Antidepressants to treat grief? Psychiatry panelists with ties to drug industry say yes [View all]

[HiPointDem]

When should the bereaved be medicated? For years, the official handbook of psychiatry advised against diagnosing major depression when the distress is “better accounted for by bereavement.” Such grief, experts said, was better left to nature. But that may be changing...

In what some prominent critics have called a bonanza for the drug companies, the American Psychiatric Association this month voted to drop the old warning against diagnosing depression in the bereaved, opening the way for more of them to be diagnosed with major depression — and thus, treated with antidepressants.

The change in the handbook, which could have significant financial implications for the $10 billion U.S. antidepressant market, was developed in large part by people affiliated with the pharmaceutical industry, an examination of financial disclosures shows.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/antidepressants-to-treat-grief-psychiatry-panelists-with-ties-to-drug-industry-say-yes/2012/12/26/ca09cde6-3d60-11e2-ae43-cf491b837f7b_story.html?hpid=z2