Below find some excellent resources about SSRI’s, the most common family of antidepressant drugs which includes celexa, luvox, prozac, remeron, serzone, paxil, zoloft, and effexor.
– Angela
1. Here find an general overview of SSRI antidepressants produced by Women and Health Protection (WHP), a coalition of community groups, researchers, journalists and activists concerned about the safety of pharmaceutical drugs: SSRI antidepressants: their place in women’s lives.
2. Also published by WHP, this thorough paper looks at the impact of SSRI use among Canadian women and attempts to uncover the systemic reasons behind this widespread use. It reviews what is currently known about the benefits obtained and the harms caused by SSRIs, as well as both the definition and incidence of depression in women. The role of gov’t regulation is addressed. Finally the paper looks at alternative responses to women’s emotional distress. A must-read if you’re interested in the issue of antidepressant drugs: The Marketization of Depression: The Prescribing of SSRI Antidepressants to Women.
3. Catch Fortune Magazine’s lead article:
Trouble in Prozac
Fortune Magazine
November 28, 2005
by: DAVID STIPP
Wonder drugs of the 1990s, Prozac and its kin have been prescribed to tens of millions of people. But a growing backlash may portend the end of an era.
This is an excellent, detailed article about SSRI antidepressant drugs — their dangers, connection to suicide, serotonin hypothesis, side effects including agitation and withdrawal, marketing, profits, court cases, and more.
“But for all the glow about SSRIs, the drugs have been among the most controversial in the history of medicine. Bitter disputes about side effects have seethed for more than a decade, usually out of sight of the mainstream media-in supermarket tabloids, on websites, and in professional gatherings of scientists, regulators, and shrinks.
Rare, dangerous side effects of potent medicines like antidepressants often emerge only after the drugs have been prescribed to millions of people for years. But in the case of SSRIs, that is not the whole story. There are signs that manufacturers have downplayed known risks of the lucrative drugs and that regulators and doctors haven’t been skeptical enough about them. ”