MrsDePoint:

The jury is out on taking anti-depressants long term. The general recommendation that I've found, which seems to be on its way to being a consensus view, is that someone who has experienced recurring episodes of depression for a long time should stay on anti depressants indefinitely -- but generally at a lower dose than that which resulted in remission. A prophylactic dose of antidepressant, in effect. I'm not sure how I feel about that, but I do know that I have a recurrance when I'm unmedicated. The newer meds are different from the older meds, because there really are fewer adverse effects from a medical standpoint.

And BariTenor, the newer drugs are actually tested extensively -- much more extensively than the older ones. The problem has to do with the privatization of the FDA -- thank you very much, George W. Bush -- and the fact that the drug companies can choose which studies they show publicly. They never have to release adverse results, which explains a lot of recent stories, from Vioxx to Zyprexa to Serzone, etc. No one knows what the drug companies actually know about their drugs, until it shows up in clinical experience. But that doesn't mean that we're guinea pigs in the sense that the companies haven't tested their drugs. They test, and they test -- the testing procedures these days are more than adequate. It's the regulating procedures that leave much to be desired.

I guess the final answer comes down to this: which is worse, the disorders for which we take these drugs, or the drugs themselves? Hard question, with no right answer, no good answer, just the least bad answer.