Guest Post by Karl Denninger
I have written a number of articles related to various violent rage-monster style attacks over the years in this column; Newtown, Aurora Colorado and others. These attacks, including others such as the infamous Columbine High School shoot-em-up-fest, have a common pair of thematic elements:
- The assailants were all late adolescents or young adults.and
- They were all taking, or were just taking, a particular type of anti-depressant called an SSRI.
Correlation is not causation and the plural of anecdote is not data. However, the lack of such rage-monster incidents among other age groups, when these drugs are prescribed across the spectrum of ages, is extremely curious — and troubling.
Now we have data, in the form of two studies. The first deals with an infamous Glaxo study known as “329”, which was related to the drug Paxil; the US brought criminal charges against GSK and ultimately a $3 billion fine for its marketing of the drug to children and adolescents — an “off-label” use that cannot be marketed under US law and which GSK claimed was supported by “remarkable efficacy and safety” demonstrated by this particular study.
The problem lies in what was found when the study data was re-analyzed — specifically:
But according to the RIAT team, the effect of paroxetine was not significantly different from placebo for any prespecified primary or secondary outcome measure.
In other words the drug did not work.
No comments:
Post a Comment