Is Prozac, the wonder drug of the 1990s, just a jumped-up placebo?

As seen on the British website Spiked

At the height of the so-called Prozac Revolution in the early 1990s, fans of the drug made some grand claims for the new pharmaceutical marvel on the block. [...] Since those heady days, however, the reputations of Prozac and other selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRI) have taken a beating, not least when GlaxoSmithKlein was forced to abandon the claim that its SSRI, Seroxat, had no withdrawal symptoms. Worse might be on the way - a growing number of people is beginning to suspect that rather than being panaceas, these drugs might be no more than glorified placebos. [...]

It is worth noting that to register a drug, the FDA requires that two trials show it to perform better than placebo. One of the drugs needed nine trials to return two positive ones, the other seven being rejected. 'The whole thing is a pseudo-science', says Kirsch. 'These trials do not show that the drugs are significantly better than placebos.' This is not isolated evidence.

Good article, worth reading. The evidence is building up on the scam behind these drugs.