12.5% Anti-depressant suicide rate False. CORRECT results Show 56% !

a reply to: AnuTyr

What anti-depressant is a "happy pill"? I have taken many different ones and it took about 5yrs to find the combination and dosage to help. If I had been suicidal I probably would have done it before the right combination was found, which means I would have been one of the people in your statistic.

1. What percentage of the general population is on antidepressants?

2. What percentage of psychiatric patients are on antidepressants?

We know that a little over half of the people who commit suicide are on antidepressants. Does that tell us much other than that these individuals had issues for long enough to get looked at and rx with antidepressants to try and help them out?

There's no causation shown here. You need to find a clear rise in suicides in relation to increase in consumption of antidepressants.

a reply to: nullafides

There arn't many drugs that will let you go cold turkey.

With SSRIs that's going cold turket on serrotonin inhibitors.

It takes weeks to recover from Extasy, Months, sometimes years depending on the severity of the damage done.

I think people should try to eliminate their need of drugs and ween off them eventually. But there are side effects and withdrawl symptoms from SSRIs.

Any chemical inhibitor in the brain will have an effect on the brains chemistry ( Which is what it was designed to do)

Overall people need to fight their addictions. And fighting a drug addiction is not always easy as SSRIs can be very addicting. You brought up some very good points and they should of been mentioned.

I don't take SSRIs, but i do take medical cannabis. And Cannabis, Being one of the least harmful of all the *Drugs* out there has minimal withdrawl symptoms. Even i, Being left handed. Have trouble kicking my habit as i use this to treat my ADHD, ADD which tends to make me more argumentative, agressive, and act spontaniously. So for me, I even had chemical changes in my brain because of something as minimal as Pot to treat my symptoms. There always a trade off when taking mind altering substances. Same thing with cigarettes, Very hard habits to quit.

SSRIs won't be a picnic to get away from that's for sure for those struggling with depression.
Do i recommend they get off them? That's up to them if the pill makes them enjoy life or not. If not. They probably shouldn't be on it. Also, I don't like the idea of trying an alphabet of drugs either to find * One* that works for me.

Drugs tend to have a very permenant effect for the most part on peoples brains even tho they deny it because of substance abuse or personal ambitions.

The OP has a point because if you read the side effects of these meds it openly says that they can cause "suicide idolisation". No ifs or buts. Sometimes they prescribe another med to counter this effect.

a reply to: pl3bscheese

There are A LOT of people on anti-depressants. and just because someone is depressed does not mean they have the ambition to commit suicide.

It's directly talking about how effective the treatment is. Are people more prone to committing suicide off the drugs? or are they more prone to committing suicide on the drugs? The study shows minimal inconsistancies showing that the drug may not help prevent suicides in such cases.

SSRIs may work for some people, They also may not work for others and make depression even worse.

The previous study stated that only 12.5% among those who commited suicide had SSRIs in their blood stream.
The results were skewed and calculated incorrectly. Had the results been 12.5% there would be been reason to believe that SSRIs do infact prevent suicides. However with the results of 56% among those suicides calculated in the statistic did so with SSRIs in their blood stream, Showing an inconsistancy in their effectiveness to work.

If a doctor told you, theres a 50% chance of this pill working or theres a 50% chance of this pill making your life and time harder, Would you feel more comfortable knowing that 12.5% is the suicide rate well being on said pill? Instead of 56% on said pill? Where when the person commited suicide. They were high on the SSRI. It does not look good for buisness which is what it is. A buisness.

a reply to: AnuTyr

It is a business but a necessary one. What are the stats of suicide before anti-depressants? And I mean without alcohol or marijuana?

a reply to: AnuTyr

I'm not defending the companies deceptive statistics, or the fact that it's a for profit business with a motive to increase the bottom line and take unethical risks towards that end.

I'm wondering to what degree, if any, antidepressants actually increase suicides, and put out a few points to consider. Hello fellow southpaw.

originally posted by: catt3
a reply to: AnuTyr

It is a business but a necessary one. What are the stats of suicide before anti-depressants? And I mean without alcohol or marijuana?

That's not part of this study.

