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Let Them Eat Prozac: The Unhealthy Relationship Between the Pharmaceutical Industry and Depression
Prozac. Paxil. Zoloft. Turn on your television and you are likely to see a commercial for one of the many selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) on the market. We hear a lot about them, but do we really understand how these drugs work and what risks are involved for anyone who uses them?
Let Them Eat Prozac explores the history of SSRIs from their early development to their latest marketing campaigns and the controversies that surround them. Initially, they seemed like wonder drugs for those with mild to moderate depression patients take just one daily dose, and unlike the tranquilizers that were popular in the 1960s, they supposedly did not lead to addiction. When Prozac was released in the late 1980s, David Healy was among the psychiatrists who prescribed it. But he soon observed that some of these patients became agitated and even attempted suicide. Studies were soon published, citing numerous cases in which patients became anxious and reported increased suicidal thoughts while taking Prozac. Could the new wonder drug actually be making patients worse?
Healy draws on his own research and expertise to demonstrate the potential hazards associated with these drugs. He intersperses case histories with insider accounts of the research leading to the development and approval of SSRIs as a treatment for depression. Let Them Eat Prozac clearly demonstrates that the problems go much deeper than a disturbing side-effect of a particular drug. Current FDA regulations encourage drug companies to patent a specific compound and market it effectively to a large population on the basis of minimal effectiveness in a handful of trials.
The pharmaceutical industry would like us to believe that SSRIs can safely treat depression, anxiety, and a host of other mental problems. But as Let Them Eat Prozac reveals, this "cure" may be worse than the disease.
Let Them Eat Prozac explores the history of SSRIs from their early development to their latest marketing campaigns and the controversies that surround them. Initially, they seemed like wonder drugs for those with mild to moderate depression patients take just one daily dose, and unlike the tranquilizers that were popular in the 1960s, they supposedly did not lead to addiction. When Prozac was released in the late 1980s, David Healy was among the psychiatrists who prescribed it. But he soon observed that some of these patients became agitated and even attempted suicide. Studies were soon published, citing numerous cases in which patients became anxious and reported increased suicidal thoughts while taking Prozac. Could the new wonder drug actually be making patients worse?
Healy draws on his own research and expertise to demonstrate the potential hazards associated with these drugs. He intersperses case histories with insider accounts of the research leading to the development and approval of SSRIs as a treatment for depression. Let Them Eat Prozac clearly demonstrates that the problems go much deeper than a disturbing side-effect of a particular drug. Current FDA regulations encourage drug companies to patent a specific compound and market it effectively to a large population on the basis of minimal effectiveness in a handful of trials.
The pharmaceutical industry would like us to believe that SSRIs can safely treat depression, anxiety, and a host of other mental problems. But as Let Them Eat Prozac reveals, this "cure" may be worse than the disease.
351 pages, Paperback
First published August 18, 2003
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589 people want to read
About the author
David Healy
73 books30 followersDavid Healy is a former secretary of the British Association for Psychopharmacology and author of over 120 articles and 12 books, including The Antidepressant Era and The Creation of Psychopharmacology.
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
January 21, 2009
David Healy is a British physician who is an expert in psychopharmacology. In Let Them Eat Prozac he examines what he terms the unhealthy relationship between the pharmaceutical industry and depression. What he really means is the unhealthy effects of the greed motivated drive by the big pharmaceutical companies to market drugs for depression. These include bribing doctors to champion drugs for depression that probably don't work nearly as well as the advertising claims they do, manipulating the data of clinical trials to downplay side effects, covering up ominous side effects, and ignoring data indicating that these drugs in clinical trials often don't work even as well as placebos.
The books focuses on Prozac and similar types of anti-depressants, and details how the tendency of these drugs to cause suicidality in some persons was denied and covered up. For instance, if a subject experienced such severe side effects that they had to quit taking the drug under investigation, that person would simply be dropped from the study and its statistics. Or, if a subject experienced suicidal ideation, this might be coded as "agitation."
A difficult question raised by this book is to what extent it is ethical to market a drug that will harm some people seriously and help a larger number of people to some extent. Prozac and its progency were blockbuster drugs, cash cows for their makers. Little wonder that they fought all efforts to depict these drugs as dangerous to some users. Although Healy testified as an expert witness against Lilly, Prozac's maker, he is hardly a fanatic anti psychoactive drug advocate. He believes in antidepressants, and indeed prescribes them in his practice. His point is that these drugs need to be used more sparingly, and with greater awarness of their side effects.
