This HND piece takes another look at the problems with psychotropic drugs, and this time we engage the big gun: Professor Peter C Gøtzsche, director of the Nordic Cochrane Centre—Copenhagen.
Our story covers a debate that pitted Gøtzsche against the Big Pharma shills on the subject..Does long term use of psychiatric drugs cause more harm than good? Gøtzsche's pull quote won the day...
Given their lack of benefit, I estimate we could stop almost all psychotropic drugs without causing harm—by dropping all antidepressants, ADHD drugs, and dementia drugs (as the small effects are probably the result of unblinding bias) and using only a fraction of the antipsychotics and benzodiazepines we currently use. This would lead to healthier and more long lived populations. Because psychotropic drugs are immensely harmful when used long term, they should almost exclusively be used in acute situations and always with a firm plan for tapering off, which can be difficult for many patients.
Read the complete article.