Beginning of the end of Hobby Antidepression

Why did I not hear about this?

A study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association in January reports that "For patients with severe depression, the benefit of medication over placebo is substantial.” but “[t]he magnitude of benefit of antidepressant medication compared with placebo…may be minimal or nonexistent, on average, in patients with mild or moderate symptoms. "

There is a stronger claim hiding in the article too. Though the marketed effects of these drugs are under attack, their side effects are very well established. And antidepressents may be worse than nothing. With the restraint typical of technical writing, they leave that particular conclusion as an exercise to the reader.

• (meta) study out of JAMA, with all kinds of lines to read between.
• Bay Area newspaper editorial, hilarious, inflamatory and pretty glorious
• Newsweek's angle, with your canonical responsible counterpoint from a professional, with the sober title, "A Doctor Disagrees"

Of course, you can't read up on anything so obviously threatening to the developers of these drugs without stumbling on some great, glowing conflicts of interest. Here is a Who's Who: http://www.cchrint.org/cchr-issues/the-corrupt-alliance-of-the-psychiatric-pharmaceutical-industry/