Dear Griffith

Thank you for your letter of 31 March. Don't worry: the decision not to publish and the reasoning behind it reveal much more about this problem than my editorial would have done. By putting this all on our website, I can also justify the time and effort I put into responding to your invitation to write it.

I do think there is something to be learned from this, especially from the pompous comments of your referee. They illustrate exactly the standards that get us into the kind of trouble I've been writing about, and seem to me to reflect anything but the scientific standards to which you think I should aspire. Indeed I did give evidence of the difference between relapse and withdrawal (Drug & Therapeutics Bulletin, 1988) - and I doubt if there can be many drug reps (let alone journalists) who would seek to compare antidepressant withdrawal with "hot flushes on stopping HRT".

I am enclosing three copies of the International Journal of Risk & Safety in Medicine, in which my paper was originally published. I would be grateful if you would forward one copy to your referee; the others are for your Assistant Editor and you. I'm also enclosing a couple of letters posted to our website yesterday; the Internet is bursting with reports like these - all wonderfully 'unscientific' of course, yet evidently far closer to the truth than anything to be found in 'scientific' journals. Notwithstanding the abundance of vested interests, I am hopeful that this pitiful dithering will soon run out of steam. We'll see.

With good wishes.

CLICK HERE TO READ FINAL DRAFT: DO ANTIDEPRESSANTS CAUUSE DEPENDENCE?

CLICK HERE FOR END OF CORRESPONDENCE

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