It takes a celebrity to drive home a point: Tom Cruise’s criticism of antidepressants
Tom Cruise recounts how a fellow artist who was taking an antidepressant to overcome her postpartum depression three years ago came to mind when his interview with a famous TV interviewer aired a few days ago.
In 2005, Tom didn’t mince words when he described antidepressants as “dangerous” and “mind-altering” drugs that simply “masked the (real) problem.” On a recent TV show (NBC’s TODAY show), Tom is unable to counter with strong logic or solid evidence, Matt Lauer’s claim that colleague Brooke Shields had benefited from Paxil dosing to overcome PPD of she. “If antidepressants work for Brook Shields, (then) why isn’t it okay (for her and everyone else to go down this route of medical intervention)?” is Lauer’s joke. Tom resorts to hesitating and hesitating at that.
Tom’s words had hurt both Brooke Shields and the general public at the time. Hot exchanges through the media gave a different color to the entire episode. That he finally backed down and apologized to everyone is not the point here.
Quite ironically, while Tom was hesitating and facing criticism for his provocative comments about the use of antidepressants (the TODAY show aired on television in June 2005), around the same time the FDA released the result of their “… analysis of short-term (4 to 16 weeks) placebo-controlled trials of 9 antidepressant drugs (SSRIs and others) in children and adolescents with major depressive disorder (MDD), obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), or other psychiatric disorders (a total of 24 trials involving more than 4,400 patients)… ” The result of the analyzes had been unequivocal: “… an increased risk of adverse events representing suicidal thoughts or behavior (suicide) during the first months of treatment in those receiving antidepressants The average risk of such events in patients receiving antidepressants was 4%, twice the placebo risk of 2%.
The drumbeat has been on the rise since the FDA report. The pharmaceutical industry these days is still trying to come to terms with a new fatuous that requires manufacturers of all antidepressant medications to “update the existing black box warning on their product labels to include warnings about increased risks of suicidal thoughts and behavior, known as suicidality, in young adults ages 18 to 24.” during initial treatment. Also now in effect is a new “suicide classification” that companies will have to put on every new drug before they put it on the market.
suicidality. A new word has been quietly coined. Describe suicidal thoughts and behaviors. To complete the things in the vocabulary book, please, what should be its antonym? optimization? Happiness? Prayed zest for life?
Tom must feel vindicated. May Lauer invite him to the show now! Tom would arm himself with all the latest evidence and prove that he is Top Gun. If there’s one group of people who can bring attention to the issues that matter most, it’s celebrities. But this time he appeared relaxed on the same show with the famous interviewer. There was none of the effervescence and display of love from Katie’s courtship days. Wow, we haven’t aged! The fires seem to have subsided, which is sad. He could have played a more active role in spreading awareness about the indiscriminate prescription of antidepressant medications. Maybe someone can talk to Katie about rekindling the fires. She will do us all good.
Meanwhile, spiritualists like myself recommend the path of self-healing. This path has no side effects of any kind!