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A comment on Most people on antidepressants don’t need them. Parent comment

Re:Most people on antidepressants don’t need them by ldoughty on Thursday October 20, 2022 @06:59AM (#33272888)
I think antidepressants are getting the spotlight because some (many) were approved with only a slim <10% improvement over a placebo... I think the same could be said about the congestion medication phenylephrine [1] (edit: added specific drug name. edit 2: added link)

I get the feeling that drug approval laxed for a good while and let these slip through

[1] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17264159/

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Re:Most people on antidepressants don’t need them by cameronh90 on Thursday October 20, 2022 @07:12AM (#33272976)
I'm not sure how universal this is, but for me, phenylephrine is literally just side effects. It still makes my anxiety worse, but does nothing for my congestion.
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Re:Most people on antidepressants don’t need them by KvanteKat on Thursday October 20, 2022 @07:43AM (#33273199)
Without knowing the exact approval history in the US, I doubt that it is a lax approval process as much as it is an absence of better alternatives.

There are not really any known effective clinical interventions (be they in the form of medicine, therapy, or things like more exercise), and a 10% improvement is better than nothing (clinical therapy (notably Cognitive Behavioral Therapy) is generally believed to be more effective but not by that much and it is financially out of reach for many people who are able to afford medication).

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Re:Most people on antidepressants don’t need them by kraussvonespy on Thursday October 20, 2022 @07:49AM (#33273242)
More on this from Derek Lowe of Things I Won’t Work With fame:

https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/uselessness-phenyl...

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