Study Shows Pfizer’s Depression Drug is Ineffective and Possibly Unsafe

Added by David Sandercock on October 13, 2010

A group of researchers from Germany published a report on Wednesday, October 13, 2010 on Pfizer’s drug called Reboetine, which is a drug meant for depression.

The report suggests that the drug has no effect and that it could also be harmful to consumers. The researchers said that the published information on the drug goes way beyond its real nature.

The research team from the German Institute for Quality and Efficiency in Health Care (IQWIG) published the study’s information in the British Medical Journal suggesting that results for the drug trials made on most of the patients ware never published.

They said that this goes against the requirements of publishing results for all clinical trials.

The drug known as Reboxetine was rejected by the U.S in the year 2001 even though it is approved in most European countries.  There have however been doubts over its effectiveness and also concerns on potential health risks.

Beate Wieseler from the department of drug assessment in IQWIG stated that the drug does not work but that the number of people taking it is high. Beate also said that there are available drugs that work on depression and that there is no reason why a patient should be given ineffective drugs to treat this dangerous disease.