Negative studies on antidepressants went unpublished

A new article in Women's Health magazine sheds some interesting light on the efficacy of antidepressant drugs. According to the article, which summarizes findings published in the New England Journal of Medicine, thirty-one studies on antidepressants were never published by the FDA. What's more, of those thirty-one studies, thirty of them contained negative information about these pharmaceutical drugs.

On the other hand, 94 percent of the published studies on antidepressants were positive. But, when all the studies are taken into account (i.e. when the information from the unpublished studies are factored in), the positive findings drop by 51 percent. The study's lead author, Dr. Erick Turner, was quoted in the article as saying that antidepressants' "batting average is not as high as you might have thought."

For more information on this study, pick up the issue of Women's Health now in stores or follow this link to a short reprinting of a January 2008 article in the NY Times on this matter.