Here's a quote to better help understand what it's saying

In June 2012 I made an FOI request to Karolinska Institutet (where Isacsson is working) to get the corrected figures in this research project. I specifically wanted to get the document containing the correct percentage of antidepressants for those 'who committed suicide and who had previously been treated at a psychiatric clinic for depression' (the earlier mentioned group of 1077 persons).

All the people in this study HAD treatment. So the in this study 1077 people were treated.
All of these people who went through the treatment commited suicide.
Among this group, are those calculated for those who are not on depressants ( have not taken depressants or stopped going to the psychatrist/doctor after a period of 5 years and then commited suicide) Compared to those who were on SSRI's and commited suicide.

So 603 people in this study commited suicide well on SSRIs compared to 474 who had commited suicide after treatment and off SSRIs.

There are numbers for total suicides as well it deals with sweden, tho those numbers are based off of the previous paper which had inconsitancies.



This chart is from the previous study which gave the 12.5% results. The specifics of this question delt with tho suicide rates among users of SSRIs and non-users ( People who stopped after 5 years) It also shows the total suicides for as mentioned Sweden.

Sorry this reply is taking so long but i'm pulling these numbers out copying and pasting lol.

I already quoted this part in my Original OP but if you need to read it again, It's from the previous study as mentioned
Accidental deaths are also included on this chart and are explained in the quote below how the numbers from the chart were generated.

The controls (34,165) are people who did not commit suicide.
These are individuals who died from accidental and natural deaths.
Antidepressants were detected in 6.5% of these individuals post-mortem.
The suicides (18,922) represent all Swedish suicides from 1992 to 2003.

Antidepressants were detected in 22.4% of these people post-mortem. Then the authors broke the numbers down further. They note that 11,226 of the suicides had no psychiatric hospitalization in the 5 years prior to their deaths. Of these individuals, 14.8% had antidepressants detected post-mortem. The remaining 7,696 suicides, who had been in a psychiatric hospital in the preceding 5 years, had an antidepressant detection rate of 33.6%. And this is where it gets complicated. The researchers broke the hospitalized numbers down further, into: Those hospitalized for depression only
15.2% Those hospitalized for other problems
37.3% Those hospitalized for depression plus other problems
33.2% Their argument was that the first group (depression only) would be expected to have about the same, or an even higher, level of detected antidepressants as the other groups. But, contrary to expectations, they found that they had the lowest level – about the same, in fact, as the group who had not been hospitalized in the previous five years. So, they reason that large numbers of the hospitalized-for-depression-only group, most of whom presumably had antidepressants in their blood stream, had "been saved from committing suicide by antidepressant treatment." But as mentioned earlier, there was an error in the data, and the correct number was 56%.

The court case specifically delt with the inconsistancy that led to the original error of 12.5%.

It kinda jumps all over the place, But i hope this helps. I don't know the percentages of what you are asking because as far as i can read. The study did not factor those in as those require a seperate study on their own, This deals with Karolinska Institutet flase claims. And the court case that forced them to re-evaulate their data.

a reply to: AnuTyr

I'm being lazy here and not reading the study, but let me ask what was the rate of suicide among non depressed individuals that took the anti depressants?

Or was the study solely performed with clinically depressed patients?

originally posted by: GetHyped
I'm not exactly seeing the causal link here. Suicidal people are depressed. Depressed people in psychiatric care are treated with antidepressants. Therefore, the conclusion is that antidepressants cause suicide? This does not logically hold up.

I was thinking the same thing.

Happy people don't commit suicide and they don't go to a clinic to be treated for depression...

originally posted by: AnuTyr
That's the whole point tho, If people are high on drugs they are more likely to follow through with their thoughts.

Yes it's entirely dependant on the person, how they feel and how they act. Problem with drugs is, they change the way people feel and they alter the way people act.

It's confusing for sure but with a subject like this it needs to be read in depth.

someone could be feeling like crap one day, Take one of these * happy pills* and say Screw it. Now is the day i do it.

Anti-depressants are prescribed to STOP PEOPLE from committing suicide. If anti-depressants arn't doing what they were made to do. Then why are they perscribing them to people? If they have such negative symptoms besides the suicidal behavior that would make a person feel more likely to follow through rather than attempt.

There is a huge number of medicated people using anti-depressants around the globe. And if they all knew that the pill that is given to them won't help them but has a pretty good chance at making them feel worse physically and mentally then we shouldn't be prescribing them to people with depression at all!

