Abstract
Funded by the Danish state to provide guidance in health-related matters, the Copenhagen Trial Unit (CTU) at Rigshospitalet may cause considerable societal harm if allowing their analyses to be influenced by bias and prejudice rather than rigor and impartiality. This is why we found it worthwhile to comment on a report from the CTU in which the authors invoked analyses marred by numerous errors and methodological mistakes to claim that selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) are harmful and ineffective. The CTU group has now produced a response to our comment which is on par with their original contribution in terms of bias, misconceptions and mistakes. Our conclusion is that the reputation of the CTU would be best served by the authors asking for retraction of their SSRI paper.
Highlights
Elias Eriksson, Department of Pharmacology, Institute of Neuroscience and Physiology, Sahlgrenska Academy, University of Gothenburg, POB 431, SE 405 30 Gothenburg, Sweden
The aim of our re-analysis of the Copenhagen Trial Unit (CTU) data in our previous comment on this issue, in which we found no main effect of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) on serious adverse event (SAE) frequency, but a heightened risk in the elderly subgroup, was not to provide a final answer on the issue of a possible association between SSRIs and SAEs, but to cast light on the fragility of the alleged effect trumpeted in Scandinavian media by Dr Jakobsen
We again conclude that the efficacy data presented by the CTU group do not add much to what has previously been reported by others, and that the authors are mistaken when arguing that these results suggest the effect of SSRIs to be clinically insignificant
Summary
The aim of our re-analysis of the CTU data in our previous comment on this issue, in which we found no main effect of SSRIs on SAE frequency, but a heightened risk in the elderly subgroup, was not to provide a final answer on the issue of a possible association between SSRIs and SAEs, but to cast light on the fragility of the alleged effect trumpeted in Scandinavian media by Dr Jakobsen.
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