Amidst the highly public debate on depression, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) released a Public Health Advisory (PHA) warning against worsening depression and increased risk of suicidal behavior in people taking antidepressants.

After a short-term study of nine antidepressant drugs revealed an increased risk of suicidal behavior in children and adolescents, the FDA directed drug manufacturers to add a "black box" warning to all antidepressants. The "black box" warning is the most serious warning placed on a prescription drug. In the FDA Review of Clinical trials, it warns that the rate of suicidal thinking or behavior with these drugs was 4%, twice the placebo risk of 2%.

Federal health officials are also looking into a suggestion by a University of Texas study that Ritalin and other stimulant drugs given to children might increase the risk of cancer later in life. Depression is now ranked as a major global health crisis, affecting over 120 million people, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

The symptoms of depression include feeling sad or down, losing interest in usual activities, feeling guilty, worthless or hopeless, or having sleeplessness and lack of energy. This means that practically every person on this planet suffers at one point or another from depression.

Harvard University psychiatrist Joseph Glenmullen says the questionnaire of symptoms used to "diagnose" depression "may look scientific," but "when one examines the questions asked and the scales used, they are utterly subjective measures…" The "depression screening" in the general community has undoubtedly influenced the 60 million prescriptions for antidepressants written in the U.S. – about 10% of the American population, including 1.5 million children.

Allen J. Frances, Professor of Psychiatry at Duke University Medical Center writes: "Psychiatry’s claim that mental illnesses are brain diseases...is not true. There are no objective diagnostic tests to confirm or disconfirm the diagnosis of depression...There is no blood or other biological test to ascertain the presence or absence of a mental illness, as there is for most bodily diseases. If such a test were developed...then the condition would cease to be a mental illness and would be classified, instead, as a symptom of a bodily disease."

While there has been no shortage of biochemical explanations for psychiatric conditions, Glenmullen is emphatic, "...not one has been proven. Quite the contrary. In every instance where such an imbalance was thought to have been found, it was later proven false."

According to Elliot S. Valenstein, PhD and author of Blaming the Brain, "The theories are held on to not only because there is nothing else to take their place, but also because they are useful in promoting drug treatment."

As with any condition, treating only the symptoms, not the cause, has no real long-term benefits. With the current mainstream treatments, it seems therefore that no safe, effective therapy exists.

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