DECEMBER 8, 2008

A DISSENTING OPINION FROM THE ACNP ON ANTIDEPRESSANTS AND SUICIDALITY

This week I am in Scottsdale, Arizona, for the Annual Meeting of the American College of Narcissistic Psychiatrists (Oops! I mean Neuro-Psychopharmacology... or maybe it was Negotiators for Prostitution, since the word is that the original annual meeting was held in the 1960s and 1970s in San Juan, Puerto Rico, since the whores in San Juan were more affordable on the limited salaries of the academic psychiatrists, at least before they themselves became, well...)

We've had some memorable moments at the annual meetings of the ACNP (of which I am a proud member, at least as of the time of the writing of this post). The narcissistic psychiatrists print out their research results on "posters" and pin them up on boards and then everyone walks around getting drunk while they pretend to read the posters while catching up on gossip. And oh, we have some great gossip to catch up on. Usually we are supposed to print the posters out from computers, but one year one of the narcissistic psychiatrists drew the title of his poster with a crayon. Although the posters are supposed to represent research, another year one of the narcissistic psychiatrists had a poster dedicated to the alleged corruption of another one of our august members. And then there are the numerous inquiries, investigations, accusations, and assorted phlegm sent to the group email list that livelies up our days.

Such fun!

We used to say that the struggles in academia were so great because the rewards were so small, but thanks to payola from Merck, Lilly, Pfizer, and friends, I guess we can't say that anymore! Cheerio!

Anyhoo, to the point of this post, my dissenting opinion from the official position statement of the ACNP on suicidality and antidepressants. For years the ACNP has been solemnly convening a committee every year to comment on a possible association between suicidality and antidepressants. Even five years ago when I viewed their report (before the more recent uproar over the topic) I saw their list of studies showing that in almost every case the rates of suicidality were doubled. I therefore concluded that the conclusions of my august fellow members were, frankly... bullshit.

Even now the ACNP continues to put its head in the sand and denies a relationship between antidepressants and suicidality. But take a look at the people on the committee ruling on suicidality and antidepressants and you see conflicts abound with members taking speaking and consulting fees from drug companies. And it takes an infinite reach of the imagination to believe that antidepressants making you suicidal are no big deal, as was recently argued by one of the committee members on his NPR show, since it hasn't been shown that they will make you SUCCESSFULLY kill yourself since suicide is rare and noone has ever shown that something will make you more likely to successfully kill yourself.

Hey buddy, wanna buy some blue pills that are gonna make you think about killing yourself? Dont' worry, in the end you won't actually do it.

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