[.ca] Talking Back To Prozac (ISBN 0312956061)

From Amazon.com:
Are you one of the thousands of Americans "listening to Prozac"? Chances are you at least know someone who is. It's time to take a closer look at this supposedly "safe" drug. Peter Breggin picks through the studies used to justify Prozac's safety, often uncovering flaws and shoddy science. He details the FDA approval process, including who on the panel was paid by whom. The key players and the details will surprise you.

Breggin, P.R. (1994). Talking back to Prozac. New York: St.:
Psychiatrist Peter Breggin is known for his outspoken stance against psychiatric medications. Talking Back to Prozac is in effect a response to Peter Kramer's Listening to Prozac, a book that argues Prozac is safe, relatively free of side effects, and effective in relieving mild, chronic depression as well as what may be called "personality flaws." Breggin contends that psychiatrists and pharmaceutical companies are hiding the scary facts about Prozac. He makes the same point about newer psychiatric drugs in more recent works. Breggin's book offers a one-sided rather than a fair, balanced judgment of antidepressants like Prozac. About fourteen years have passed since Prozac became available in the U.S., and the drug has been taken by over 20 million people worldwide. It has proven safe for the overwhelming majority of these people, although it is no longer the "hot," popular drug that it was in the late 1980s and early 90s. Countless studies have shown Prozac to be safe and effective in a range of conditions such as depression, social phobia, and obsessive-compulsive disorder. In this light, Breggin's book seems alarmist. Most mental health professionals in the U.S. and Europe believe that medications, along with psychotherapy, are an important part of treating mental disorders. With his rigid stance, Breggin is denying patients an effective means of relieving their anxiety, depression, etc. On the other hand, Breggin's arguments are not all completely false. Antidepressants like Prozac are not bogus pills, as he suggests, but their effectiveness has probably been exaggerated. New antidepressants constantly enter the market and are prescribed in the hope that they would be effective in patients that did not respond to Prozac or other older drugs. Also, studies usually report an efficacy rate of 60-80% for these drugs, but it is not clear why the 20-40% who respond to placebo are not subtracted from those larger figures to report an actual efficacy rate of 20-60%. Another valid point is that the rate of side effects for Prozac and similar drugs has been under-reported. Sexual side effects are far more widespread in patients taking selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) including Prozac than previously thought. One possible reason is that patients in clinical trials did not readily express sexual complaints about the drug they were given. Another plausible point is that pharmaceutical companies are sometimes less than fully ethical in reporting all the facts. If we consider the entire drug industry, there have been many cases in which these companies have apparently exaggerated the benefits and hidden the problems related to drugs they were marketing. These companies also mount very effective advertising campaigns to encourage both psychiatrists and ordinary people to take certain drugs rather than older and cheaper alternatives. For example, Prozac is now available in its generic form as fluoxetine, but it has lost popularity to newer drugs introduced in the past few years. All of this suggests that patients must consider both the pros and cons of antidepressants. Breggin only offers the cons in his book.

Shameless fear-mongering...:
The review of another reviewer here says it all -- This book (and many others like it) prey on the fears of the ignorant masses, who know nothing about psychology, psychiatry, medicine or science. A few already on the drug who read this may go off it, with potentially negative results -- for example, it's easy to "placebo effect" oneself into anything (including severe withdrawal symptoms one otherwise wouldn't have) after being scared to death by trashy books like this. Thankfully, its target audience consists mostly of "survivors" who had negative experiences (possibly caused by their mental issues rather than the drug) and who read this kind of crap to feel vindicated. In the previous review I referred to, the person says: "Prozac is known to harm the brain and the body. Listed side-effects reported included: Heart Attack, Bronchitis, Impotence, Pneumonia, Hair loss, Deafness, Cataracts, Duodenal ulcers, Kidney disorders, Stomach ulcers, Hepatitis, Gallstones, Arthritis, Pelvic pain, Breast cysts, Uncontrolled bowel movements, Breast pain..." It is obvious that this person (and maybe even Breggin!) doesn't understand how to interpret reported side effects of a medication (clue: listed side effects include *all things that happened to anyone for any reason while taking the drug*). It's really sad when this kind of one-sided sensationalism becomes "holy gospel" for the ignorant and agenda-driven, who then proceed to close their minds, turn off their critical thinking facilities and refuse to investigate further. But of course we're already aware that Breggin is "preaching to the choir" here, and that this kind of sensationalist trash is what sells books these days. A real impartial, scientific view? Sadly, one's choices are probably limited to classroom textbooks anymore. A few have stated that Breggin really cares for people -- how the hell do they know? If he cared, why doesn't he offer an impartial viewpoint with proofs so people can judge for themselves? Undoubtedly big pharma is "evil" (i.e. purely in it for the money) but given that Breggin is profiting bigtime off the fear generated from his books, what does that make him? A final question for Breggin's congregation: Why didn't he just release all this information on the Net freely to the public if he's such a great guy doing his best to save lives?

