Controversial Conversation: Selling Vitamins & Saving Women from PPD
July 20, 2007 by kate baggott
Filed under Mental Health
When I wrote the Top Five Ways to Prevent Postpartum Depression, the comments section became a platform for discussing the commercial interests in producing vitamin supplements as well as the pharmaceutical industry’s desire to keep interest in the supplements down. The conversation left me uncertain of many complex issues. Still, I cannot figure out why people can raise money to produce supplements, but they can’t raise money to create a charity or a foundation to study Postpartum Depression and educate families about it.
I’ve gotta take issue with all the pharmaceutical industry conspiracy theories out there. I’ve worked as a clinical trial statistician for both universities and pharmaceutical companies (and I am currently not working, so no one is paying me to defend anything), and there is no big conspiracy by the drug industry. I worked on a lot of hormone therapy products and my coworkers and I just wanted to get a good product out there and catch nonworthwhile products as early as possible (for every great product that comes out, there are sometimes hundreds of formulations that didn’t make the cut – all that testing really does cost a lot of money).
The supplement industry are the folks I’d be more concerned about. Pharmaceuticals must go through stringent testing and approval, while supplements don’t. And if Dr Dean would like to send me a copy of his currently under peer review paper, I’ll be happy to read it and offer my opinion on his research, I’ve worked on many successful FDA drug submissions and have been published in peer reviewed journals.
But in the end, I think your advice in the article was great. Look for research from major research institutes that have no ulterior motives. Take the word of random people on the net with a grain of salt (my word as well – you don’t actually know me or my qualifications). Read up on what’s out there with a little bit of scepticism, then make up your own mind about things.