Antidepressant Drugs. Record Prescriptions, but only 1 in 6 will have withdrawal symptoms!

The Lancet Psychiatry journal published a study on 5th June 2024. It found that only one in six people who stop taking antidepressants will experience withdrawal symptoms. The GP magazine, Pulse, thought that this was a good outcome.

            "This is a much lower proportion than other studies have suggested, with previous estimates that over half of patients experience symptoms".

The research found that one in three patients reported at least one withdrawal symptom such as dizziness, headache or nausea. But as 1 in 6 patients experienced the same when they stopped taking a placebo drug, it suggested that ‘approximately half of all symptoms experienced … might be due to negative expectations (the "nocebo effect”) or non-specific symptoms which may occur at any time in the general population’.

So the report concluded that about 15%, of patients experienced one or more withdrawal symptoms as a direct result of stopping antidepressants, with around 3% experiencing ‘severe symptoms’.

Pulse said that this was the first ‘meta-analysis’ on the incidence of antidepressant discontinuation symptoms, analysing 79 randomised trials, which included data from over 21,000 patients, of which 72% were women. 

So, conventional medicine now believes that the 'withdrawal symptoms' were not as bad as was previously thought, certainly after the 'nocebo effect' was used to eliminate about 50% of reported symptoms. But never mind, let's accept this, and apply it to the number of people who are taking antidepressant drugs.

According to the BMJ in 2019, the NHS prescribed a record number of antidepressants in 2018, and that the number of prescriptions for antidepressants in England had almost doubled during the previous decade.

            "Data from NHS Digital show that 70.9 million prescriptions for antidepressants were given out in 2018, compared with 36 million in 2008".

• Therefore, in 2008, 6 million people in England alone suffered from antidepressant withdrawal symptoms; and over 1 million experienced 'severe symptoms'.
• In 2018, nearly 12 million (11,816,333) people suffered from antidepressant withdrawal symptoms, with over 2 million experiencing 'severe symptoms'.

So this is presumably acceptable then? At least it seems to be acceptable to the Conventional Medical Establishment which seems quite willing to continue prescribing an ever-increasing numbers of these drugs.

The Pulse article also told us that the number of people suffering withdrawal symptoms was steadily increasing, year-on-year; and since then we have been told that as a direct result of the Covid-19 pandemic the number of people who are taking antidepressant drugs (around the world) has risen even more rapidly,  by 25%.

Perhaps I should calculate a new more up-to-date figure, but these numbers are almost meaningless once we realise that each single person within that total number are individuals, someone who is suffering as a direct result of taking pharmaceutical drugs. If the medical fraternity is pleased about this we can rest assured that the 12 million +++ patients are certainly not pleased.

There is a solution at hand, but it is a solution that will likely be ignored. In 2010 Dana Ullman (a leading homeopath) published article in Huffington Post, "Homeopathy. A Healthier Way to Treat Depression" in which he compared the safety and effectiveness of homeopathy alongside the dangers of pharmaceutical drug treatment. It surely is a must read for anyone with mental health problems!

In this same article Ullmann refers to a study that showed antidepressant drugs were ineffective, essentially useless. This is a direct quote from that article.

            "In early 2010, major media reported on a significant review of research testing antidepressant medications. What is unique about this review of research is that the researchers evaluated studies that were submitted to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), though the researchers discovered that many studies submitted to the FDA were unpublished (they found that the unpublished research consistently showed negative results of antidepressants)".

            "This meta-analysis of antidepressant medications found only modest benefits over placebo treatment in published research, but when unpublished trial data is included, the benefit falls below accepted criteria for clinical significance".

So the 12 million +++ have suffered the serious side effects of antidepressant drugs, including links to suicide and violence, plus the (now discounted) withdrawal symptoms that result - all for nothing!

This is exactly what patients get from conventional medicine: a lot of problems, adverse reactions: but not many positive outcomes!

Mental Health. Why does the epidemic continue to grow bigger, why is more and more money needed to treat it?

