--- In [email protected], "Jeff Fischer" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > --- In [email protected], "authfriend" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > --- In [email protected], TurquoiseB <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > wrote: > > <snip> > > > For example, one-third of the adult popu- > > > lation of America and many other countries is on a > > > constant prescription of antidepressants. > > > > I'd love to see a source for this "statistic." > > I strongly suspect it's bogus. > > Don't have much time now , but here's a sample: > http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/content/2005/s1401280.htm > Australia
Thanks, Jeff. Here an "essay" by a pharmacist is mentioned that says 12 million prescriptions per year are currently being written in Australia, a country with a population of 20 million. But the number of prescriptions written in a year obviously does not indicate the number of people who are on antidepressants, since it's not that common for antidepressants to be prescribed a year at a time; moreover, it *is* common for a patient to be prescribed several different kinds of antidepressants to find the one that works best, since the response is highly individual. Finally, antidepressants are also legitimately prescribed for some medical conditions other than depression. An expert on depression responds to the statistic about prescription, pointing out that national surveys his organization has done show only about 200,000 people in Australia taking antidepressants on a regular basis. So this isn't terribly convincing as documentation of Uncle Tantra's claim. > http://www.mercola.com/2002/feb/16/antidipressants.htm > UK This says there were 23.4 million prescriptions for antidepressants in the U.K. in 1998. The population was 59.6 million in 2003, so presumably somewhat smaller in 1998. But the same caveats as above apply with regard to the relationship of prescriptions written to the percentage of people taking the drugs on a regular basis. And they would apply as well, of course, to the Medicins sans frontieres study Uncle Tantra mentioned. None of this is to say that there aren't too many antidepressants being prescribed, simply that a claim that "one-third of the adult population of the U.S. and many other countries" based on the number of prescriptions written is almost certainly *wildly* exaggerated. To subscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Or go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ and click 'Join This Group!' Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
