"Antidepressant addiction" in the Danish media

[Lise]

One of the biggest Danish tabloids, Ekstra Bladet (corresponding roughly to England's The Sun) ran an article the day before yesterday about the addictive nature of antidepressants. The news is also in more respectable media such as the Danmarks Radio (the public news station) homepage and that of Politiken, a centre-left newspaper.

 

I didn't buy the newspaper as I feared it would make me too depressed, but from what I've been able to glean the angle being pursued is that these drugs are addictive, they have always been, and doctors have always been unwilling to admit so. The Ekstra Bladet headline is:

"Experts raise the alarm - "happy pills" violently addictive"

 

Ekstra Bladet has interviews with antidepressant users and experts, appearing to be on the side of the patients (this tabloid usually takes the side of the underdog against the system, so it is no surprise, but at least this time it serves a purpose I agree with.) The interviews do not appear in the website article.

 

I link here to the Politiken article, the contents are nearly identical to the original one in Ekstra Bladet:

http://politiken.dk/tjek/sundhedogmotion/sygdom/ECE1837578/depressionspiller-kan-goere-brugere-afhaengige/

 

Briefly, it says:

- antidepressants cause addiction, this is shown in several studies (scientists Peter Haddad and Richard Shelton are mentioned)

 

- patients report experiencing the same [[Ekstra Bladet had interviews with 7 AD users]]

 

- doctors and health authorities do not tell patients this, on the contrary, says leader of the Nordic Cochrane Centre, prof. Peter Gøtzche. He blames this silence as one of the reasons patients find themselves unable to quit. Head doctor of St. Hans mental hospital Karin Garde agrees: "It's unfortunately very well known that antidepressants are very hard to stop taking, which is why you should never start taking thim unless there is a very, very good reason to."

 

- head of Danish Psychiatric Society Jeanett Bauer denies that antidepressants are addictive, as addictiveness entails that one needs more and more of a certain type of medication for it to have effect. [[i won't quote what I shouted on reading this!]]

 

The focus in both the Politiken article and the Ekstra Bladet one is definitely that antidepressants are addictive and very hard to quit, and the one woman who denies it does not come across as very convincing.

 

I'll be happy to dig up every article I can on this and translate it if someone wants me to.

 

It gives me hope to finally see the things I've been reading in here and experienced on my own body voiced in the media as well as by health professionals.

[Skyler]

I'll be happy to dig up every article I can on this and translate it if someone wants me to.

 

It gives me hope to finally see the things I've been reading in here and experienced on my own body voiced in the media as well as by health professionals.

Thanks for letting us know, and I'm really glad Denmark beginning to recognize the perils of ADs. Unfortunately, I'm dubious something will appear in a US paper, at least anytime soon.

[Lise]

Urgh, touche. I wouldn't know about that but one can always hope that this is a symptom of a more widespread recognition of the perils of ADs :/

[Altostrata]

If the online publication permits comments, I'd like to know what the general tenor of the comments is.

[Lise]

The Ekstrabladet online article permits comments: http://ekstrabladet.dk/kup/sundhed/article1879259.ece

 

It's a very mixed bag. Some berate the AD users for being weak enough to need medication in the first place, though those comments are few and "thumbed down". Some are supportive of AD medication and saying "I came right off them." And quite a few are suspicious towards Big Pharma.

 

The comments who get "thumbed up" are those supporting the message of the article: yes, these drugs are addictive, we need to be aware of the monetary interest in pharmacology, and we need to be critical towards authorities. Some commenters are describing long-term withdrawal symptoms, and people are generally sympathetic towards them.

[Barbarannamated]

Can anyone translate the article below or tell me how to find program to do it? It is about brain damage caused by antidepressants but I don't know details.

 

http://ekstrabladet.dk/nationen/article1784283.ece

 

Thank you.

[Skyler]

Can anyone translate the article below or tell me how to find program to do it? It is about brain damage caused by antidepressants but I don't know details.

 

http://ekstrabladet....icle1784283.ece

Thank you.

Hey Barb, I translated the article with Google.

[Lise]

Here's my translation of the article. The background is that this particular newspaper allows you to offer a case of interest to the readers, and if the case generates a certain number of supports - ie, clicks on the "support" button of the particular webpage of that case - the paper will take certain actions (such as, 5000 clicks and the paper writes an article, etc.) Elsebeth Halckendorf's case has generated 50.000 "support" clicks.

 

My comments and explanations are in brackets [ ]

 

 

Elsebeth Halckendorf first made her case "A call for a thorough examination of the damage resulting from use of psychiatric drugs" at the beginning of the year, and since, support has just kept growing.

 

Now that the support exceeds 50.000, Elsebeth has written a so-called Charter 11 document to present to politicians. She demands a hearing in Danish parliament regarding damage caused by the pills prescribed by doctors to hundreds of thousands of Danes every year. Elsebeth believes that these plentiful pills cause fatal damage, and fears that those who take them end up brain damaged.

adede.

 

[LInk]: They fried my brain - see for yourselves [this is a link to another article regarding EH's brain scans]

 

[Link]: Read also: Scientists suspect: 200 dead from "happy pill"

 

Fears that the number of brain damaged [sic]

- "We're going to see so many people with brain damage - people getting dementia and Parkinson's disease symptoms because they took "happy pills", antidepressants, Ritaline, antipsychotics," says Elsebeth, referring to a new study showing that treatment of brain damage now swallows up a third of health budgets of the EU-countries.

