Related tags:
drugs + (9)
depression + (9)
antidepressants + (5)

The Prozac, Paxil, Zoloft, Wellbutrin, Celexa, Effexor, Valium, Klonopin, Ativan, Restoril, Xanax, Adderall, Ritalin, Haldol, Risperdal, Seroquel, Ambien, Lunesta, Elavil, Trazodone War New York Magazine's Jennifer Senior writes on prescription drug (ab)use among soldiers and veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan. [more inside]
posted by l33tpolicywonk on Feb 15, 2011 - 50 comments

"The drug's effectiveness inspired an elegant theory, known as the chemical hypothesis: Sadness is simply a lack of chemical happiness. The little blue pills cheer us up because they give the brain what it has been missing. There's only one problem with this theory of depression: it's almost certainly wrong, or at the very least woefully incomplete."

How Prozac sent the science of depression in the wrong direction, from the Boston Globe.
posted by zardoz on Jul 6, 2008 - 56 comments

A new peer-reviewed meta-analysis of clinical data demonstrates that four widely-prescribed SSRI anti-depressants, including Prozac and Effexor, are not more effective than placebos. Summary from the Guardian. [more inside]
posted by Rumple on Feb 25, 2008 - 86 comments

Talking back to Prozac. Review article in The New York Review of Books, covering some issues concerning the diagnosis and treatment of depression.
posted by hydatius on Nov 21, 2007 - 57 comments

Anti-depressants increase suicide risk in young adults, FDA warns. "When results are analyzed by age, it becomes clear that there is an elevated risk for suicidality and suicidal behavior among adults younger than 25 years of age that approaches that seen in the pediatric population." More here and here. This follows the FDA finding that anti-depressants increased the risk of suicide in young children. The FDA now requires manufacturers of anti-depressants to include warnings, and plans to meet on Dec 13 to discuss the findings further.
posted by shivohum on Dec 12, 2006 - 42 comments

The Ty-D-Bol Man looks pretty mellow today. When I was younger, my father - a pediatrician - would routinely clean out the medicine cabinet of old cold medicines, antibiotics, high potency barbiturates, illegal diet pills and other nostrums. Rather than throw them into the garbage "where someone might get their hands on them" he would flush them down the toilet (just like the poison control people recommend). Apparently in doing so he was making sure that everybody got them. Think the quantities are too small to make a difference? Not so, say Canadian fish, who seem capable of getting confused by the residue from birth control pills and changing gender. Don't worry too much about them, though. They're all on Prozac, so they're OK with it. [NB: see comments for .pdf version of first link]
posted by scblackman on Apr 28, 2006 - 21 comments

Broadly speaking, the brief includes the claims that in prizing persons, we prize a complement of emotion; that in prizing moral perception, we prize the emotional dispositions that make it possible; that in cultivating character, we cultivate virtues but also emotional sensibilities. Wisdom in Love aims to show that passions, love and concern, in particular, ground the substance of a worthy life and, perforce, a life of wisdom. A loving attachment, appropriately fixed and cultivated, underlies felt-significance. This makes the goods that animate a life matter. Conversely, a love that's misaligned or stunted brings on personal deterioration and despair. Right action and reasonable belief presuppose apt emotional attunement to the world and others, as well as appropriately responsive character that is rooted in emotional dispositions and operative in moral perception. This gives a philosophical frame equipped to separate false, sentimental, inept, or frozen emotions from more worthy ones, tied deep into worthy roots.
Wisdom in Love: Kierkegaard and the Ancient Quest for Emotional Integrity reviewed. On a related topic, Peter D. Kramer, author of Against Depression ponders "So, Dr. Kramer, what would have happened if Kierkegaard had taken Prozac?" See also Philosophy And Depression by Tim Ruggiero
Also by Richard Anthony Furtak, a translation of a poem by Rainier Maria Rilke--Sonnets to Orpheus, 1.2  mostly via Online Papers In Philosophy
posted by y2karl on Jul 18, 2005 - 38 comments

