Essay On Antidepressants And Suicide

More than 15 million Americans suffer from major depression, that’s approximately 6.7 percent of the American population (ADAA). There is one treatment that is offered to people who suffer from major depression... antidepressants. Although some believe that antidepressants cure their major depression, there are others that disagree and claim that antidepressants actually worsens people’s depression and can lead to suicide. “Antidepressants Can Result to Suicide” written by Angela Bischoff in Opposing Viewpoints provides Bischoff’s and “Hey, Let’s Not Get Carried Away: Anti-Depressants Really Do Help People,” a piece written in The Atlantic by Maura Kelly, are two articles that are persuading two different sides of an argument. Both pieces uses

They use their personal stories and use their sorrowful diction and by describing their side of the story. Bischoff begins her research about the common side effects of antidepressants after the tragic death of her husband. After Bischoff explains what antidepressant her husband had been prescribed to, she uses her strong diction to provide an emotional image to the readers of how her husband interacted with loved ones. “His anxiety and agitation went through the roof -- clearly an adverse reaction… After just five weeks on the drug, Tooker’s agitation sent him over the railing of MacDonald Bridge in Halifax, Nova Scotia. He wrote in his suicide note that he was anxious, felt like a zombie and couldn’t think.” In this paragraph alone, readers may begin to feel empathy for Bischoff and may start to realize the dangers of the common effects of antidepressants. She uses this example to help prove her case that the medication that was supposed to help, actually worsened by taking the medication. Although Bischoff’s main focus was to propagate the dangers of antidepressants and use facts to help her claim, she also includes her emotional story in order to persuade the audience to stay away from the dangerous medication. Pathos also takes a large role in Kelly’s piece. Kelly’s piece is written in first person and throughout, shes uses many multiple different

To start off, in Bischoff’s article she writes after her own conducted research, that one in four patients feel worse when beginning any antidepressant drug and calls it quits within the first month of taking the medication. Another example in Bischoff’s piece is when she uses both ethos and logos. Bischoff writes, “..one in 20 patients becomes agitated on antidepressant drugs—five percent is a significant adverse reaction that doctors need to be informed about and need to warn patients about, but they generally don't. The concern is that agitation is a very potent predictor of suicide and violence.” Ethos is being used here because Bischoff is using the statistic based of the credit of a medical professional. Logos is also being used simply because of the statistic, one and twenty patients, is being stated. In contrary with Kelly’s piece, she doesn’t include facts or statistics much like Bischoff. