Antidepressant drugs don't work

Apparently, according to a new report it has been been found that Antidepressant drugs don't work.

As seems usually to be the case, most media news websites were fairly impartial in their coverage of this story, not really giving their own opinion. They do however publish the opinions of others as part of their articles.

Most stories covering this included the opinion of Professor Kirsch of the University of Hull who led the study. He said: "Given these results, there seems to be little reason to prescribe antidepressant medication to any but the most severely depressed patients, unless alternative treatments have failed to provide a benefit."

Despite this being not a total admittance that these drugs don't work most news providers led with a headline like this. From this you could assume either they wanted to spice up the story or want to express their own opinion that depression drugs don't work.

A comment in the Independent this time by Tim Kendall, deputy director of the Royal College of Psychiatrists' research unit, said that in his opinion the findings, if proved true, would not be surprising.

The fact they publish opinions like this could lend support to the theory that the Independent at least on the whole does not believe Antidepressants are of any use.

Rather than reveal a personal aversion to the idea of Antidepressant drugs the BBC suggests simply that the results are worrying, which is more impartial. They quote, for instance Marjorie Wallace, head of the mental health charity Sane, who said that if these results were confirmed they could be "very disturbing".

They also covered a response from a manufacturer of an Antidepressant in more detail, which again shows evidence of more impartiality.

Other news providers such as the the Times, Telegraph, Guardian and Belfast Telegraph also showed more impartiality on this subject, which is perhaps surpising although know the Independent is a 'views' paper it is likely to give much of it's own opinion on things.