Testing antidepressants

[jenk]

From Slate:

[...] It turns out that drug companies are shockingly inept at testing their own products.

[...] Because the patents on medication have a limited duration, the corporations are always in a rush to bring drugs to market. The companies pressure the subcontractors that perform the studies, demanding that they gather research subjects fast. The recruiters then stretch diagnostic criteria, signing up patients who may not have the disease in question. Studies often include people with a host of shifting complaints, many of which are based less on acute illness than on personality style. The result is a group with poorly defined conditions and high placebo response rates—enough static to drown out whatever effects the medications have on substantial disease. [...]

Oddly, then, in the "rush to market," drug company studies tend to hide the efficacy of the very medications that the corporations hope to promote. It is the rule, not the exception, for similar medications to fare poorly in drug company trials but to fare well in subsequent (presumably disinterested) government-sponsored research. - full article