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Psychologist Says Antidepressants Are Just Fancy Placebos
Depression is a chemical imbalance, most people think. Researchers, drug manufacturers, and even the Food and Drug Administration assert that antidepressants work by "normalizing" levels of brain neurotransmitters—chemical messengers such as serotonin.
And yet hard science supporting this idea is quite poor, says Irving Kirsch, professor of psychology at the University of Hull in the U.K. An expert on the placebo effect, Kirsch has unearthed evidence that antidepressants do not correct brain chemistry gone awry. More important, the drugs are not much more effective against depression than are sugar pills, he says. To support these controversial claims, Kirsch conducted a meta-analysis, digging up data from unpublished clinical trials.
