Dr Simon Opher, Chair of the Beyond Pills APPG, has been a GP for 30 years and is also Labour MP for Stroud.
In an recent article for London’s Evening Standard newspaper, Dr Opher warns of how the medical profession needs to tread carefully when patients ask to withdraw from taking anti-depressants, in light of new research which claims that it’s a ‘mild, brief and overstated’ experience.
The GP, who has a specialist interest in mental health, cites lived experience, including the words of one campaigner, Steve Lewis, who described antidepressant withdrawal as ‘the single most terrifying and painful thing that has ever happened to me.’
Dr Opher calls into question the credibility of the new study, released earlier this month.
He wrote: ‘This is a highly misleading piece of research, and I’ll tell you why. This study draws its findings from mostly short-term clinical trials (most lasting only eight to 12 weeks) with patients’ withdrawal experience followed up for one to two weeks.
‘Of the one in five adults in England prescribed antidepressants, at least half have been taking them for longer than two years, many for much longer.’
To read the article in full, visit: standard.co.uk/comment