Prozac Found in Britain's Drinking Water. Norman Baker, environment spokesman for the Liberal Democrats, said it looked "like a case of hidden mass medication upon the unsuspecting public." Or possibly something less alarming, like the recycled leftovers from the public waste... either way, very disturbing.
posted by Espoo2 on Aug 8, 2004 - 54 comments

The Son of God has Prozac and Viagra on sale now. Why bother with know-it-all pharmacists when you can get prescription drugs from Jesus Himself? He even sells birth control for only $129.99 a month (loaves and fishes not included.) via The General
posted by trondant on Jun 4, 2004 - 19 comments

Anxious? Depressed? - you need more brain cells. Just take one of these twice a day. New research shows that antidepressants may not work as we thought at all, rather they actually stimulate growth of cells in the hippocampus area of the brain. This may all be for the good - but it seems strange that we release millions of happy pills and market them as safe without knowing for sure what they do. Perhaps its the money talking.
posted by grahamwell on Aug 9, 2003 - 75 comments

And the top 200 prescriptions for 2001 are... I see Claritin near the top of the charts, with zoloft and paxil not too far behind. Prozac is down, with viagra shooting up the charts like a... hmm. In total 3.1 billion prescriptions were filled in the US, which would be about an average of a dozen per citizen. Also interesting are the previous six years of data, allowing anyone to build a "Rx Zeitgeist" of the american hypochondriac.
posted by mathowie on May 21, 2002 - 59 comments

Prozac 'linked' to brain tumors: Nothing incontrovertible yet. But where does it put us already hyper-sensitive brain candy users who've been given a new lease on life? Now we have to worry about this too?
posted by crasspastor on Mar 26, 2002 - 28 comments

Prozac seems to be societies new legal LSD. In the 60's acid could cure anything. If you were feeling down, tune in turn on and drop out and everything will be good. Timothy Leary was a huge part of this whole "acid culture", but as Hunter S. Thompson so eloquently put it "He crashed around America selling consciousness expansion, without ever giving a thought to the grim meat-hook realities that were lying in wait for all those people that took him seriously." In the end the acid culture failed, but we have yet to learn the lesson that everything can not be cured with a magic pill or some powder, you can't just add some water and cure societies problems like making instant soup. Could this belief in drugs that Tim Leary promoted during the 60's have lead to the overmedication of children today? Those old acid heads that have since become working stiffs that have kids still believe in the back of their minds in "better living through chemicals" and allow doctors to over prescribe their kids chemicals such as Prozac and Ritalin. Do you think that there could be a connection between this overmedication and school violence?
posted by bytecode on Sep 1, 2001 - 61 comments

Why is everybody so happy?
This Thursday, U.S. regulators approved numerous copycat versions of Prozac. I wonder how long it will be until Bayer makes Flinstones Chewable Prozac for teens.
posted by lheiskell on Aug 2, 2001 - 34 comments

As if you weren't depressed enough, now the world knows you're taking Prozac
posted by fooljay on Jul 5, 2001 - 6 comments

Poor Eli Lilly is going to lose it's Prozac patent protection soon, though not quite yet. via Follow Me Here
posted by dcodea on Nov 16, 2000 - 5 comments

Hmm. Why am I not surprised? Muddling with your serotonin in such a drastic way has always struck me as an overreaction to depression. Let's be honest. In a world jam-packed with aggressive apes who deny that they are apes, a little depression is a healthy response. Taking a serotonin re-uptake inhibitor just because you feel blue is like taking 10000 micrograms of Acid because you like the Harry Potter books.
posted by Ezrael on Jun 6, 2000 - 30 comments

Speaking of Prozac... Did Prozac and Ritalin cause the Columbine disaster? Are these drugs causing kids to kill? The people of "A White Rose" seem to think so. You be the judge.
posted by SuperGoat on Mar 22, 2000 - 3 comments

Medicate 'em! No time to bond with your children. Work leave you drained and the kids just will not listen? Let Prozac help. The kids, not you.
posted by Mick on Mar 22, 2000 - 3 comments