Virginia Tech Forum: Controversies Over Antidepressants_Nov 10

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[sSRI-Research] Virginia Tech Forum: Controversies Over

Antidepressants_Nov 10

 

 

 

 

Virginia Tech Forum: Controversies Over Antidepressants_Nov 10

 

 

ALLIANCE FOR HUMAN RESEARCH PROTECTION (AHRP)

Promoting Openness, Full Disclosure, and Accountability

www.ahrp.org

 

FYI

On Prozac: Debating the New Technologies of Mind

A public debate / discussion hosted at Virginia Tech will adress the

controversies surrounding the largely inappropriate use of

antidepressant and other mind altering drugs

 

This promises to be an intelligent, critical discussion.

Unlike the one sided infomercials that have in recent years replaced

all semblance of a free exchange of ideas. Mental health professionals

at academic and community forums are resentations but one point of

view by psychiatrists with unacknowledged, direct financial conflicts

of interest. The presentations by psychophyarmacologists and federal

and state mental health officials rely on scripts written by Pharma PR

firms.

 

Recently when experts who are critical of the unsubstantiated claims

made about antidepressants, antipsychotics, and the other mind

altering drugs that are currently widely prescribed from cradle to

grave--without any evidence that the drugs improved people's

lives--the psychiatry department at these universities boycotted the

spealkers. Robert Whitaker, author of the prize winning, seminal book,

Mad in America was boycotted by Harvard Dept. of Psychiatry.

Similarly, the Department of Psychiatry at Columbia University

boycotted a presentation by the internationally acknowledged expert

psychiatrist / psychopharmacologist, Dr. David Healy, whose research

and analysis of the concealed clinical trial data, brought to public

light the suicide risks of Prozac and the other SSRI antidepressants,

and brought to light the utter lack of science behind the

antidepression bandwagon.

 

In sharp contrast to these major universities, Virginia Tech invites

the public to attend a controversial subject.

 

 

 

Contact: Vera Hassner Sharav

212-595-8974

veracare

 

 

On Prozac: Debating the New Technologies of Mind

 

" DANGER: These drugs may offer pseudo-solutions to real problems "

 

The quip above succinctly describes how controversial antidepressants

have become in our day. Yet equally, the arrival of the new generation

of 'psychoanalgesics " -psychic painkillers-has been celebrated as a

breakthrough in the treatment of depression and other psychological

afflictions.

 

An odd thirty years after the first approved use of antidepressants, a

new class of drugs, the Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors

(SSRIs), have appeared on the market. The first of these became known

by its brand name-Prozac©. Since then the word " Prozac " has come to be

used as a placeholder in a slew of publications-Listening to Prozac,

Prozac Backlash, and Prozac Nation, to mention a few. In our forum,

" On Prozac, " we use the brand name in that general sense: as a

stand-in for the current generation of SSRIs, and other related new

drugs, created to treat psychological problems by altering what is

regarded as their physical substrate-brain chemsitry.

 

The rates at which these antidepressants are prescribed has exploded.

In the United States alone, antidepressants use tripled in the 1990s.

The National Center for Health Statistics reported that in 2002, for

example, over 38 visit per 100 women involved these drugs-nearly

double the rate in 1996. Roughly seven percent of the adult population

is currently on an antidepressant. Even more controversially, more and

more children and adolescents are now consuming these drugs. And the

conditions fo which they are consumed have also exploded-beyond

depression, to incude social anxiety, stress, and premenstrual

syndrome among others.

 

The rapid adoption of antidepressants in our time-which surprised even

pharmaceutical companies-has outpaced efforts to carry on pubic

deliberation aout the consequences and desirabiity of this massive

change in the way our society treats emotional distress. Concerns

persist regarding the efficacy of these medications, the ethics of

pharmaceutical treatments, harmful side-effects, and the plausability

and consequences of treating depression as a disease of biochemical

origin.

 

The 2005 forum, " On Prozac, " will take place on Thursday, November 10.

The aim of our forum is to encourage public discussion of this

significant modern-day development. The panel members, which feature a

range of recognized authorities on various aspects of antidepressants,

will address ethical, medical, social, philosophical, and

environmental dimensions of antidepressant use. A series of background

and follow-up sessions will fill in with up-to-date materials and

allow for audience participation. Session topics include history of

antidepressants, the viability of clinicl trials, how antidepressants

are represented in the popular culture, and alternative perspectives

on what many regard as an epidemic-depression.