Some suicides can't be prevented or rather, are to complicated of a situation to figure out at this time. But others can be prevented and usually seeking help for these problems is leading one to a path they believe will lead them to feeling better and living a happier life. Problem with that tho is it has the opposite effect.

So do the drugs make people more likely to commit suicide? if you par all the negative effects, and the fact it does not eliminate suicidal thoughts. Chances are Yes. it can make things much worse than what it was in the begining since psychotropics + Anti-depressants have direct impacts on brain development and neural pathways. Altering peoples personalities and life almost permenantly. Like people who take Extacy Ect. Now the extacy thing is only my oppinion.
I view the 2 of them as being very very similar.

Do you have any personal experience with anti-depressants?

You're making a lot of very misinformed statements.

Anti-depressants don't get people "high." They aren't a "happy pill" and they aren't specifically designed to keep people from committing suicide. They're sure as hell not like Ecstasy.

There are millions of people that are able to live a more "normal" life because of anti-depressants but sometimes it takes a bit of experimentation to find the right medication. The problem is, many people wait until they've lost all hope before seeking help and medication is their last step before suicide.

Basically, they get desperate, they go to the doctor expecting a "happy pill" and when the meds don't magically cure all of their problems, they end their own misery.

a reply to: Answer

Thats where I was heading.

If the study was only done on clinically depressed individuals than I would think it means more that there is a 50/50 chance of anti depressants working at best in preventing suicide. So the argument would me more that anti depressants aren't as effective as originally thought rather than that it causes suicide.

Now if they had given the anti depressants to non clinically depressed individuals and their was a 50/50 chance of suicide among them, that would be interesting.

a reply to: Answer
Like 5382 with 2009 if them having SSRIs in their system. people or something? Who were not treated with depression but commited suicide. Both including those that had antidepressants and didn't have them. Says 37.3% However the chart was previous to the correcting of the specific question these journalists/doctors were trying to force out of the research facility.

from what i'm reading 2000 of them had SSRIs in their system, tho were not diagnosed with depression. From what i understand from the chart above.

pretty sure that's what you are asking.

originally posted by: AnuTyr

1. All the anti-depressants do is get the person high.

2. The issues of depression need to be more or less focused on the families ability to make the person WANT TO LIVE. Rather than the families ability to support them getting high on pharmasucles.

3. Anti-depressants are prescribed to STOP PEOPLE from committing suicide.

4. If a doctor told you, theres a 50% chance of this pill working or theres a 50% chance of this pill making your life and time harder, Would you feel more comfortable knowing that 12.5% is the suicide rate well being on said pill? Instead of 56% on said pill?

1. That's false and it's a strange comment coming from somebody who is a supporter of medical marijuana. That's the same kind of argument people against medical marijuana use. There may be some component that is causing a high in some antidepressant users. There are also components that seem to work for many people.

2. Situational depression is not the same as clinical depression. Severe clinical depression doesn't care if you have the greatest family and life in the world.

3. Responsible doctors will actually ask a person, prior to prescribing many antidepressants, if the person has had suicidal thoughts. If so, because of the potential for suicidal ideation, they will seek an alternate course of treatment. There are some situations that there is no good treatment just best available options. Antidepressants are not simply to prevent suicide.

4. There is not a 50% better 50% worse scenario. The drugs have a different effect on different people. Many of the drugs simply do nothing or only help for a short time.

5. I know there was no 5 above, I'm adding one on antidepressants are not very well understood and I've given up on them personally. There are still significant gaps in this study. They may have had data gaps because getting an accurate history is often difficult when dealing with psychiatric patients. It's certainly not a smoking gun. I agree with you that people should educate themselves on the things they take, but I think this would not be the right article to start with when researching antidepressant therapy.

a reply to: Answer

Happy pill is the Urban dictionary term for such things example.

happy pills Psychotropic medication used to treat depression and the mentally unstable Damien could not cease dwelling over the torment of his soul and so he developed a deep depression which could be treated with Prozac capsules, his happy pills of choice.

I do not take SSRI's so my experience with them is minimal.


