A truly garbage class of drugs based on a truly idiotic theory.
Imagine someone going to their doctor and revealing this:
“I’ve been feeling really depressed for the last few weeks. I have no energy, no motivation, no desire to do anything. I just can’t seem to lift myself out of this rut. Heck, even Ronny Chieng videos don’t make me laugh any more. Life seems so pointless. I seriously don’t know if I can go on. What do I do?”
Now imagine the doctor replying:
“Cheer up buttercup, because I’ve got just the thing for you! Thanks to the wonderful people at Big Pharma, who provided all the cool knick-knacks you see in this here office, I can write a script for antidepressants! These drugs are amazing! They’ll increase your risk of nausea, agitation, fractures and falls, sexual dysfunction, vehicle accidents, suicide, sudden death, and overall mortality!
With a side effect profile like that, you won’t have time to sit around and reflect on how boring and meaningless life is!”
As ridiculous as that response sounds, it is effectively what doctors around the world have been doing for decades.
When presented with patients going through mentally tough times, their reflexive response is to prescribe a toxic drug that increases risk of all the above maladies and more.
Making Billions From a Total Lie - and Killing People in the Process
Antidepressant use is predicated upon the ridiculous “chemical imbalance” theory of depression. This intelligence-insulting farce claims that depression arises - not from feelings of hopelessness, frustration, emptiness, social isolation and disillusionment (medicine has no cure for any of those) - but from an alleged deficiency of the neurotransmitter serotonin.
Despite having no basis in reality, the serotonin hypothesis has made lots of undeserving people very wealthy, via the creation of an entirely new class of “blockbuster” drugs.
It was the infamous selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) that transformed antidepressants into blockbusters. These highly toxic pills work by inhibiting the binding of serotonin in the brain (and elsewhere).
This supposedly cures a “serotonin deficiency” aka “chemical imbalance” by leaving more ‘free’ serotonin available at the synaptic gap between brain neurons.
This increase in available serotonin, so the fairy tale goes, relieves depression and anxiety because serotonin is the smiley-faced neurotransmitter that makes you calm and tranquil.
There exists exactly zero scientific evidence to support this simplistic nonsense.
Despite this, Big Harma has convinced almost the entire medical profession that depression is caused by a serotonin deficiency, and that taking SSRIs will boost serotonin levels indefinitely. Few people have stopped to consider the body may counter the increase in serotonin by decreasing its own natural serotonin production, or by decreasing the brain’s sensitivity to serotonin. Which would introduce a raft of other problems, especially when commencing, changing dosage, or ceasing use of these drugs. More on that in a moment.
Given that antidepressant use is predicated upon a nonsensical theory, it should hardly come as a surprise that depression has not decreased since the advent of SSRI antidepressants. It remains a highly prevalent condition.
It would be bad enough if these drugs were merely ineffective, but the antidepressant story gets a lot worse.
Libido killers
SSRI drugs have been documented to cause loss of sexual desire and function.
Gee, what a great way to make a depressed person feel better.
Did I mention that sometimes this drug-induced sexual dysfunction is permanent and can even arise from very brief use?
Bone breakers
Antidepressants increase risk of falls, bone loss and hip fracture risk. Scottish researchers found those taking three or more fall-risk-increasing-drugs and those above 75 were at especially high risk.
Vehicle Smashers
It has been known since at least the early 1980s that antidepressants impair driving performance. While a more recent study conducted by researchers sponsored by Eli Lilly, Pfizer, GlaxoSmithKline, Janssen, Schering-Plough, Abbvie, Novartis, Sanofi, Meiji Seika Pharma, Mochida, Otsuka, Taisho, Takeda, Tanabe Mitsubishi, Eisai, Asahi Kasei Pharma, Astellas, Daiichi Sankyo, Dainippon Sumitomo, Kyowa Hakko Kirin, MSD, Shionogi, and Yoshitomi would dispute this, the fact remains antidepressant users are more likely to be involved in motor vehicle accidents.
Antidepressant defenders might reflexively counter that the depression and not the drugs causes this increased risk, but a recent study found antidepressant users had an increased risk of hard braking events, but self-reported depression alone was not associated with changes in driving behaviors.
Big Pharma’s Permanent Cure for Depression: Death
Depressed people often feel like life is not worth living and engage in suicidal ideation. Thankfully, most never act upon their suicidal thoughts.
Not content with letting suicidal ideation remain just that, the geniuses at Big Pharma came up with a class of drugs for depressed people that routinely cause agitation, aggression, impulsivity and mania.
Your local neighborhood drug dealer (doctor) then hands these pills to those depressed people, some of whom will now not only be depressed but also agitated, aggressive, impulsive and/or manic.
In common parlance, this is known as throwing fuel onto the fire.
Knowing this, it should come as little surprise that suicide rates have increased alongside antidepressant use.
The relationship between antidepressant use and suicide is a causal one, because RCT data repeatedly shows higher rates of self-harm and suicidality in the antidepressant groups.
The key danger times are the first month after commencing antidepressants, after a dosage change, and the first month after ceasing their use. This is why it is recommended to taper off antidepressants rather than stop them suddenly.
Better yet, avoid this junk in the first place. The answer to life’s problems is not found in a pill made by serial corporate criminals.
Sudden Death
Antidepressants have shown the ability to cause a number of unfavorable cardiovascular changes, including QT prolongation, Torsade de pointes (TdP) arrhythmias, Brugada syndrome phenotype, and polymorphic ventricular arrhythmias.
You know, all the fun stuff that leaves you with a higher statistical risk of dying suddenly.
While these potential mechanisms were documented some time ago, the real world link between antidepressants and sudden death has remained the subject of debate.
Thanks to a recently published study, the link is looking a lot stronger.
Mujkanovic et al recently analyzed the association between antidepressant use and sudden cardiac death among a massive cohort of 4.3 million Danish residents aged 18-90 years.
Antidepressant exposure was ascertained from the national prescription registry, and defined by redemption of a prescription for said medication at least twice in one year over a period of 12 years before the year of follow-up (2010).
Furthermore, exposure time was divided into two groups: 1 to 5 years and 6 or more years.
Deaths in 2010 were examined and adjudicated as either SCD or non-SCD.
In 2010 among the cohort of 4.3 million, there were a total of 45,701 deaths and 6,002 cases of SCD. A total of 643,999 residents were exposed to antidepressant medication prior to the year of follow-up. There were 1,981 sudden cardiac deaths in the AD cohort and 4,021 in the unexposed general population.
So while those exposed to antidepressants comprised only 15% of the cohort, they comprised almost a third of the SCD cases.
After adjusting for multiple variables including comorbidities, those exposed to antidepressants for 1-5 years and ≥6 years had a 1.41 and 1.74-fold increased risk of SCD, respectively.
The incidence rate ratio of SCD was significantly higher in the exposed groups compared to the general population across all age groups except for the 18-29 years category, for whom the association was not statistically significant.
The association was consistent across SSRIs and the older TCAs (tricyclic antidepressants).
Your Health Goes to Caca, They Go to Monaco
As we’ve seen with the military-industrial complex, there’s good money in maiming and killing people. The global antidepressant drugs market was valued at almost US $18.7 billion in 2024 and is estimated to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 7.5% from 2025 to 2034. All based on drugs that do more harm than good in order to treat a “chemical imbalance” that doesn’t exist.
