WE WRITE AS PETITIONERS respectively for Scottish and Welsh Public Parliamentary Petitions, launched 2017, to express our ongoing concerns about mis-diagnosis particularly of antidepressant dependence and withdrawal.
It is now accepted that antidepressants, especially SSRIs and SNRIs, affect the central nervous system, may be dependence-forming and may cause side effects, adverse reactions and withdrawal (Public Health England 2019 Dependence and withdrawal associated with some prescribed medicines: an evidence review (publishing.service.gov.uk).
In 2019 the Royal College of Psychiatrists (RCPsych) released a position statement on antidepressants.1 In September 2020 they published a leaflet on ‘stopping antidepressants’, endorsed by the Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP), the Royal College of Pharmacists and NICE.2
