More Evidence Antidepressants Might Induce Sexual Dysfunction Even After Stopping Them

From the Website "Mad In America"

A retrospective study in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry identified 183 possible cases of people who suffered sexual dysfunction that endured even after stopping taking SSRI antidepressants. Of these, the Israeli researchers identified "23 high-probability cases" of "Post-SSRI Sexual Dysfunction" (PSSD).

"Possible cases were subjects with normal pretreatment sexual function who first experienced sexual disturbances while using a single SSRI/SNRI, which did not resolve upon drug discontinuation for 1 month or longer," wrote the researchers. "High-probability cases were also younger than 50-year-olds; did not have confounding medical conditions, medications, or drug use; and had normal scores on the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale."

"Limitations of the study include retrospective design and selection and report biases that do not allow generalization or estimation of incidence," noted the researchers. "However, our findings add to previous reports and support the existence of PSSD, which may not be fully explained by alternative nonpharmacological factors related to sexual dysfunction, including depression and anxiety."

The website RxISK has been tracking cases of apparent post-SSRI sexual dysfunction.

Ben-Sheetrit, Joseph, Dov Aizenberg, Antonei B. Csoka, Abraham Weizman, and Haggai Hermesh. “Post-SSRI Sexual Dysfunction: Clinical Characterization and Preliminary Assessment of Contributory Factors and Dose-Response Relationship.” Journal of Clinical Psychopharmacology, March 2015, 1. doi:10.1097/JCP.0000000000000300. (Abstract)

Of course, this side effect has become another medical condition to treat.

University of Minnesota suspends psychiatric drug studies enrollment due to reaction to student death

A report in Science Magazine based on a press release form the University of Minnesota

The University of Minnesota has halted patient enrollment in all psychiatric drug studies after a state report criticized the school’s handling of a suicide during a clinical trial in 2004. The report, released last Thursday by Minnesota’s Office of the Legislative Auditor, says the university’s reaction to both the death of 27-year-old Dan Markingson and subsequent calls for investigation have “seriously harmed” its credibility and reputation. The report also argues that the Markingson case “raises serious ethical issues and numerous conflicts of interest, which University leaders have been consistently unwilling to acknowledge.” Markingson had been enrolled in a trial for antipsychotic drugs while committed involuntarily to a university hospital. One of the trial leaders was his treating psychiatrist.

The university’s president, Eric Kaler, announced that his school would suspend enrollment in current and upcoming drug studies in the Department of Psychiatry until they could be reviewed by an outside institutional review board (IRB). The school’s IRB came under fire last month after a separate review suggested the panel was not examining trials as closely as it should be.

Although the two reports are very different, their authors express at least one overlapping worry: that the school has not responded well to criticism. In the words of the auditor’s report: “A primary problem uncovered by our review is past and current University leadership that is defensive, insular, and unwilling to accept criticism about the Markingson case either from within or outside the University. However, we do not have a recommendation that would change attitudes. … We can only suggest that the Legislature make the issue—and need for change—a more important consideration in selecting people to serve on the University Board of Regents.” The report recommends that the state legislature enact new laws that would allow the legislature to more closely monitor participation in psychiatric drug studies at the university.

The Board of Regents will meet this Friday to discuss the report.

‘Darwinian’ test uncovers an antidepressant’s hidden toxicity.

Rodent study finds that exposure to an antidepressant in womb or in youth can cause lifetime decline in sexual behavior, body weight, and competitive ability.

Once you strip away the scientific verbiage, it becomes obvious that the prolonged use of these drugs creates generations of "losers".

As reported on Science Daily

Because of undetected toxicity problems, about a third of prescription drugs approved in the U.S. are withdrawn from the market or require added warning labels limiting their use. An exceptionally sensitive toxicity test invented at the University of Utah could make it possible to uncover more of these dangerous side effects early in pharmaceutical development so that fewer patients are given unsafe drugs.

To prove the point, the U researchers ran their test on Paxil, an antidepressant that thousands of pregnant women used in the years before it was linked to an increased risk of birth defects. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration now requires a warning about use in the first trimester of pregnancy. In the U study, mice exposed during development experienced multiple problems: males weighed less, had fewer offspring, dominated fewer territories and died at a higher rate. Females took longer to produce their first litters, had fewer pups and pups that were underweight. The drug doses were relatively close to those prescribed for people. In the conventional animal safety testing reported by the drug's manufacturer, no reproductive side effects emerged until rodents took doses multiple times higher than those given to treat depression.