I also said that SSRIs CAN help people, it all depends how they make said person feel.
And its a serrotonin inhibitor, it will have an effect on the persons mood and thoughts.
Extasy is similar only different in that it dumps all the serrotonin the brain has in reserves through the receptors.
if a person takes an SSRI it will inhibit Extasy from working. But both of them interact with neurological receptors dealing with serrotonin which is why i compare them as being similar.

Extacy however is a more chemically dirty drug if not produced in a certified lab and it's most likely MDMA would be used instead of E which is a mixture of MDMA methephedimines an other neuro-stimulants and repressors.

I don't know everything about these drugs, However i do think they inflence a persons behavior. You are right tho and i have stated already that tons of people around the globe use these, and not everyone that uses them is depressed or has suicidal thoughts.

There are those who are depressed yet don't want to kill themselves, I believe the majority is those kinds of people that use SSRIs. In the case of those who directly seek for depression against suicidal thoughts, May need more specialized help rather than simply a pill.

Is what the point of this is, They were trying to prove that SSRIs save people in EXACTLY those kinds of states but the opposite is found in this study as there is no consistancy of this theory because it does not prevent these types of people from enacting what they were planning on anyways, Drug or not drug.
Doctors reason with this one study that it CAN save such people, but as shown the assumptions are false.

Besides psycotropic drugs have been known to leave people in worst states than when they began them.
We could create a thread for prozac and the damage it does to families/individuals ALONE.

a reply to: Mianeye

If it is complete BS then why does Japan MANDATE that all SSRI/SSNRI drugs carry a warning label not just for suicidal but also for homicidal behavior as a potential side effect.

We know that at least one of the Columbine kids was on an SSRI - though thanks to privacy laws that fact has largely been expunged from the public record and there is every indication that James Holmes and Jared Lee Loughner were also both on psych meds either prior to or during their crimes. Largely this becomes a moot point because withdrawal from these meds can cause a plethora of dangerous effects as well. Both taking them AND quitting them have severe risks - up to and including natural death.

I have personally twice been in the ICU due to adverse reactions to one particular brand of SSRI called Cymbalta.

My ex-wife divorced me because my first "mood stabilizer", a tricyclic antidepressant called Doxepin Hydrochloride so changed my personality that she felt like I was a totally different person than the person she married.

I may well be one of the few people on ATS who will openly admit to having been an inpatient in a mental health ward and have seen with my own eyes the effects that a variety of psychological medications have. In fact one of my best friends passed away this past Thanksgiving at 46 years old and the only rational explanation is that his body simply could not tolerate his medications.

Having said all of that - I think that the 56% claim is highly skewed as it includes people who were going to end up suicides no matter what medications they were given. Mentally ill people tend to end up in very dire straights, often homeless and estranged from all former friends and family, and unable to get any public assistance ( Yes, dear Conservative friends, I know, I know... food stamps and welfare for all. Except for the real world fact that if you are homeless it is nearly impossible to get benefits in many areas, as a home address and phone number are required. And even the areas that are liberal about overlooking being homeless still tend to have very slow approval processes ). So I would think that the logical thing to state is that mentally ill people are exponentially more likely to die by suicide than those without mental illness and that there are a myriad of reasons for that - including medications that can exacerbate suicidal ideations.

a reply to: Hefficide

Sorry to hear about your struggles hefficide, But i'm glad you commented and poured your wisdom and knowledge into the Thread.

I hope everything is looking sunny side up from now and the passed is the passed.

Jfyi there are natural anti-depressants that might be helpful. The Mamosa Tree grows wild all over California and the flowers are used in Chinese Medicine to treat depression. The Chinese called it "the Tree of Happiness". Make sure to do your own research, but here is a picture:

The assumptions throughout this thread are alarming. The OP, as written, is an abject failure at best, and an outright lie at worst. People really will twist things to suit their beliefs.

I thought to mention since the OP is a lefty as well, we have different neurobiology and neurochemistry than your average rightie, which is why we're not included in clinical studies involving the brain. Every SSRI I've tried gave me severely negative reactions. I felt as if I was going to die, no exaggeration, from taking welbutrin.

Even the natural mild SSRI St. John's Wort makes my head hurt. It feels restricted and NOT okay. I'm not sure if this is the average lefty response to SSRI's, and am curious to know how many with serious side-effects are lefties.