Fully Considering Effexor Side Effects

ByPrimary Researcher

Executive Summary

  • Antidepressants have many problematic side effects, including Effexor side effects, which the medical establishment de-emphasizes.
  • This article discusses these side effects.

Introduction

When we began researching antidepressants, one thing that caught me off-guard was the many common serious side effects. However, Effexor side effects are greatly minimized by the medical establishment.

The Financial Incentives to Minimize Antidepressant Side Effects

Single antidepressants have yearly revenues in the billions of dollars, and Wellbutrin had roughly $6 billion in 2021, while Paxil had $11.6 billion. The more MDs educate their patients about antidepressant side effects, the less likely patients will be to take them — and the problem is that most treatments for depression outside of drugs are lengthy and expensive psychiatry approaches that most of the population cannot afford.

Bias in Online Information

At first, many of the highest-ranking medical websites seem objective; however, a bias becomes evident when you read as many of these websites as I do. I will not say they are advertising for pharma companies, but they are not written more for the benefit of pharma companies than consumers. For example, several articles describe how to overcome antidepressant side effects, and very few ask if the proven benefits of antidepressants are worth the side effects. Here is an example from the WebMD website, which many people rely on for health information.

Antidepressants such as SSRIs (Zoloft, Lexapro), SNRIs (Cymbalta, Fetzima, Pristiq), and other medications such as bupropion (Wellbutrin), mirtazapine (Remeron), vilazodone (Viibryd), and vortioxetine (Trintellix – formerly called Brintellix) generally have fewer and less severe side effects than older drugs (for instance, tricyclic antidepressants such as amitriptyline (Elavil) or imipramine (Tofranil).

That is the proposal, but there is little evidence that this is true. This is explained well in the following quotation from the book Unhinged: The Trouble With Psychiatry, a Doctor’s Revelation About a Profession in Crisis

Whether we are talking about depression, schizophrenia, or bipolar disorder, the new drugs introduced over the past fifty years are no more effective than the original prototypes — such as Haldol for schizophrenia, lithium for bipolar disorder, and Nardil for depression.

Furthermore, these SSRIs, SNRIs, Wellbutrin, and others have serious side effects. So anything they have lower side effects, another problematic category of drugs, does not say how much lower.

It is a way of soft-peddling the side effects of these newer drugs.

MDs on Effexor Side Effects

MDs are not objective actors on the topic of antidepressants. WebMD wrote the quote above, directing people to MDs because they know that MDs (both GPs and psychiatrists) will, in nearly all cases, tell their patients that the benefits of their antidepressants outweigh the side effects. This advice is meant to sound very reasonable — but hides the bias of the MD from the reader.

That is, WebMD sets up the MDs as honest, impartial arbiters when WebMD knows they are as controlled by pharma influence as WebMD. This is something that is covered in the article How WebMD is a Paid Shill for the Medical Establishment. (subscription required)