Seroxat Suicide Bomb

There main reason that I am sceptical of psychiatry and the pharmaceutical industry is that we have very little good understanding of how the brain works and what effects different chemicals have on its functioning. And don't get me started on the placebo effect.

All over the BBC today is the news that GlaxoSmithKline has apparently been caught covering up the ineffectiveness of its antidepressant Seroxat, for adolescent depression. An extract:

She also found an email from a public relations executive working for GSK which said: "Originally we had planned to do extensive media relations surrounding this study until we actually viewed the results. "Essentially the study did not really show it was effective in treating adolescent depression, which is not something we want to publicise."

The editor in chief of the British Medical Journal, Fiona Godlee, said that what she calls the "blind-eye culture of medicine" should be exposed by professionals.

When pharmaceutical companies spend huge amounts of money developing and promoting a drug, it is understandable that they are willing to suppress studies which undermine their agenda. How else are they going to make back the money they have already spent, if not through peddling their wares to as many as possible? But it is your own responsibility to ensure that you are not being taken advantage of by people who think they know better, or consider those who aren't helped by their drugs as a kind of collateral damage. People may be trying to help, but this really still is the blind leading the blind.