Description

Pushing Prozac

June 2, 2000 — For five years, antidepressant drugs have redefined daily life for Carla, a graphic designer in Des Moines, Iowa. They’ve helped her pry loose from depression so powerful she could barely get out of bed in the morning. They’ve helped her raise three teenage sons and put an end to her occasional thoughts of suicide.

But such help has come at a price — a price some doctors are starting to question. Twelve years after Prozac first hit the market, a growing chorus of psychiatrists claims that America is becoming an overmedicated society, reaching for prescriptions at the first sign of mild depression — and risking potentially dangerous side effects in the process.