Quote:
Originally Posted by Dion
Antidepressant drug trials turn away most of the depressed population. A reason why drug trials are flawed.
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That is pretty much how all drug trials are conducted. They include a very detailed inclusion and exclusion criteria. It is a problem in clinical trials regarding cancer treatment because companies often reject later stage patients because they have a higher likelihood of dying and as such would make their results look worse.
Similarly, they have to restrict the type of depressed patients on the trial. Mild or Moderately depressed patients have a higher chance of responding due to the placebo effect which would make the drug look worse. After investing 200 million developing it the company tries to do their best to get it approved.
Unfortunately that is the way it is, the FDA is supposed to regulate these trials and monitor them to try and limit these sorts of things. At the end of the day though developing drugs is a business and you see things like this.
Edit: I should also add, even though some trials are skewed like this, there are several medicines that are critical for treating mental illness. It doesn't mean they are guaranteed to work on you but they have shown great promise in current patients and in past clinical trials.
With regards to avoiding medications completely, well some modern medicines have a lot of question marks but some have been absolutely outstanding. To repeat what others have said, it all depends on you as a person. Some people will react beautifully to one drug but then react terribly to a more common drug. Medicines are out there for a reason, they definitely have their drawbacks but to full out ignore them in treating Mental Illness is a very bad idea. Everything is about balance, if you rely and trust modern medicine completely you will get burned, if you ignore it completely you will also get burned. You try to take a calculated risk with each illness that you come upon and then just hope for the best!