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Welcome to The Spectator podcast. I'm Isabel Hardman, and on this week's episode, we'll be discussing the state of mental health in this country and whether doctors are all too happy to prescribe medication as the miracle solution to mental

illnesses. We'll also be asking what on earth is a deal with Cambridge Analytica and commemorating

the death of the world's last male northern white rhino. First up, is medication the answer to

our mental health crisis? Studies show that the

British are among the most depressed in the developed world. But Angela Patmore writes in this

week's cover piece, doctors rely on pills too much and overlook their terrible side effects. I've written

about those side effects in my own piece for the magazine this week and Angela joins us now with

Professor Simon Wesley, Professor of Psychiatry at King's this week. And Angela joins us now with Professor Simon Wesley,

Professor of Psychiatry at King's College London.

So Angela, your argument in your piece this week

seems to be that you don't think antidepressants really work

and yet we're being told to take more of them.

Well, the Cypriano meta-analysis suggests that lots more people should be given antidepressants

and that they work better than placebos.

But according to scientists who've analysed the results, the actual difference is clinically negligible.

And Simon Wesley, you are a psychiatrist. Do you agree with

this assessment? Not entirely, no. I mean, you would expect me to say that. Cypriani, it's a

study of huge numbers of trials, but it's only for eight weeks. But within that eight weeks,

I think the evidence, most people who read read it, will find it pretty compelling,

that there is an effect of the antidepressants. It's a moderate effect. The best way of kind of

explain to people is to have one person respond to antidepressants. You have to treat between

...