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Placebo Beats Zoloft and St. John's Wort

Written by Guest contributor
Critics say the study design that found neither for Pfizer Inc.'s top-selling antidepressant Zoloft nor St. John's Wort to be better than a placebo for major depression was flawed, reports Bloomberg News.

In a 340-patient study, only 23.9 percent of people taking the popular herbal supplement and 24.9 percent taking Zoloft showed substantial improvement, compared with almost a third of placebo patients, according to results to appear in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Moderator Comment: Will the Duke University Medical Center study on depression impact OTC and pharmaceutical sales of anti-depressant products at retail?

Depression is a major health issue in the United States which, by all accounts, has worsened since September 11.

We have never heard of any proponent of St. John's wort suggest that it be used for anything other than mild depression (clinically speaking). More troubling to us is that Zoloft did not fare any better. Perhaps, if higher dosages were used the results may have been different.

Critics of the study will certainly say that it was flawed in some way. They may very well be right.

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