Healy sees wider implications in the behavior of the drug companies in marketing Prozac and similar antidepressants. As he says, this is not just the story of Prozac type drugs and depression -- it is also about the way drugs for ADHD, bipolar disorders, stimulants, and antipsychotics are being marketed, and for how drugs for hypertension, sexual dysfunction and other maladies will be marketed. Although Healy says it is about culture and the limits of propaganda, it would seem that his real message is that where there's money to be made, big corporations have no limits on the propaganda they are willing to disseminate. Let the buyer beware.
The books focuses on Prozac and similar types of anti-depressants, and details how the tendency of these drugs to cause suicidality in some persons was denied and covered up. For instance, if a subject experienced such severe side effects that they had to quit taking the drug under investigation, that person would simply be dropped from the study and its statistics. Or, if a subject experienced suicidal ideation, this might be coded as "agitation."
A difficult question raised by this book is to what extent it is ethical to market a drug that will harm some people seriously and help a larger number of people to some extent. Prozac and its progency were blockbuster drugs, cash cows for their makers. Little wonder that they fought all efforts to depict these drugs as dangerous to some users. Although Healy testified as an expert witness against Lilly, Prozac's maker, he is hardly a fanatic anti psychoactive drug advocate. He believes in antidepressants, and indeed prescribes them in his practice. His point is that these drugs need to be used more sparingly, and with greater awarness of their side effects.
Healy sees wider implications in the behavior of the drug companies in marketing Prozac and similar antidepressants. As he says, this is not just the story of Prozac type drugs and depression -- it is also about the way drugs for ADHD, bipolar disorders, stimulants, and antipsychotics are being marketed, and for how drugs for hypertension, sexual dysfunction and other maladies will be marketed. Although Healy says it is about culture and the limits of propaganda, it would seem that his real message is that where there's money to be made, big corporations have no limits on the propaganda they are willing to disseminate. Let the buyer beware.
January 31, 2016
Unfortunately, there is a dark side to Prozac and other drugs in its class of SSRIs. A powerful effect of these drugs is to increase the rate of suicides in patients taking them. The increase of suicidality in studies of these drugs is terrible (they roughly double the rate of suicide) especially since the whole point of antidepressants is to bring people away from the brink.
Healy did a study on healthy patients without a history of depression (his colleagues, actually) using Zoloft, and the results were frightening. In less than two weeks, two out of twenty began to have night terrors and seriously considered suicide for the first time in their lives.
Most doctors would never encourage patients to take such a drug if it were over the counter or illegal, but the fact that they are prescription (along with direct marketing by drug companies) gives them the air of legitimacy. Healy proposes a radical solution, make these drugs over the counter, so that doctors are the patient's advocate instead of being a gateway to drugs.
Healy did a study on healthy patients without a history of depression (his colleagues, actually) using Zoloft, and the results were frightening. In less than two weeks, two out of twenty began to have night terrors and seriously considered suicide for the first time in their lives.
Most doctors would never encourage patients to take such a drug if it were over the counter or illegal, but the fact that they are prescription (along with direct marketing by drug companies) gives them the air of legitimacy. Healy proposes a radical solution, make these drugs over the counter, so that doctors are the patient's advocate instead of being a gateway to drugs.
August 24, 2025
Big pharma wants you to take drugs to cure your depression. They make sure lots more people are diagnosed with depression. And this author was one of the researchers trying to convince you (and your doctor) of this need.
I found most interesting, the political fight and the trials with ambiguous results. Also a rather good desciption of how SSRI's work, or don't.
This also requires you doing more research, along the spectrum of 'drugs will save your life' to No! no! drugs will take your life-- and the author gives the references.
I found most interesting, the political fight and the trials with ambiguous results. Also a rather good desciption of how SSRI's work, or don't.
This also requires you doing more research, along the spectrum of 'drugs will save your life' to No! no! drugs will take your life-- and the author gives the references.
July 10, 2007
This book wins hands-down for best-titled brain science book ever. Freaked out by reports that antidepressants can't outperform placebos in clinical trials, I thought I needed to learn more.
December 13, 2008
Scary. As I read it, my mind kept wanting to read it like it was a Grisham novel. I had to keep reminding myself that this was not fictional. Truly scary.