"You can judge your health by your happiness". 

Dr Edward Bach. 

I wrote this some years ago, and unfortunately it is a relevant now as it was then. Mental health is another epidemic of chronic illness that we have been facing for many years, conventional medicine has been next to useless in treating it successfully, doctors us dangerous drugs with serious side effects to treat it, so we find the situation gets progressively worse. And so there are more demands for more money to be ploughed into the same old, failed medicine. Here it is, so how the situation has (not!) changed over the intervening years.

"Diseases that affect the brain, and reduce our mental capacity to cope with life, are becoming increasingly prevalent. Depression, for instance, is a problem that appears to be on the increase - not only in terms of numbers of people affected, but also the age at which people are now becoming affected.

The Mental Health Foundation provided these statistics about the problem.

• 1 in 4 British adults experience at least one diagnosable mental health problem in any one year and 1 in 6 experiences this at any given time (The Office for National Statistics Psychiatric Morbidity Report 2001).
• It is estimated that approximately 450 million people worldwide have a mental health problem (World Health Organisation 2001)
• Mixed anxiety and depression is the most common mental disorder in Britain, with almost 9% of people meeting criteria for diagnosis (The Office for National Statistics Psychiatric Morbidity Report 2001). 
• One in ten children between the ages of one and 15 has a mental health disorder (The Office for National Statistics Mental Health in Children and Young People in Great Britain 2005).
• Rates of mental health problems among children increase as they reach adolescence. Disorders affect 10.4% of boys aged 5-10, rising to 12.8% of boys aged 11-15, and 5.9% of girls aged 5-10, rising to 9.65% of girls aged 11-15 (Mental Disorders more common in boys, National Statistics on Line, 2004)
• Depression affects 1 in 5 older people living in the community and 2 in 5 living in care homes (Adults in later life with mental health problems, Mental Health Foundation, quoting Psychiatry in the Elderly (3rd Edition), OUP 2002.

Another UK web site (the link no longer works) described the situation like this.

• Major (or clinical) depression is a huge and growing problem. "(It is) the No.1 psychological disorder in the western world, it is growing in all communities, in all age groups, with the greatest growth being seen in the young, especially teens".
• Major depression is the 4th most disabling condition in the world, and 2nd in the developed world (the biggest consumers of ConMed drugs).
• The escalation in the problem, and the recurring episodes of depression show that "while the first line treatment of depression by antidepressants may sometimes control the symptoms, it usually does little to give sufferers depression-free lives".
• Clinical or major depression is growing at an incredible rate.

The website went on to make two important points about the reasons for the depression epidemic.

               First it claimed that there is 10 times more major depression in people born after 1945 than in those born before.

               Second, it said that this increase is not due to more people telling their doctor, and that misdiagnosis and undiagnosed cases would indicate the problem is much bigger than the statistic showed.

• Depressive disorders affect approximately 18.8 million American adults or about 9.5% of the U.S. population age 18 and older in a given year (including major depressive disorder, dysthymic disorder, and bipolar disorder).
• Everyone, at some time in their life, will be affected by depression - their own or someone else's, according to Australian Government statistics (its states that depression statistics in Australia are comparable to those in the US and the UK)
• Pre-schoolers (children under 5?) are the fastest-growing market for anti-depressants, with at least 4% - over a million children being clinically depressed.
• The rate of increase of depression among children is an astounding 23% per year.
• In developed countries 15% of the population suffers severe depression.
• 30% of women are depressed. Men's figures were previously thought to be half that of women, but new estimates are higher.
• 15% of depressed people will commit suicide.

So is this evidence of yet another ‘epidemic’ of illness that has occurred over recent decades? Or is there something else that needs to be understood about this increase in mental illness? Whilst the statistics found on these two websites demonstrates the size of this epidemic, another important question needs to be asked.

               Is it a real epidemic of real disease?
               Or is it an epidemic that has been constructed by a health industry that has come to see Mental Health as a source of income and wealth?

Mental Illness has become a big money earner for the pharmaceutical industry, and in recent decades there has been a rapidly increasing supply of suitably diagnosed patients who are said to have a ‘Mental Illness’ of some kind. Indeed, where individuals show no sign of disease the conventional medical establishment appears to be willing to invent new mental disorders (for more on how conventional medicine regularly comes up with new diseases, see "The Creation of Illness".

Conventional medicine has developed, and relies upon the theory that mental health problems are caused by a ‘chemical imbalance’ in the brain, and that mental illness arises when someone has low levels of serotonin in their body. And as should be expected the pharmaceutical industry just happen to have the drugs to correct this imbalance. The theory is unproven and unsound, and the drugs that interfere with our serotonin levels, antidepressants and antipsychotics, may be dangerous, but never mind it is a good business opportunity!

The sale of both antidepressant and antipsychotic drugs have been, and continue to be, a major source of revenue for the the pharmaceutical industry for many decades. (And of course this has continued right up to today)!

The ability to persuade us that we are ill, and that, as a result, we need conventional medical treatment, especially pharmaceutical drugs, has been one of the main reason for the rise of our drug-dominated NHS. It is more difficult to persuade someone they have the physical symptoms of illness, but it is not so hard to persuade them that they are not thinking properly.

And the ability of conventional medicine to persuade so many people that they are ‘mad’ or ‘sad’ or ‘bad’ has certainly proven to be a lucrative ploy. Who was it that said, with amazing insight, that you have to be mad to be able to live in the modern world! It is certainly true that traditional communities are less susceptible to depression. And major depressive illnesses are apparently almost unknown in the Amish society in the USA.

Perhaps it also needs to be noted that one feature of traditional communities, including the Amish, is that pharmaceutical drugs are not used or approved there.

Indeed, it can also be argued, very strongly, that pharmaceutical drugs can contribute to to the mental health epidemic. (Postscript, 10 years + on, it is quite obvious now that drugs DO contribute to mental health problems).The link between mental health and suicide is often sited, on the basis that depression leads to people taking their own life. For instance, it has been estimated that 80% of suicide victims suffer from major depression. But it is equally true that most people who suffer from ‘major depression’ are taking antidepressant drugs. The question arises, therefore, about whether it is the depression, or the antidepressant and antipsychotic drugs that is causing the massive increase in suicide rates.

It certainly means that antidepressants are not stopping people from taking their lives!

So now, 10 years on from writing this piece, it would appear that nothing ever changes in the world of conventional medical treatment, other than that we pour more and more money into useless and harmful treatments, and the epidemic of mental health continues to grow.

Doctors have prescribed addictive drugs for their patients for decades! Now the government has decided there should be a review.

When the UK government ask for a review into prescription drug addiction and dependence it is very clear that there is a very serious issue. There are very serious issues about most pharmaceutical drugs, and we are rarely told about them! And even the BBC has today (24th January 2018) told us about it, which must mean that the situation is very serious indeed.

The UK government, the NHS, health professionals and the mainstream media are usually too busy promoting pharmaceutical drugs to bother telling us about problem side effects!

Apparently the Department of Health (DoH) has tasked Public Health England (PHE) to undertake what they describe as a 'landmark' review into prescription drug addiction and dependence. DoH said that this has arisen from NHS Digital data revealing that 1 patient in 11 (8.9%) has been prescribed an addictive medicine, which is an increase of 3% over the past five years. It wants to know why there has been such an increase, and will look in particular at benzodiazepine and z-drugs, gabapentinoids, opioid pain medicines and antidepressants. Health minister, Steve Brine, is widely quoted

               "We know this is a huge problem in other countries like the United States - and we must absolutely make sure it doesn’t become one here. While we are world-leading in offering free treatment for addiction, we cannot be complacent."

