Wednesday’s Wall Street Journal featured a small article on last year’s lobbying figures, noting that the overall tally jumped from $2.14 billion in 2004 to $2.36 billion in 2005.  The number seems a bit on the high side considering the scandals that have tarnished Washington’s operating image as of late; but in order to best understand the way government spending works, you need only look at the $223 million originally put aside towards the Alaskan “Bridge to Nowhere” in last year’s highway spending bill.  

There was another article in the same issue of the WSJ reporting on a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) in February.  The study found that discontinuing the use of antidepressants during a pregnancy will increase a woman’s chances of relapsing into depression.  This went against the previously held theory that hormonal changes during pregnancy would naturally reduce a woman’s depression.

This seems to make sense.  Women who stop taking antidepressants become more depressed.  Why is that important? And what does this have to do with lobbying?

It turns out that most of the study’s authors are actually paid by companies that produce antidepressants.  The study’s lead author is a consultant for three pharmaceutical companies, a speaker for seven, and has received research grants from four.  None of this was disclosed when the article was originally printed.

A study published in The New England Journal of Medicine around the same time reported that a baby born to a mother taking selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitors, a type of antidepressant, will have a nearly six times greater chance (six to 12 per 1,000 births vs. one to two per 1,000) of being born with a potentially lethal breathing problem.

Not surprisingly, a number of experts on the subject refuted these results.  Once again, the experts were paid by pharmaceutical companies.  

So you see, your laws aren’t the only items being openly bought and sold these days.  Your health is a similarly lucrative commodity.

Who’s right here?

As is usually the case, each side probably has some valuable input regarding the safety of antidepressants.  Depressed women don’t want to stay depressed, and one would hope that mothers are generally concerned with their children’s health.  

Facts are facts (most of the time).  How these facts are interpreted is a different matter.  

It is slightly worrisome when one of the researchers mentions, “I don’t see how any kind of relationship we have with a pharmaceutical company plays a role in that…I don’t believe there is a conflict of interest.”  Well, there’s not, except for the part where her study’s results encourage women to take antidepressants when it might not actually be in their best interest to do so, whereas it’s always in the interests of her employer.

The researchers may well be correct in stating that antidepressants bear little to no risk to prenatal infants and only serve to help depressed mothers.  Before people hit the streets encouraging doctors to prescribe more antidepressants, however, it might be wise to see the results of some additional studies from less interested parties.

M R