Science

“If the major media picks up on this story, they will have the chance to report on what arguably is the worst—and most harmful—scandal in American medical history.”

Historically, there have always been some patients who report that any treatment for depression—including bloodletting—has worked for them, but science demands that for a treatment to be deemed truly effective, it must work better than a placebo or the passage of time without any treatment. This is especially important for antidepressant drugs—including Prozac, Zoloft, and other selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), as well as Effexor, Cymbalta, and other serotonin and norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors (SNRIs)—because all of these drugs have uncontroversial troubling side effects.

Researchers have long known that any single antidepressant drug is little more effective than a placebo in the majority of trials, shown to be less effective than a placebo in some studies, and generally found to be “clinically negligible” with respect to depression remission, while often resulting in severe adverse effects; for example, resulting in a higher percentage of sexual dysfunction than depression remission. However, for nearly twenty years, psychiatry and Big Pharma have told us that while one antidepressant may not work for the majority of patients, in the “real world,” doctors provide patients who have been failed by their initial antidepressant with another antidepressant, and if that fails, still another; and that this real-world treatment is successful for nearly 70% of patients. This narrative has been repeatedly reported by the mainstream media, including the New York Times in 2022.

Engaging young and early-career scientists in the science-policy interface

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https://council.science/current/blog/engaging-young-and-early-career-scientists-in-the-science-policy-interface/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=engaging-young-and-early-career-scientists-in-the-science-policy-interface

Climate inequality: The stark realities and the road to equitable solutions

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https://council.science/current/blog/climate-inequality-the-stark-realities-and-the-road-to-equitable-solutions/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=climate-inequality-the-stark-realities-and-the-road-to-equitable-solutions

Call for expressions of interest in ISC global science-policy work | deadline: 29 February

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https://council.science/current/news/expressions-of-interest-global-science-policy-work/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=expressions-of-interest-global-science-policy-work

Biodiversity data is distorted by past inequities. Scientists are wrestling to get a clearer picture.

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https://council.science/current/blog/biodiversity-data-distorted-inequalities/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=biodiversity-data-distorted-inequalities

In these two new studies a new hypothesis for explaining the effectiveness of ECT as a treatment for depression symptoms proposes that ECT alleviates symptoms by increasing aperiodic activity, a type of electrical activity in the brain that doesn’t follow a consistent pattern and is generally considered to be the brain’s background noise.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41398-023-02631-y

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41398-023-02634-9

How COP28 failed the world’s small islands

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https://council.science/current/blog/cop28-sids-small-island-developing-states/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=cop28-sids-small-island-developing-states

Open science round-up: December 2023

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https://council.science/current/blog/open-science-round-up-december-2023/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=open-science-round-up-december-2023

TLDR The messages were shorthand meteorological readings for multiple locations at specific times. It was a unique form of code used to transmit weather data via telegram back in the 1800s that is the predecessor of the shorthand used today.