Inside 60 Minutes placebo story, antidepressants no better than placebo

CBS News
February 17, 2012

Some new scientific research is causing quite a stir in the medical community.

The fight is over antidepressants, and whether they work any better than a simple placebo.

In an report airing this Sunday, "60 Minutes" correspondent Lesley Stahl spoke to the psychologist behind the study, Irving Kirsch, associate director of the Placebo Studies Program at Harvard Medical School.

Preview: Treating Depression

He says that his research challenges the very effectiveness of antidepressants. Kirsch says the difference between the effect of a placebo and the effect of an antidepressant is minimal for most people.

In her interview with Kirsch, Stahl asks, "You're saying if (patients taking antidepressants) took a sugar pill, they'd have the same effect?"

Kirsch replied, "They'd have almost as large an effect, and whatever difference it would be, would be clinically insignificant."

Stahl presses, "But people are getting better taking antidepressants, I know them. We all know them."

"People get better when they take the drug, but it's not the chemical ingredients of the drugs that are making them better," Kirsch said. "It's largely the placebo effect."

Kirsch's specialty has been the study of the placebo effect -- the taking of a dummy pill without any medication in it, that creates an expectation of healing that is so powerful, symptoms are actually alleviated.

In addition to an interview with Kirsch, Stahl interviewed doctors who don't agree with Kirsch's study.

On "CBS This Morning," Friday Stahl called the report "explosive."

She said, "Basically (this report) is saying that -- except for those very severely depressed, because everybody says that these antidepressants do work if you're -- if it's a depression that you just can't get over. But if you're moderately depressed or mildly depressed, a sugar pill would be just as good."

"It's the placebo effect," Stahl continued. "And part of our story involves how the mind is so powerful over the body that the placebo effect shows up even if you have knee surgery, with osteoporosis, if you have Parkinson's disease. All these diseases that somehow involve the mind and it's not just in the mind. A sugar pill can actually change your blood pressure, they've monitored the brain, it can change the brain chemistry and the doctor giving you the pill, if it's a sugar pill, just telling you he cares and, 'Yes, I know you're sick and here's something to help you, that doctor is part of the placebo effect.'"

So are doctors prescribing sugar pills?

Stahl said she asked that question throughout her reporting, but learned it's not an ethical practice.

"There are side effects with antidepressants," she said. "It's not ethical. But you know, in my head, to give a pill that is as good as a placebo with side effects isn't ethical either. So I think why not give a sugar pill. But they don't do it, they won't do it."

For more with Stahl on her upcoming report, including what it means for people taking antidepressants and the companies that make these prescription drugs, watch the video in the player above.

Teen tied and shocked for hours, mom calls it torture, Judge Rotenberg Center

FOX TV 25 Boston
Sunday, 19 Feb 2012
by Mike Beaudet
Kevin Rothstein Producer kevin.rothstein@foxtv.com

(FOX 25 / MyFoxBoston.com) - Video of a disabled teen tied down and given painful electric shocks for seven hours should be made public, the youth's mother said, so everyone can see what she describes as the "torture" her son went through at the controversial school, the only one in Massachusetts that uses pain to treat its clients.

"This is worse than a nightmare," Cheryl McCollins said about her disabled son, Andre. "It is horrific. And poor Andre, who had to suffer through this, and not know why."

The ordeal began after Andre hit a staff member. Inside a classroom, as a camera was recording, he was tied to a restraint board, face down, a helmet over his head.

He stayed like that for seven hours without a break, no food, no water, or trips to the bathroom. Each time he screamed or tensed up, he was shocked, 31 times in all. His mother called the next day to check on him.

"I said, 'Andre.' I said, 'Hello.' And so he said, 'Help me,'" McCollins said.

After spending three days in a comatose state, not eating or drinking, Andre was taken to Children's Hospital, where he was diagnosed with "acute stress response" caused by the shocks.

"The doctors took all the shackles and all those things off of him. Andre's not talking to me. I'm just holding him and telling him how much I love him, and asking him please to talk to me, just tell me what happened," McCollins said.

What happened that morning in October 2002 became clear after the Rotenberg Center showed her the video of Andre's ordeal, recorded by the classroom camera.

"When I viewed the tape, I saw Andre walking into a room, someone asking him to take off his coat. Andre said no, they shocked him, he went underneath the table trying to get away from them. They pulled him out, tied him up and they continued to shock him," McCollins said.

"When you look at that videotape, what was the purpose of all those shocks?" asked FOX Undercover reporter Mike Beaudet.

"I have no idea," McCollins replied.

"Did you get an apology?" Beaudet asked.

"No, they felt what they did was therapy," McCollins replied.

"Does that look like therapy to you?" Beaudet asked.

"No, it was torture," McCollins said.

For now, the public can't see for themselves what Andre's treatment looks like because the Rotenberg Center asked a Norfolk Superior Court judge to seal the video tape, saying it would be unsettling for viewers who didn't understand the context. The judge agreed, and the video remains under a protective order.

"This is video they fought vehemently not to release, fought vehemently to keep quiet and I think now are very concerned that this tape is out there," said attorney Andrew Meyer, who represents Andre McCollins in a lawsuit against the Rotenberg Center.

"The Judge Rotenberg Center has consistently gotten away with being able to soft sell their treatment, to whitewash what they've done about it being therapeutic: 'It's not so bad, it helps these children.' But the eyewitness accounts that we now have about what actually goes on at this center puts to lie everything they've been saying," Meyer said.

But not everyone agrees. When asked about the perception that electric shock therapy is torture, school attorney Michael Flammia said, "Absolutely wrong."

Flammia would not talk about Andre McCollins.

"But I can tell you I'm familiar with every kid who has been at the school, who have been at the school over 20 years and I can promise you the treatment here is safe, it's effective, it's administered properly and every kid has benefited enormously from it," Flammia said.

"We talked with a parent who says, 'Put that video out there, let the public see what happened to my son here. Let them see what she calls torture,'" asked FOX Undercover's Beaudet.

"The matter is in the hands of the courts and we have complete confidence in the court system on that particular matter," Flammia replied.

"So you don't want us to see that video?" Beaudet asked.

"It's in the hands of the court," Flammia replied.

But McCollins says the public needs to see the video of what happened to her son.

"I hope this stops it. I hope this tape being exposed puts an end to this torture. Because I feel it. You watch it, you feel it," McCollins said. "How do we sit here and let this go on?"

It's certainly getting tougher for the Rotenberg Center to use these shocks.

New York and Massachusetts recently barred shocks on new students, though the school is fighting those restrictions in New York and is planning to do so here.

This is also not the first time this kind of video has become a problem for the center. Last year, the school's founder, Matthew Israel, was indicted on charges that he ordered video of improperly shocked students to be erased despite an ongoing investigation.

Israel agreed to a deal that gives him pre-trial probation in exchange for his stepping down from the school.

Read more: http://www.myfoxboston.com/dpp/news/undercover/teen-tied-and-shocked-for-hours-mom-calls-it-torture-20120219#ixzz1nF9kXJ00