Word: jureidini
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Dates: during 2005-2005
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...children and adults, but overall endorsed the drugs. Still, for perhaps the first time since the SSRIs came on the scene, those who believe the medical profession has lost its way in treating depression feel they have some momentum. "The (non-drug) approach is growing," says Dr. Jon Jureidini, head of the department of psychological medicine at the Women's and Children's Hospital in Adelaide. "I'm probably at one end of the spectrum, but there would now be plenty of psychiatrists who would be very conservative prescribers...
...biological test for depression instead of the series of questions doctors use now. Don't hold your breath waiting for that, says British academic Moncrieff: "I believe that human emotions will never be located in a simple biochemical formula." The chemical-imbalance theory is nonsense, says Adelaide psychiatrist Jureidini. SSRIs alter a patient's serotonin levels within days, he says, but their antidepressant effect - if there is any - doesn't occur for several weeks. "The idea that there's a serotonin deficiency that explains depression is such a gross oversimplification as to be completely misleading," Jureidini says...
...Others have very different concerns. Lucire wants the TGA to write to every G.P. in the country - in the manner of the drug companies - telling them to recall all their SSRI patients and check them for side effects. Jureidini is worried that doctors with links to the drug industry - as consultants or advisers - may be influencing TGA policy on psychiatric drugs. The obligation to disclose isn't there in this case, and that is "out of step with worldwide practice," he says...
...Women's and Children's Hospital in Adelaide, Jureidini and others are bucking that trend. The strong showing of placebos in antidepressant trials should tell us something, he says. Subjects in the control group typically receive more than a sugar pill: they have their histories taken and they're monitored and encouraged. In many cases, this personal attention makes them feel better. So why not build on the placebo effect? Jureidini's team is working with 20 GPs in a soon-to-be-expanded pilot program that embraces, he says, a "third way" of treating depression in children and adolescents...