America 's top-selling antidepressants could soon experience a downturn. Now off-patent, Prozac is no longer a bestseller. (Morais 122)
2003 Sales Drug Manufacturer ($bil) ----
Zoloft Pfizer $2.9
Effexor XR Wyeth 2.1
Wellbutrin SR GlaxoSmithkline 1.8
Paxil GlaxoSmithkline 1.5
Celexa Forest Laboratories 1.4
Measuring Risk
Number reflects how many times as likely drug takers were to have suicidal thoughts and behavior as those who took placebos (Mathews & Windham par. 21)
ANTIDEPRESSANT -----------------------------------------------INCREASE
All drugs --------------------------------------------------------------1.78
Effexor---------------------------------------------------------------- 4.97
Paxil ------------------------------------------------------------------2.65*
Zoloft -----------------------------------------------------------------1.48*
Celexa---------------------------------------------------------------- 1.37*
Prozac---------------------------------------------------------------- 0.92*
*Not statistically significant Source: FDA analysis of pediatric clinical trials
* Today, more than 11 million Americans are taking antidepressants (Servan-Schreiber 8)
* Prozac was the first SSRI approved by the FDA and started in 1988 (Wurtzel 300)
* Prozac, Zoloft and Paxil are among the six best-selling drugs of any kind, and more than 130 million prescriptions were written for all antidepressants last year, according to IMS Health, a consulting firm (Briefing on Drugs for Depression par. 1)
* An estimated 20 million Americans have at one point or another relied on Prozac or one of its chemical siblings, including Paxil and Zoloft, to ease depression or anxiety (Wurtzel 305)
* 60% of all Prozac users are women (Slater 162)
* 73% of all SSRI prescriptions are written by general practitioners who only spend about 20 minutes per patient. (Morais par. 10)
There is a real risk of using solely antidepressants to combat depression, anxiety, fatigue, obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), and other physical and mental problems. As seen above, SSRIs are being sold to consumers creating billions of dollars in profit for drug companies. In return, more and more people are becoming dependent upon SSRI’s for their sense of well being. Doctors are also at fault for the increase in SSRI prescriptions. Meeting patients and sending them to drugstores after seeing them for only 20 minutes is creating a big problem, which needs to be revised. Doctors need to start suggesting alternatives to drugs such as counseling, exercise, or food intake instead of making SSRIs the only option.
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