Dr David Healy was one of the first psychiatrists to suggest that while in some cases the antidepressant drugs, the SSRIs may help prevent suicide, in other very rare cases, they might actually increase the suicide risk. So how does a doctor balance that risk?
David also discusses the evidence from healthy volunteer trials, these are small trials that take place before the major trials and regulators can be unaware of these trials' results yet they often contain important information about a drug's potential side effects.
And he also discusses the problems of sexual dysfunction that some people suffer after taking SSRI drugs. David says he has had personal experience of several patients who have committed suicide as a result of this ongoign sexual dysfunction and even been asked by people suffering from this to write referral letters to the right to die group Dignitas.
Psychiatrist David Healy is a professor in the Department of Family Medicine at McMaster University in Canada. He is also founder and CEO of Data Based Medicine Limited, which through its website RxISK.org, aims to make medicines safer through online direct patient reporting of drug side effects. David has been involved as an expert witness in homicide and suicide trials involving psychotropic drugs, and in raising issues with these drugs with the American and European regulators.
You can sign up to the mailing list to the podcast and be first to know when a new episode is published at https://www.whatyourgpdoesnttellyou.com and also find out more about the pod there.
If you would like to support this podcast you can do so via Patreon at or via PayPal.
The host of the podcast, Liz Tucker is an award winning medical journalist and former BBC producer and director. You can follow Liz on X and read further information about the podcast on her Substack newsletter.
Medical Matters with Liz Tucker has been selected by Feedspot as one of the top 15 UK Medical Podcasts https://blog.feedspot.com/uk_medical_podcasts/