 

 

 

Project Founder: Doris T. Zallen

Project Directors: Crist & Daniel Breslau

Research Associates: Brandiff Caron and Benjamin Sovacool

 

For more information, contact the

 

Choices and Challenges Project

Science and Technology in Society

Virgina Tech, Mail Code: 0247

Blacksburg, Virginia 24061

Phone: 540 231-6476 Fax: 540 231-7013

Email: choices

 

 

 

 

 

Forum to address controversies over antidepressants

 

04 Nov 2005

 

Choices and Challenges at Virginia Tech will hold a public forum

entitled " On Prozac: Debating the New Technologies of Mind, " a

day-long series of panels and discussions to be held on Nov. 10 in the

Graduate Life Center at Donaldson Brown. This forum is open to the

public at no charge.

 

In 1987, a new class of antidepressant medications, the Selective

Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors (SSRIs) appeared on the market,

promising a cleaner, more effective treatment for depression, with

greatly reduced side-effects. The first of these drugs, fluoxetene,

better known by its trade name, Prozac, has become emblematic of the

explosion in their use. In the United States, antidepressant use

tripled in the 1990s. Roughly seven percent of the adult population is

currently on an antidepressant. Even more controversially, these drugs

are now prescribed to more and more children and adolescents.

 

The rapid adoption of these " technologies of mind " has not allowed for

adequate public deliberation of their benefits and consequences. The

Choices and Challenges forum is designed to provide a forum for such

discussion.

 

" The routine use of these medications creates the illusion that their

safety and efficacy are known quantities, " says Daniel Breslau, an

associate professor in the Department of Science and Technology in

Society in the College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences, and a

co-coordinator of the forum. " And beyond the question of their

effectiveness, these drugs raise broad and urgent questions about the

causes of emotional distress, how to define emotional and mental

well-being, and the relation of mind to the brain's physiology. "

 

To be informed consumers of mental health services, and informed

participants in policy debates, the public needs to hear and engage

with a wide variety of perspectives, including those of ethicists,

historians, and philosophers of mind.

 

" Before treating the epidemic of depression as strictly a problem of

brain chemistry, we need to explore social and ecological causes as

well. That is one important aim of our forum, " said Crist, an

associate professor in the Department of Science and Technology in

Society and Choices and Challenges co-coordinator.

 

The forum's main panel will feature a range of recognized authorities

on various aspects of antidepressants, and will address ethical,

medical, social, philosophical, and environmental dimensions of

antidepressant use. The main panel discussion will take place at 11

a.m. Moderated by Joseph C. Pitt, head of the philosophy department at

Virginia Tech, panelists include:

 

-- Samuel Barondes, director of the Center for Neurobiology and

Psychiatry at the University of California at San Francisco and author

of " Better than Prozac: Creating the Next Generation of Psychiatric

Drugs. "

 

-- Joseph Glenmullen, clinical instructor in psychiatry at the Harvard

Medical School and author of " Prozac Backlash " and " The Antidepressant

Solution. "

 

-- Valerie Hardcastle, chair of the Department of Science and

Technology in Society at Virginia Tech, and author of " The Myth of Pain. "

 

-- David Kidner, associate Fellow for the British Psychological

Society and author of " Nature and Psyche. "

 

-- E. Haavi Morreim, ethicist and professor in the College of Medicine

at the University of Tennessee and author of " Holding Health Care

Accountable: Law and the New Medical Marketplace. "

 

A series of background and follow-up sessions, beginning at 8 a.m.,

will fill in with up-to-date materials and allow for audience

participation. Session topics include history of antidepressants, the

viability of clinical trials, how antidepressants are represented in

the popular culture, and alternative perspectives on what many regard

as an epidemic--depression.

 

In conjunction with the Choices and Challenges Forum, the Theater Arts

department will present a performance piece, Life on the Pharm,

written and conceptualized by Brandiff Caron and Ann Kilkelly,

professor in the department of Interdisciplinary Studies. The piece,

to be performed on Nov. 9-11 in 30 Pamplin Hall at 8 p.m. each night,

will involve the audience in an interactive exploration of issues

around depression and its treatment with pharmaceuticals.

 

The Choices and Challenges Project was founded in 1985, and has

presented annual forums on issues of public concern involving science

and technology. For more information, visit the website at

choicesandchallenges.sts.vt.edu.

 

Jean Elliott

elliottj

Virginia Tech

vtnews.vt.edu

 

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