The Expert told Parliament that there is “compelling evidence”
for long-term treatment with antidepressants.
This the Expert said is “maintenance treatment”.[1]
The Expert told Parliament:
“Depression is under-treated across the country and across all age groups”.
There was no mention that nearly 1 in 5 of us are now taking antidepressants.
It was then that I heard the philosopher. [2]
He spoke with a tear in his eye.
“It is by living that we learn” he said, “in the field, learning from each other”.
The philosopher said:
evidence is more than numbers and words,
and experience enlightening.
The Expert and philosopher agree Evidence Based Medicine is important and necessary
but in itself not sufficient.
Much of long-term prescribing is in truth “Experimentally Based Medicine”.
Progress has ‘hardly broken its stride’.[3]
science ceases to be Science when
numbers are hidden and the narrative is ghost-written and spread by agents of
commerce.
Sharing negative experience we have now become “demonisers” and “extremists” [4]
The narrative of harm as labelled by the Narrative controllers [5]
It is a choppy sea strategy
in a deeply unethical ocean.
We remember that we once sought help from the Experts –
but our experience did not match their “evidence over ideology”
and we find ourselves no longer “credible”.
The Expert needs to include the philosopher.
It is by living we learn.
Now that is compelling.
[1] Geddes, J. R., Carney, S. M., Davies, C., et al (2003) Relapse prevention with antidepressant drug treatment in depressive disorders: a systematic review. Lancet, 361, 653-661. [2] Patrick Geddes (1854-1932) [3] Iain Banks, poem “3” [4] Demonisers and extremists [5] The Narrative Controllers