he NIMH funded STAR*D trial [Sequenced Treatment Alternatives to Relieve Depression] was initiated in 2001. The theme of the American Psychiatric Association Meeting in New Orleans that year was Mind meets Brain [though the Brain clearly won the meet]. Charles Nemeroff had recently been nicknamed the "boss of bosses" and was the newly appointed Editor of Neuropsychopharmacology. Around that same time, he helped get David Healy fired from a new position in Toronto for reporting that Prozac could cause suicidal ideation [Let Them Eat Prozac was still three years in the future]. Alan Schatzberg, Chairman at Stanford, published his first trial of Mifepristone in Psychotic Depression with promising results. Zyprexa sales topped $2 B and Seroquel was coming on strong. It was the dawn of a new century, and a time when clinical neurochemistry was the paradigm du jour.
Requires a willingness to contend with statistics and the darkness that is big pharma, but a very interesting blog.