The maker of Zoloft is being sued in an unusual case alleging the popular antidepressant has no more benefit than a dummy pill and that patients who took it should be reimbursed for their costs.
Zoloft's maker, Pfizer Inc., the world's biggest drugmaker by revenue, disputes the claim,
Not so, according to plaintiff Laura A. Plumlee, who says Zoloft didn't help her during three years of treatment. Her attorney, R. Brent Wisner of the Los Angeles firm Baum Hedlund Aristei Goldman, argues the Food and Drug Administration shouldn't have approved Zoloft because Pfizer didn't publish some clinical studies that found the drug about as effective as a placebo.
TONY DIGIROLAMO
ZOLOFT IS NO BETTER THAN A PLACEBO (A SUGAR PILL)HEAR THIS NOW.
Indeed, "the popular antidepressant has no more benefit than a dummy pill".
Then I couldn't resist this from THE DAILY BEAST of all places. "Hence the moral dilemma. The placebo effect—that is, a medical benefit you get from an inert pill or other sham treatment—rests on the holy trinity of belief, expectation, and hope. But telling someone with depression who is being helped by antidepressants, or who (like my friend) hopes to be helped, threatens to topple the whole house of cards. Explain that it's all in their heads, that the reason they're benefiting is the same reason why Disney's Dumbo could initially fly only with a feather clutched in his trunk—believing makes it so—and the magic dissipates like fairy dust in a windstorm."
Just like the doctor tells you, "this will make you feel better" well we're not really sure of that.
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