my life, and I'm incredibly happy because of it.

Pharmacology and chemistry can really make the world a better place.

Yoir choice between the red pill, the blue pill or no pill is pretty obvious but this choice is highly subjective.

Re: Prozac 'no better than placebo' for treating children with depression, experts

#239

Post by ryandrake »

hintklb wrote: post #198
dekhn wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In this area, having credentials makes a difference. Experts matter. Few if any non-medical people can read medical papers and make sense of what they say. There is simply far too much context to evaluate such papers, especially in the cases of complex medical conditions.

Sorry but strong disagree here. I have had a lot of Spinal and sleep issues. I have read almost all new literature on this niche subject and I have brought to my spine doctor some new therapy and treatments they had literally no idea about. Those treatments have changed my life. As an engineer I read a lot of deep technical paper as my day job. Medical papers are comparatively relatively simple. The most complex part…

> We have pushed to a whole generation of people that only the "experts" can have opinion on some fields. I encourage everyone to read papers and have opinions on some of those subjects.

There's nothing wrong with having an opinion on something as a non-expert, as long as those opinions are not acted upon or relied upon as a source of reliable information. Read papers, watch YouTube, browse WebMD, satisfy your curiosity--knock yourself out. But don't undergo treatment without working with an actual expert! I'm not an expert on orbital mechanics, but I have played KSP and have formed various opinions about it. But nobody should be listening to me for advice on how to launch a rocket.

We need gatekeeping for a reason, especially in the medical field which is rife with miracle cures, snake oil, herbal remedies, detoxes, homeopathy, and other forms of quackery.

Believing my "research" is better than my specialist's education is a path back to the dark ages.

Re: Prozac 'no better than placebo' for treating children with depression, experts

#240

Post by ozim »

some_guy_nobel wrote: post #187
jacobgkau wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No it doesn't. It doesn't contain the word "placebo." Can you quote where it "explicitly mentions" what you're saying it does?

Wow, a shockingly argumentative tone for someone who is just flat out wrong. Beyond the response someone else commented explaining exactly where the comparison was mentioned, the anecdote itself is useful in offering an experience of someone who's life has been changed by the drug. In any case, the study mentioned in the article is a meta-analysis about children, not adults, so there is no onus on OP to qualify anyth…

Some people just need to have stuff spelled out for them.
Post reply on HN