Professor Swaran Singh, Head of Mental Health and Wellbeing at the University of Warwick Medical School, comments on a new large-scale study which has found that 21 commonly used anti-depressants are more effective than placebos.

He said: "After years of observing the extraordinary therapeutic power of antidepressants in 30 years of clinical practice, while simultaneously noting the misinformation, ignorance and downright hostility towards them in certain sections of public debate, it is heartening to see a scientific confirmation of the potentially life-saving effects of these drugs.

“The knee-jerk and lazy, almost facile caricature that these drugs are no better than placebo, that psychiatrists prescribe them under the corrupting influence of ‘big pharma’, and that anything that involves talking would be safer, better, more effective and more human can be finally laid to rest.

“Antidepressants, like antipsychotics, have done more to alleviate human suffering than most other forms of medication (bar anaesthetics) and this study puts them in their rightful place as highly effective and extremely useful drugs.”

22 February 2018

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