 

- "This is so very frightening, and therefore it makes me so happy to see a lot of people supporting my cause. Now all we need is to get the politicians and doctors responsible onto the field, and that's why I demand a hearing in Parliament", Elsebeth says.

 

As Elsebeth's cause passed 29.000 supports, she showed new images of her own brain - images she says proves that she has suffered brain damage. A lot of commenters [literally, 'nationen'-members, users of the paper's online community and comment function] thought, however, that she could not prove this unless she could show some "before" images of scans. She has now brought these forth from the archives of Frederiksberg Hospital

 

Doctor: Important and serious case.

Elsebeth's doctor, Michael Westergaard, has seen the images and believes that they strengthen her cause.

 

- This is a very important case and a very serious one. All I can say is that it's correct that she's suffered brain damage, and as I see it, only those pills can have caused it. We hear from the US that there are problems with antidepressants, we just haven't seen much of it in Denmark, says Michael Westergaard, who is therefore supportive regarding Elsebeth's demand of a hearing.

 

[images: 1. "How Elsebeth's brain looked in 2006," 2. "What it looks like today".]

 

My impression of the article and of the paper in general is, unfortunately, that it is sensationalist, extremely unprofessional and lacks solid references. Which is a shame because as we know in here, of course, there is a solid truth to the matter.

[Barbarannamated]

Thank you, Lise.

[UnfoldingSky]

Thank you for posting this Lise. Does it say what kind of brain scans this woman had?

[Barbarannamated]

Thank you for posting this Lise. Does it say what kind of brain scans this woman had?

 

Ive communicated briefly with Elsebeth and believe it was standard MRI. Not certain if contrast used. I also don't know why she had MRI previous to starting drugs. This is the first ive seen translation of that article she sent.

[Altostrata]

Lise, what did the article say about Richard Shelton?

[Lise]

Sorry for getting back on this so late, the holidays hit

It doesn't say which kind of brain scans these are

 

In the Politiken article, it says;

Several international studies have documented that antidepressants may cause addiction. Among others, scientists Peter Haddad and Richard Shelton have established that withdrawal symptoms make the pills very hard to quit.

 

((Adskillige internationale studier har dokumenteret, at depressionspiller kan være afhængighedsskabende. Blandt andre har forskerne Peter Haddad og Richard Shelton konstateret, at abstinenser gør pillerne meget svære at kvitte.))

 

That's all it says, no links to Haddad/Shelton's article or anything

[ellenr]

Good news!

 

I guess this newspaper does not depend on pharmaceutical advertising. :-)

 

 

 

One of the biggest Danish tabloids, Ekstra Bladet (corresponding roughly to England's The Sun) ran an article the day before yesterday about the addictive nature of antidepressants. The news is also in more respectable media such as the Danmarks Radio (the public news station) homepage and that of Politiken, a centre-left newspaper.

 

I didn't buy the newspaper as I feared it would make me too depressed, but from what I've been able to glean the angle being pursued is that these drugs are addictive, they have always been, and doctors have always been unwilling to admit so. The Ekstra Bladet headline is:

"Experts raise the alarm - "happy pills" violently addictive"

 

Ekstra Bladet has interviews with antidepressant users and experts, appearing to be on the side of the patients (this tabloid usually takes the side of the underdog against the system, so it is no surprise, but at least this time it serves a purpose I agree with.) The interviews do not appear in the website article.

 

I link here to the Politiken article, the contents are nearly identical to the original one in Ekstra Bladet:

http://politiken.dk/tjek/sundhedogmotion/sygdom/ECE1837578/depressionspiller-kan-goere-brugere-afhaengige/

 

Briefly, it says:

- antidepressants cause addiction, this is shown in several studies (scientists Peter Haddad and Richard Shelton are mentioned)

 

- patients report experiencing the same [[Ekstra Bladet had interviews with 7 AD users]]

 

- doctors and health authorities do not tell patients this, on the contrary, says leader of the Nordic Cochrane Centre, prof. Peter Gøtzche. He blames this silence as one of the reasons patients find themselves unable to quit. Head doctor of St. Hans mental hospital Karin Garde agrees: "It's unfortunately very well known that antidepressants are very hard to stop taking, which is why you should never start taking thim unless there is a very, very good reason to."

 

- head of Danish Psychiatric Society Jeanett Bauer denies that antidepressants are addictive, as addictiveness entails that one needs more and more of a certain type of medication for it to have effect. [[i won't quote what I shouted on reading this!]]

 

The focus in both the Politiken article and the Ekstra Bladet one is definitely that antidepressants are addictive and very hard to quit, and the one woman who denies it does not come across as very convincing.

 

I'll be happy to dig up every article I can on this and translate it if someone wants me to.

 

It gives me hope to finally see the things I've been reading in here and experienced on my own body voiced in the media as well as by health professionals.

 

[ellenr]

oh, having now read yr second post re the article, the fact that it is, as you say, sensationalist, and not very professional is unfortunate.

That gives people an out to say, "Oh the information is probably wrong."

 

We had an incident in the states where actor Tom Cruise, a member of scientology, was on a talk show. He was asked about his position about the pharmaceutical industry, and he gave what - to me - and I agree with his position - was a very bizarre answer. I couldn't even follow it.

 

Scientologists do reject pharmaceutical drugs, or at least psychoactive ones. But they have a lot of other traits which I personally find offensive.

 

Tom Cruise - given that he is a star, got a lot of press, and then a lot of ridicule. And the kernel of truth in his information was lost.