January 16, 2021
absolutely terrifying book about the sham that is psychopharmacology in terms of scientific literature regarding pharmacology is about 50% ghost written and how profit seems to be the only influence on prescription and research with thus produces little to no regard for the wellbeing of the consumer let alone the efficacy of the drug to produce the desired outcome in said consumer.reminds or educates the reader about the fallacy of the serotonin hypothesis of depression: serotonin levels ARE NOT lower in depressed individuals. not the most clear author, you seem to jump around his timeline a lot, and adding in various names for various similar drugs caused confusion for me as a reader. highly recommend for content tho
February 19, 2020
Dr. David Healy is the world's foremost authority on psychopharmacology. Dr. Healy is also a proponent of drug use for patients with depression or other disorders. The author is psychiatrist & a former secretary of the British Association for Psychopharmacology, as well as the author of other books such as ‘Pharmageddon,’ ‘The Creation of Psychopharmacology,’ ‘The Antidepressant Era,’ etc. He was also one of the early doctors to begin prescribing Prozac. He wrote in the Preface to this 2004 book, "Rooms full of data pointed to the fact that the Prozac drug group could trigger suicide & violence, & that companies reproducing these drugs knew of the problem.
This book offers some important facts :
1. Prozac doesn't cure clinical depression.
2. Prozac doesn't cure mild depressions either, when compared to placebo.
3. Prozac increases the risk of suicide of mildly depressed people tenfold, when compared to a control group taking no medication at all.
4. Prozac also stimulates aggressive behavior. One of the children participating in the Columbine High School slaughter was under the influence of such a "medicine" (Luvox).
The main thrust of this book is how Prozac & SSRI drugs in general show a strong increase in the rate of suicidal tendencies in users during the first few weeks of use. But looking at the information from the drug companies, you'd never know it. Based on creative manipulation of statistics, the suicide rates were presented as far less than they really were.
Thoroughly researched, difficult to read at times & absolutely ignored.
This book offers some important facts :
1. Prozac doesn't cure clinical depression.
2. Prozac doesn't cure mild depressions either, when compared to placebo.
3. Prozac increases the risk of suicide of mildly depressed people tenfold, when compared to a control group taking no medication at all.
4. Prozac also stimulates aggressive behavior. One of the children participating in the Columbine High School slaughter was under the influence of such a "medicine" (Luvox).
The main thrust of this book is how Prozac & SSRI drugs in general show a strong increase in the rate of suicidal tendencies in users during the first few weeks of use. But looking at the information from the drug companies, you'd never know it. Based on creative manipulation of statistics, the suicide rates were presented as far less than they really were.
Thoroughly researched, difficult to read at times & absolutely ignored.
January 26, 2022
Though there was quite a lot of jargon, and though the writing was pretty dry, the reality of the information Dr. Healy presents about SSRI’s and the relationship between the pharmaceuticical companies, researchers, and clinicians is profoundly chilling.
June 2, 2023
I picked up this book after reading Mind Fixers by Harrington, so it really didn’t come as a surprise. David Healy is an insider’s insider, he really does know where the bodies are buried, which made the story very compelling.
October 9, 2014
This was a long, and detailed history of the depression industry, written by a psychiatrist who was heavily involved in that industry from its beginnings. He still supports depression medications for the right people, but argues in this book that the expansion of the definition of "depression" by clinical psychologists and the expansion of applications for drugs by the drug companies, has led to giving these antidepressants to the wrong people, increasing the risk of suicide, reckless behavior, character and personality alteration, and even homicide. As this is an academic work, it is not written primarily as an application for the present, but a record of the past, and because of this it does not offer advice for those who might be concerned with themselves or a loved one going on antidepressants, which I think was a needed chapter to tag onto the end of the book, and which kept me from giving it a full four stars.
March 11, 2010
Interesting look at Healy's experiences with Prozac (from a clinician's point of view) and the various lawsuits that emerged regarding it. While not as analytical as some of his other work (this is more personal), it fits well with his previous works on antidepressants (The Antidepressant Era and The Creation of Psychopharmacology), and continues to remind us that the history of depression isn't so clear cut, after all.
September 10, 2011
I have the great blessing of not having ever suffered depression, but I read this book as part of research for a book I am writing on prescription drug overmedication and addiction. It is very useful for someone who has BiPolar, Schizophrenia or any depressive or anxiety diagnosed, it says as book after book says and no one seems to hear - stay away from these drugs, use them sparingly, if at all. They are dangerous. Your brain is sensitive, protect it.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews