David Healy, Joann Le Noury and Julie Wood: Children of the Cure

David Healy’s reply to Carlos Hojaij’s comment

      Dr. Hojaij’s comments are to the point.  Given that he is not aware of Study 329, and perhaps others on the list are not also aware, beyond this study every trial of SSRIs done in children is in fact negative.  This is the greatest concentration of negative trials in human history for any indication in any age group but despite this, antidepressants (primarily SSRIs) are now the most commonly taken drugs by teenage girls with the exception of contraceptives. 

      INHN members know many of the people who have been involved in this situation that retrospectively looks bad.  At the time most of those who played leading roles, however, probably appeared indistinguishable from the rest of us. 

      Eli Lilly trials of Prozac for children were reported as positive when they were negative on their primary outcome.  Lilly’s link to the NIH trial of Prozac, whose adverse event data have supposedly been destroyed, also looks bad retrospectively but did anyone notice any change in Pharma at any point?  Likely not. 

      Meta-analytic techniques allow academic doctors to extract positive results from these negative trials by feeding ghost written data into their sausage maker.  And new journals, like Frontiers in Psychiatry, operating a new business model, perhaps pioneered by Elsevier as Dr. Hojaij notes, publish these analyses. 

      It would be good if INHN readers could read “Meta-analytic Super-Spreader” (Healy 2020) and related posts and offer views.  You might conclude, as Carlos seems to do, by throwing up your hands and saying this is the way of the world - what can we do about it?  Another option, it seems to me, is to point out to a younger generation where the corpses lie – if you remember spotting any corpses being buried that is.

Reference:

Healy D. Meta-analytic Super-Spreader. davidhealy.org/meta-analytic-super-spreader/. 2020.

March 18, 2021