Indeed it is a problem in the USA. It would appear that it is such a serious problem there is even the prospect of pharmaceutical drug company executives being prosecuted. Perhaps this is why these dangerous drugs are the subject of an enquiry when so many other dangerous drugs are not! One PHE director is quoted as saying,

               "It is vital that we have the best understanding possible of how widespread these problems are, the harms they cause, as well as the most effective ways to prevent them happening and how best to help those in need. Many will have sought help for a health problem only to find later on they have a further obstacle to overcome.’

As usual, these warning about the harm caused by drugs come alongside reminders of how 'useful' they are - "many of the prescribed medicines are effective in treating conditions such as pain, anxiety and insomnia" we are told, the balm applied to the warning that these drugs are highly addictive, causing dependence and, if stopped, withdrawal symptoms. The balm is essential. Doctors have been prescribing these drugs for decades, with the blessing of government, the NHS, the entire conventional medical establishment, and the connivance of the mainstream media!

Well, better late than never to have a review into these nasty, harmful and dangerous drugs. We will now have to wait to see if the review will focus on patient safety rather than the need to pour more balm on to the oily waters of patient harm.

Many of the comments about the review seem to indicate that what is important is to better understand the drugs, especially in relation to addiction, in order that future prescribing will be safer.

What nonsense! The conventional medical establishment has known for a very, very long time that these drugs are addictive and dangerous. If they didn't they have been either grossly negligent or inexcusably ignorant! This review is probably more to do with doctor's trying to extract themselves from the responsibility of prescribing dangerous drugs to patients, and damaging them in the process.

Antidepressant Drugs and Depression. Another sign of the failure of conventional medicine

A doctor, writing in the GP's magazine 'Pulse' has said that doctors "need to stop prescribing antidepressants".  These medications, he says, are overprescribed and prescribed for too long. He is, of course, talking against the perceived wisdom of the conventional medical establishment, that has been stating for several years that mental health, and depression in particular, has been under-diagnosed and under-treated, and more drug treatment is needed. Dr Des Spence, a GP in Glasgow, and a tutor at the University of Glasgow, says this:

               "The ‘Defeat Depression’ campaign in adults in the 1990s was an unmitigated disaster for society. It led to vast numbers of prescriptions, lifelong treatment and side effects. Antidepressant prescribing rates have since doubled in a decade, to an eye watering 61 million prescriptions in 2015."

This campaign was orchestrated by the pharmaceutical industry, to promote and sell its antidepressant drugs which were based on the 'chemical imbalance' theory of depression. Drug companies believed (or at least they wanted us to believe) that antidepressant drugs could rectify this imbalance. But, as Spence states, the chemical imbalance theory "has limited science to support it", and cites this study, Lacasse JR, Leo J. Serotonin and depression: a disconnect between the advertisements and the scientific literature. PLoS Med 2005; 12: e392, to support this. Certainly, the use of antidepressant like Prozac, Zoloft and Paxil, SSRI (selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitor) antidepressants that were designed to increase Serotonin levels in the brain, have been spectacularly unsuccessful!

Spence mentions that there is "much evidence suggesting antidepressants are completely ineffective". He quotes two studies to support his statement,

               Fournier JC et al. Antidepressant drug effects and depression severity: a patient-level meta-analysis. JAMA 2010; 303: 47-53

               Kirsch I et al. Initial severity and antidepressant benefits: a meta-analysis of data submitted to the Food and Drug Administration. PLoS Med 2008; 5:e45 

He also mentioned studies that I have already mentioned in my blogs, namely "that even by the most optimistic calculations 85% of patients get no benefit from medication at all".

               Arroll B et al. Antidepressants versus placebo for depression in primary care. Cochrane Database Syst Rev 2009; 3: CD007954

               Haddad PM, Anderson IM. Recognising and managing antidepressant discontinuation symptoms. Adv Psychiatr Treat 2007; 13: 447–57

Spence also mention the withdrawal symptoms when patients have to stop taking the drugs, causing agitation, insomnia and mood swings "which many construe as a return of their low mood".

