That many millions of people around the world have been prescribed dangerous drugs, with no beneficial effect whatsoever, has now found conclusive evidence of the fact. A recent peer-review metanalysis, published in Molecular Psychiatry, debunks the decades-old theory that depression is caused by a chemical imbalance in the brain — the key chemical being serotonin.
The lead author of the study, Joanna Moncrieff, thinks “we can safely say that after a vast amount of research conducted over several decades, there is no convincing evidence that depression is caused by serotonin abnormalities, particularly by lower levels or reduced activity of the brain.” This latest review included tens of thousands of people. Those with lower levels of serotonin did not fare any worse, psychologically, than those with higher levels of serotonin. Genes, likewise, played little to no role.
Tom Cruise, feeling vindicated, is probably somewhere jumping on a couch. During a 2005 interview with Matt Lauer, the megastar and scientologist had expressed criticism of both the medical theory and the companies that profit from pushing it. While those clips now see new life on social media, we should keep in mind that Cruise wasn’t the first or only person who said as much. For a couple years, I’ve been slowly making my way through a couple of Dr. Peter Breggin’s volumes. Breggin, who is described as the “conscience of psychiatry,” has been critical of these drugs for a long time. I’ll be referring to him here.
The big news comes far too late for millions of others who already have a pill halfway down their throat. This class of drugs are called Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors, or SSRIs, which are intended to raise your levels of the chemical, thereby easing your depression. According to the stack of articles I’m reading from, some research has even found that these pills reduce one’s serotonin levels. Not so salubrious. It’s so depressing that it might even lead to an increase in refilled prescriptions. All addicts are familiar with such a cycle.
It’s said that some 80 percent of those surveyed believe in the “chemical imbalance” theory, resulting in worldwide bamboozlement. How did they all fall victim to the theory? It was probably less bamboozlement and more of mankind succumbing to its innate need to believe in something.
Daniel Carlat, a psychiatrist and the editor of the Carlat Psychiatry Report, gives support to that idea. In an interview, Carlat described the average conversation he’d have with one of his patients: “The reason you’re depressed or anxious is that you have some sort of deficiency. And I say that (laughter recorded) not because I really believe it, because I know the evidence really isn’t there for us to understand the mechanism — I think I say that because patients want to know something.” The person in the white coat wouldn’t possibly lead you astray — just look at the credentials proudly displayed on that wall! (Interestingly, Wikipedia tells us Carlat is a critic of the current paradigm.)
As it is, doctors have a lot of practice with the “all in your head” line. Just ask someone who’s suffered from chronic pain and they’ll tell you about the number of doctors who’ve dismissed them in the same fashion. For psychiatrists, it’s even more convenient. Suppose you do have a good doctor, and you’re suspected to have a broken bone, then you’ll get an X-ray; if it’s a bad sinus infection, a CT scan; for liver disease, blood work. No such diagnostic equivalent exists in the field of psychiatry. Therefore, “try this pill.”
II.
Side thoughts. The problem with meme culture, useful and humorous as it may be, is that it often opens one up to ridicule. Nowadays, whenever someone points out the dystopic thing, others immediately laugh at you for stating the obvious, or for being a nerd, or whatever. After all, Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World came out in 1931. The premise of the novel involves a population that daily consumes a drug called “soma,” which lets them forget about the general meaninglessness of their existence.
Almost thirty years later, Huxley wrote a lengthy afterward to his classic. In that, he explored the possibility that he would be proven right with his prediction, and that his nightmare of a painless but pointless society was being constructed faster than he had anticipated. He concluded that it was already almost here.
Since that initial publication of his book, there had been a “tidal wave of biochemical and psychopharmacological research.” Huxley mentions the isolation of both adrenochrome and serotonin. As real-life somas, beer, tobacco, and amphetamines are crude and unreliable. “A more promising candidate for the role of soma,” Huxley opined “…is Iproniazid.” Iproniazid is considered the world’s first antidepressant.
And how, Huxley wondered, would we get the population to take these pills? Simple: “In all probability it will be enough merely to make the pills available.” Prediction made manifest! So of course this stuff is handed out like candy. It’s not a secret, and so it’s not a scandal. Cue the cheesy commercial featuring someone happily sliding down a large mound of, not dirty pebbles, but colorful pills. One can hardly watch a news program without being bombarded with a dozen such advertisements.
“That a dictator could, if he so desired, make use of these drugs for political purposes,” felt Huxley, “is obvious.” A properly numbed population won’t protest when the government spends another half trillion of their money. It won’t pay any mind when someone puts bizarre lesson plans into their child’s school curricula. It will ignore the slow brewing of a new war. These things don’t enter the thoughts of a man or woman who’s been “emotionally blunted,” to then borrow a phrase from Dr. Breggin.