Poor Research at its Best:
This book proves the point that any and everything can be published in the market today, especially if it in any way relates to psychological, physical health. I was constantly blown away by the poor research, overstated claims, unfounded hypotheses etc. spewed forth by the author of this book. At a certain point I wondered if I wasn't reading a tract on Christian Science (you know, no medication to cure any and all ills). This text is highly irresponsible, egregiously misrepresentative of facts both medical and sociological and, frankly, a waste of money. The implications made by the author, that patients on Prozac can be prone to homicidal rage, that they become walking, emotionless automatons and the like are jaw-dropping and silly. Prozac, the most highly-researched anti-depression drug on the market today, is not the center of some huge medical, FDA conspiracy like the author would lead readers to believe. Multiple studies have been paid for and published by organizations with no connection whatsoever to the company that manufactures Prozac that reveal the wellspring of benefits from this wonderdrug. Granted, medication is not always the right option for every patient but in many cases can be the needed reprieve from a life of darkness and inner-turmoil. I speak from personal experience. If you're truly interested in the effects of Prozac, its use in studies and so forth I would highly recommend going to medical journals and/or texts for the real details. Not as easy to go through but, ultimately, much more effective and insightful.

Breggin is courageous and right on:
The negative reviews call Breggin unscientific, fear mongering, etc., but Breggin was just ahead of his time. In the past year, English regulators have warned against SSRI use (except Prozac)in youths and adolescents, basically due to the dangers Breggin warns of in this book. Recent headlines in the U.S. report the FDA is also recommending similar warnings about agitation and suicidality resulting from use of SSRI's in children and adults.A 2004 network evening news headline story recounted how a senior FDA scientist recently reviewed SSRI trials and concluded that suicidal ideation occurred twice as often in the SSRI group as in the placebo group (and then the FDA tried to suppress the public revelation of the conclusions of their own scientist). The truth is the drug companies knew from the start that SSRI's pose serious dangers of agitation, akathisia and suicidality. It's been years since anyone on the inside seriously believed the Serotonin imbalance theory of depression. This information has been available all along and was deliberately suppressed by the drug companies. Now, ten years later, people are beginning to wake up, acting as though this is brand new news. Go online to Prevention and Treatment, Volume 5, articles 22 through 32, published by the American Psychological Association, for extensive discussion of the fact that the FDA trials barely showed any difference between the SSRI's and placebo. Better still, read Let them Eat Prozac, by David Healy, soon to be available in the U.S. Healy is a total psychiatric insider, an SSRI researcher and perhaps the world's leading authority on the history of the development of SSRI's. He's not an anti-psychiatrist. He's just pro-truth. He cites chapter and verse, and his conclusions are basically the same as Breggin's. The negative reviewers simply miss the mark. To judge the value of Breggin's books, you need do one thing: List his specific factual claims, and then try to find in mainstream psychiatric literature any attempt to rebut those specific claims, point by point. Not "he's dangerous," or "he's a zealot," or "he's unscientific," but actually point for point. For instance, Breggin charges that many Prozac patients in the FDA trials were also put on Benzodiazepines because Prozac alone made them so agitated they couldn't sleep. Look for mainstream psychiatry to a) state whether Breggin's claim is actually true, b) explain why that isn't a serious comment on Prozac, and c) answer Breggin's claim that where Benzo's were used, if the patients on Benzo's were excluded, the Prozac group was no more effective than placebo. Healy makes many of the same specific points, and more. He exposes the systematic way the drug companies distorted their research and saw to it that both the scientific literature and popular promotional material contained the same distortions. Breggin was right, and his critics, who accuse him of being shrill and unscientific, are describing themselves more than they describe Breggin.

Alarmist propaganda:
I'm a psychiatric nurse. Peter Breggin is well known in the field of psychiatric medicine as being anti-all drugs. Has prozac been overprescribed or mis-prescribed? sure. but this drug and the class it belongs to have helped WAY more people than they hurt. penicillin and other antibiotics can kill you too if you're allergic and don't know it. and antibiotics are WAY over prescribed if you ask me and other professionals. i've worked in state psychiatric hospitals and i've seen a LOT of people who only got out and back to the world because of medication. i would hate to think that a book like this would turn back the clock to the old days when there was no medication and people wasted their whole lives in the hospital. GET A GRIP: ANYthing you put in your body has side effects and you can die from taking too much Tylenol, too. picking on this drug is a cheap trick