Yet he does not mention how spectacularly dangerous antidepressant drugs have been. I have written about this extensively on this page of my 'Why Homeopathy? website. There is now convincing evidence that these drugs have become a major cause of violence and suicide. The dangers of antidepressants is well-enough This does not prevent the conventional medical establishment promoting such drugs. It never has! And Spence himself knows that amongst his peers he is a voice in the wilderness.

               "Most people in primary care have reactive depression or adjustment disorders. But challenging this prevailing wisdom of course means I am stigmatising and dismissing mental illness and should be shouted down. But we all suffer mental illness at times, be it anxiety or depression, I know that I certainly have. The issue is how we manage mental illness."

                "Clearly psychological pain, just like physical pain, has a purpose - it is an evolutionary response. Psychological pain is the catalyst of change, acceptance and moving on. Talking it through, addressing social stresses, changing lifestyle and perhaps ending unhappy relationships is the solution. Antidepressants are not the answer for the vast, vast majority of people. We should aim to normalise, not medicalise."

                "Of course this will be dismissed as simplistic drivel, as life ‘is more complex than this’. But in my view it isn't, it really is as simple as that." 

Presumably Spence realises that his colleagues will prescribe antidepressant drugs quite regardless of how ineffective they are, or how dangerous they can be. This is what happens within the NHS. He calls for more use of, and improved access to counselling as a top priority. But he probably realises that 'talking therapies' are not profitable to the pharmaceutical industry, and so are unlikely to be promoted as he wants.

Yet Spence's article does indicate that there are doctors out there, no doubt too few, who are beginning to realise that conventional, drug-based medicine, is failing. So far (at the time of writing) there have been 43 responses to his article. I have looked through these, and perhaps 5 are critical of his article. Most responses seem resigned in hopelessness - doctors have to respond somehow - prescribing antibiotic drugs is 'pragmatic' -  they may not work, but they are effective as 'placebo'. A few responses suggest that if this is true of the prescription of antidepressant drugs, it is also true of antibiotics, and many other areas of conventional medical practice.

Sadly, few doctors seem to be aware of the serious side effects of antidepressant drugs. But the realisation that conventional medicine is failing is slowly progressing, and this article, and the responses, show that even the soldiers, the ground troops of conventional medicine, are realising that the game is up.

Failure of ConMed (12). Antidepressants

The dangers of antidepressants are beginning to be well-known - at least outside the ConMed Establishment. Meanwhile, within it, they seem to be being given out liberally, without adequate or sufficient warning to patients.

In my book, 'The Failure of Conventional Medicine', I outlined the problem with antidepressant drugs. But even since writing this, a couple of years ago, what we now know about the dangers of antidepressants have increased and multiplied.

The Increased Prescription of Antidepressants
First, the number of people taking antidepressants is increasing at an alarming rate. This recent article, from the Guardian newspaper (usually slavishly pro-drug, and anti-CAM), states that there has been an increase of 20% in the last 3 years alone, with over 43 million prescription in 2009-2010. Unfortunately, in this article, and elsewhere in the mainstream media, there is little mention of the serious adverse reactions, and the DIEs (disease-inducing-effects) they cause.

It is also becoming clear that many (if not most), (if not all) do not need to be on antidepressant drugs. This study says that 70% of people on antidepressants are not even depressed! So why are they being prescribed? Perhaps it is just that they are good for Big Pharma profits - which is what seems to be driving most health issues at the present time.

The value and effectiveness of antidepressant drugs
There are now many studies that show these drugs to be ineffective. This article, for instance, suggests (in rather more careful language) that antidepressants are totally useless. There are many others!

This one describes a study that has found antidepressants to be not only ineffective, but that they make you even more depressed!

So with this background, what are we now learning about antidepressant drugs?

The links with Suicide
The link between antidepressants and suicide is now well documented. This article goes through the number of people taking these drugs, the numbers of people considering suicide, the ineffectiveness of antidepressants, and the evidence that they can actually increase suicidal tendencies. It also points out that other Big Pharma drugs can increase the risks of suicide, including the anti-smoking drug, Chantix, an anti-acne drug, Accutane, certain epilepsy and cholesterol-reducing drugs, and Tamiflu.

