Thank you, Chair.
Thank you, everyone, for your time today.
I'd like to ask Dr. Heisel a question about psychiatric drugs, if I may.
All antidepressants warn right on their labels that, due to risk of akathisia, abnormal behaviour, etc., the patient will be at risk of suicide, and they all say on their labels that the patients should be monitored closely for suicidal ideation, which no doctor has the time to do. It simply doesn't happen.
I personally know two young people who have hung themselves after taking antidepressants, but who were given no safety warnings, one of them after withdrawing from an antidepressant and the other one four days after first being prescribed an antidepressant.
When they're first given an antidepressant, most patients get no warnings that they will become dependent and might have to take the drug for the rest of their life. I've never heard of a patient who's been prescribed an antidepressant and the doctor said, “By the way, you'll probably have to take this for the rest of your life”, or “You're going to go through months of terrible withdrawal symptoms, horrible withdrawal symptoms”. In fact, the drug companies don't even call it withdrawal; they euphemistically refer to as “discontinuation symptoms”.
We know that antidepressants ruin patients' sex lives—many patients are unable to enjoy sexual relations when they're on antidepressants. And we know that one in ten Canadians is on these drugs, such as Paxil, Prozac, Effexor, Wellbutrin, Celexa, Lexapro, Zoloft, Cymbalta, and Luvox, and maybe a couple of others, and most of them, if not all, are being treated for mental health issues.
We've heard evidence in this committee that psychiatric drugs often worsen the mental health of the thousands of patients who are on them, and I think, really, it's no wonder.
What should be done to make sure patients only get psychiatric drugs when they are monitored closely for suicide and other serious adverse effects?