"We are seeing effects at a dose that is close to human levels. And we are doing it exactly the way we need to determine if it presents a risk of harm to a developing fetus," says University of Utah biologist Shannon M. Gaukler, the study's lead author who recently completed a doctoral degree at the U. The study will be published in the January-February issue of Neurotoxicology and Teratology, which has posted a preprint online.

[...]

Testing Paxil

In the Paxil study, the researchers gave food laced with the antidepressant to 20 breeding pairs of mice for several weeks, until all had produced up to four litters. Doses were equivalent to about 1.8 times the level typically prescribed for people. The offspring also ate Paxil-laced chow until they reached breeding age. The researchers then released the exposed offspring into the competitive arena with the offspring of a control group of mice never exposed to Paxil. Groups consisted of eight males and 14 to 16 females, creating population densities comparable to those seen in the wild. The researchers started five such populations and kept them going for six months.

Males exposed to Paxil were about half as likely to control a territory. They also lagged behind control males in body weight throughout the weeks of competition and were more likely to die. Exposed males produced 44 percent fewer offspring. Exposed females showed no significant weight or mortality differences, but they produced half as many offspring as control females at the initial assessment. Their fecundity rebounded at later time points.

They Have No Idea How To Rehabilitate Sex Offenders

As Seen on Vocativ.Com convicted sex offenders may not work at all, according to a new study.

This is another case of "No Results". Of course, psychiatrists have long admitted that they do not cure anyone.

Prison programs that have been in place for decades to rehabilitate convicted sex offenders may not work at all, according to a new study.

“No evidence from academic or policy research has shown that the treatment programme significantly reduces sexual reoffending,” David K. Ho, a forensic psychologist at South Essex Partnership University in England, writes in BMJ. “Victims and the public deserve to know this.”

After reviewing hundreds of prior studies, Ho concluded that there is no evidence that prison rehabilitation programs reduce the risk of sex criminals striking again. If they do not work, Ho says, we are not only wasting state resources, but also putting society at risk by releasing unreformed sex offenders.

To date, the studies have simply followed criminals in therapy and tracked their outcomes. However, in order to draw real conclusions about whether psychotherapy works on sex offenders, we would need so-called randomized trials with a control group that receives “placebo” therapy.

Despite the obvious ethical issues of releasing sex criminals after fake psychotherapy sessions, scientists have been pushing for definitive trials for at least five years.

For more on the effort to rehabilitate sex criminals, check out the American Civil Liberties Union’s review of sex offender laws that do more harm than good.

The author seems to have missed the datum that subjective therapies, such as talking therapies, cannot be subject to double blinding.

As can be seen in this journal issue, modern science is still trying to figure out how to do double blind studies with regard to the various kinds of talking therapies.

Now you can do a double blind study regarding some aspects of the *training* of therapists. This study is fascinating regarding the attitude of the trainees vs the results of the therapy they deliver.

Essentially, if you train therapists to be in real communication with patients, they get better results. Who would have thought?

In 2000, a study was done in which 20 healthy non-depressed volunteers were given the SSRI antidepressant Zoloft (Sertraline). Two weeks into the study two volunteers became dangerously suicidal.

As reported in the Guardian on Sunday 21 May 2000

Much more info at the link

Alarming evidence from a new British study shows that the Prozac class of antidepressants can make healthy men, women and children with no history of depression feel suicidal.

The research undermines the claims of Eli Lilly, makers of Prozac, that people who kill themselves while on the tablets do so because of their depression, and that the disease, not the drug, is to blame for their suicide.

Its findings are particularly worrying because of the increasing numbers of people, including children, who are being given the drugs by their GP for mild depression, and who are not seriously clinically ill.

[...]

It found that two out of 20 healthy volunteers on an antidepressant in the Prozac class called Lustral (or Zoloft in the USA) became dangerously suicidal, compared with none of them when they were put on an antidepressant of a different class called reboxetine.

One 30-year-old woman who took part had a nightmare about having her throat slit after one week and by the end of a fortnight, was suicidal. "She felt hopeless and alone. It seemed that all she could do was to follow a thought that had been planted in her brain from some alien force. She suddenly decided she should go and throw herself in front of a car, that this was the only answer.

"It was as if there was nothing out there apart from the car, which she was going to throw herself under. She didn't think of her partner or child," says the study, published in the journal Primary Care Psychiatry.

Later she completed a diary entry, describing herself as jumpy, anxious and suspicious. "Her mind was racing and spiraling out of control. Then it went blank except for the clear thought that she must kill herself violently by throwing herself beneath a car or a train."