The links with Violence
Apologists for drug-based medicine hate individual stories about the adverse reactions to drugs. They call them, and dismiss them, as 'anecdotal'. In contrast, I describe them as examples of how Big Pharma drugs can damage and destroy people's lives! Take this one, for instance. A teenager is taking the well-known anti-depression drug, Prozac, and when he had his dosage increased he kills a 9 year old girl, apparently 'for the thrill of it'.

And in Canada, as this story of another drug-induced death seems to indicate, taking Prozac now appears to be an adequate excuse for murder! Yes, a young boy kills his close friend; and the reason given, and accepted by both judge and prosecution, is that the killer was taking this drug! And of course, there is no mention here, either, about whether such drugs should be prescribed in the first place!

So can these, and other similar stories, be dismissed as anecdotal, one-off occurrences? And just how many of these 'anecdotes' do we need before the ConMed Establishment, and Big Pharma, admit there just might be a problem?

In considering this, what needs to be borne in mind is that 1 in 25 adolescents in America are now on antidepressants. So if these drugs do cause gratuitous acts of violence, what will we end up with? A violent society? And this is certainly appears to be what is developing.

This webpage looks at the 'nightmares' created by one type of antidepressant drug, SSRI's, and then links to a long list of literally hundreds of incidents, where acts of extreme gratuitous violence has been associated with antidepressant, and other drugs, like antipsychotics.

And incidentally, whilst we are focussing on SSRI's, have you ever been told they cause severe high blood pressure in babies - when their mother's take these awful drugs?

Unfortunately for us, none of this appears to be admitted by the ConMed Establishment. Certainly, as has been seen, more and more patients are being prescribed these drugs, without being told by their GPs, or anyone else, about their DIEs.

Our brains are the most sensitive, an perhaps the most important of all our organs. They make us what we are, as people, as individuals. Big Pharma drugs, as usual, seek to interfere and change what is going on within our minds. And the consequences appear to be alarming.

Our mainstream media is also quite useless in warning us. This is about how good it gets! The BBC, another news organisation that usually slavishly adheres to the Big Pharma script on health issues, admits that antidepressants can cause falls in older people! Yes, they no doubt do this too. But are we not also to be informed that they can lead to suicide, or that they cause needless and unprovoked violence? There is not a mention of this anywhere!

It would appear that the only winner in all this is the drug companies - selling drugs to people who don't need them - selling drugs that are mostly ineffective in dealing with depression. And all this with total silence, and apparent unconcern, emanating from the ConMed Establishment.

Violence and Drugs

We live in a more violent society - perhaps. Yet we have yet to fully realise that Big Pharma drugs are implicated in many of the worst violent events. Nearly all school shootings in the USA have been done by children who have been taking modern antidepressant drugs.

http://gaia-health.com/articles351/000379-9-top-10-drugs-violence-antidepressant.shtml

The more you examine the Big Pharma industry, the medical profession, and conventional medicine generally, you come to realise that they really don't know what they are doing. They pontificate. They think themselves clever. The call themselves scientists. They proclaim that conventional medicine is 'evidence based medicine'. But it can be seen by what they do, regularly, they have absolutely no idea what damage their drugs are going to cause - until it is too late for many patients.

The article referred to above states that in a Public Library of Science investigation the top 10 drugs implicated are 8 to 18 times more likely to be associated with violence than other drugs, and that most of these are anti-depressants.


"Of the ten drugs, nine have strong action on the brain and are given for mental and emotional problems. The one exception is mephloquine, an antimalarial. Of the remaining nine, one is the amphetamine group, one is for smoking cessation, one is an ADHD drug, one is a benzodiazepine, and five are SSRI or SNRI antidepressants".

The havoc being caused by pharmaceutical drugs appears to know no bounds. If you want to look at a list of drugs that are now known to cause violence, go to

http://gaia-health.com/articles351/000379-table.shtml