III.
Returning to Moncrieff’s study, it would, as expected, find some critics. Psychiatrists Pies and Dawson (Dr.’s P&D from here on out) had seven “serious problems” with the study. I’m a journalist, not a scientist, and so I’ll try my hand at a few of their points.
Dr.’s P&D reject the view that there’s been “a full-blown theory of depression proposed by a monolithic entity called ‘psychiatry,’ asserting that depression is directly caused by abnormal levels of 1 or more neurotransmitters.” They then quote psychiatrists Joseph Schildkraut — who is reported in the news as the man who first proposed the “chemical imbalance” theory — and his presumed partner, Seymour Kety, who make basically the same point. Here it is in full:
It should be emphasized…that the demonstration of…[a catecholamine] abnormality would not necessarily imply a genetic or constitutional, rather than an environmental or psychological, etiology of depression…it is equally conceivable that early experiences of the infant or child may cause enduring biochemical changes and that these may predispose some individuals to depressions in adulthood…[and] any comprehensive formulation of the physiology of affective state will have to include many other concomitant biochemical, physiological, and psychological factors.
Dr. P&D then tell us that their own review of medical textbooks and journals yielded exactly zero references to the “chemical imbalance” theory, at least none within the last thirty years. “Very few — if any — US psychopharmacologists and academic psychiatrists have ever endorsed a sweeping chemical imbalance theory of mood theory,” they write. Which is interesting.
I wonder if these statements are at odds with the current position of the American Psychiatric Association. One of the “risk factors,” according to them, is: “Biochemistry: Differences in certain chemicals in the brain may contribute to symptoms of depression.” As of this writing, that remains the first item listed on their website.
Reconfigure the words yourself. Is it an imbalance of only serotonin? Or a hugely complex neurological system, involving countless chemicals and transmitters, not working as harmoniously as they should? I don’t know. And neither do the people who get paid handsomely for putting their names on studies and prescriptions.
Then Dr.’s P&D tell us what they really think. In brief, a lot of medications work wonders for people, and for many of them we have no idea exactly why that is. In more technical words, “the mechanism of action” is unknown. To grant themselves more insurance, Dr.’s P&D add that such brain pills should be used cautiously and conservatively.
But that’s a little after the fact, isn’t it? As they know, the whole pharma program is a semitruck driving on a dark night with no headlights on. Thankfully, “there is convincing evidence that most antidepressants are safe and at least modestly effective in the acute treatment of moderate-to-severe major depressive episodes.” Dr. Breggin, and plenty more these days, would beg to differ.
For instance, Dr. Breggin long ago pointed out that antidepressants eventually replaced sedatives as the drugs most frequently involved in successful suicide attempts. “Obviously,” Breggin wrote, “there is a built-in danger to giving such lethal drugs to depressed patients who have a high and unpredictable suicidal potential.” Powerful stuff, both the pills and the observation.
IV.
As for the big study, Dr. Breggin would agree that its nothing new. Way back in 1991, when he wrote his book Toxic Psychiatry, he reported on several studies that had the same nonexistent findings. “No causal relationship,” he wrote, “has ever been established between a specific biochemical state of the brain and any specific behavior, and it is simplistic to assume it is possible.” Again, to this day that remains so.
One might’ve notice that I haven’t even attempted an exact number of people taking these drugs. Millions. Worldwide, its probably nearer to a hundred million. Most disturbingly, this includes a lot of young children (I specify young children because I don’t only mean 16- or 17-year-olds — I’m talking children in elementary school) who are also victims of the pharma-vortex. Dare I once again use the word dystopia? But then neither have I tried to estimate the billions in profit accrued from the abuse of these drugs.
My last point is a slight regret. The studies reviewed herein indicated that “stressful life events” had greatly contributed to someone developing depression. Just so. But I’ve only focused here on antidepressants, and not depression itself, as that would require an entirely separate piece. Importantly, and as Dr. Breggin himself has stressed, someone currently taking these drugs should not simply stop taking them, as that very well could lead to painful and devastating withdrawal symptoms. Instead, that person should seek help in carefully waning themselves off, hopefully with the help of a professional who can closely monitor their progress. That this news might provide the incentive for someone to do that is, all in all, good news.
KM Patten is the Arizona correspondent for Stairway Press. Through his activism and essaying, he tries to keep his new state free. An anarchist in the tradition of William Godwin, Patten has published one book, Indictments from the Convicted, and two booklets, Staying ON During the Great Reset, and In Favor of Hatred.
