No Real Effects, Just Dangerous Side Effects of Antidepressant Zoloft

     By Robert Carter/January 23, 2025

     The FDA’s black box warnings on psychotropic drugs are meant to alert consumers to the dangerous side effects that have been reported for these drugs. “Suicidal thoughts” and “suicide attempts” are the most severe warnings listed for these drugs.

     Of course, in their massive television marketing campaigns, Big Pharma focuses the first twenty seconds of their ads on the “effect” they want you to believe you’ll gain from taking the drug. For example, “Depression may be related to an imbalance of natural chemicals between nerve cells and the brain. Prescription Zoloft works to correct this imbalance. You just shouldn’t have to feel this way anymore.”

     “This way,” of course, means the symptoms voiced in the first seconds of this original Zoloft TV ad: feeling “the weight of sadness, exhausted, hopeless, anxious, and lonely.”

     That’s the “effect” Big Pharma claims for Zoloft. They make it sound as if taking it might be worth the risk of that little “side effect” of “suicide attempts.”

     British psychiatrist Joanna Moncrieff wrote in a 2018 bulletin published by the Cambridge
Royal College of Psychiatrists: “Patients should be informed that there is no evidence that antidepressants work by correcting a chemical imbalance, that antidepressants have mind-altering effects, and that evidence suggests they produce no noticeable benefit compared with placebo.”

     So much for the “may be related to an imbalance of natural chemicals” in Zoloft’s TV ad. Zoloft, now also known by its generic name, Sertraline, was first approved by the FDA in 1991 as a “safe and effective” treatment for depression, but even then they called their approval a “tough decision” because the effect on outpatients with depression was only “modest to minimal.” Some experts noted that the effect of the drug on inpatients was also
no better than the placebos taken during the Pfizer trials.

     Oh, well. The psychiatrists on the FDA approval committee who had healthy shares of Pfizer in their portfolio saw there was money to be made there.

     Zoloft is most often prescribed for psychiatry’s DSM-designated Major Depressive Disorder, Generalized Anxiety Disorder, and even Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder.

     That last condition is what most women used to just consider the inconvenience of monthly cramps and emotions, but then Big Pharma realized they could make a ton of money with Zoloft when it was prescribed for those natural monthly events that psychiatrists label a “mental disorder.”

     In 2016 Zoloft/Sertraline was the most commonly prescribed psychotropic medication in America. It has gone from 28 million prescriptions written for it in 2004 to 40 million prescriptions written in 2022.

     What about the “side effects” of Zoloft/Sertraline…even if there may be no beneficial “effects” for one’s well being from this so-called antidepressant?

     The FDA Black Box Warning states that “thoughts about suicide or dying” and “attempts to commit suicide” increase with Zoloft, particularly for those younger than 24 yeas of age, and particularly in the first few months of ingestion or when the dose is changed, up or down.

     In fact, FDA experts found that there was a 100% increase in suicidal thoughts and behavior in children and adolescents, and a fifty percent increase in those 18-24 years of age.

     Sounds like Zoloft makes folks feel more depressed, not less – even to the point of suicide —
doesn’t it?

     Of course, other cheery “side effects” of the drug include “insomnia, new or worse irritability, aggression, being angry, or violently acting on dangerous impulses.” Just the kind of person you want to have sitting next to you at a school desk or in line next to you at the post office.

     Do we really need to wonder why people “go postal”? 

     In conventional risk/reward theory, if you take Zoloft/Sertraline there is only the downside of a much greater risk that you’d commit suicide.

     The only “reward” from your taking it is to the already overstuffed pockets of Big Pharma…and to the wallets of the psychiatrists sitting on those FDA pharmaceutical approval committees.

Comments are moderated. You must be logged in to comment. Please keep it civil 

Leave a Comment

Scroll to Top