Jeffrey DeLisle
Aug 26, 2017 · 1 min read

I am not using tactics, I am expressing my opinion. I am not part of a professional mob trying to beat back the barbarians. I am expressing an informed opinion after carefully reading your thesis.

I am not conceding the point that antidepressants don’t work, but used the example of severe depression to highlight one cogent refutation of your idea that they don’t. One problem with the meta-analysis of antidepressant studies is that many studies only go out for several weeks. The longer studies are carried out, the more decisively there is a separation between drug and placebo. By lumping all the studies together, there is thus an over-representation of the placebo effect.

The first antidepressants (MAO inhibitors) were discovered serendipitously when depressed tubercular patients given MAOs for their antitubercular effects lost their depression without any improvement in their tuberculosis. How can one explain that effect except medically?

I have seen, and patients and families have seen, more times than I can count, chronic mild to moderate depression respond robustly to medication. No, it doesn’t always happen. Depression is a heterogeneous phenomenon, I agree with you on that.

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    Jeffrey DeLisle

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    enthusiastic dilettante with intellectual pretensions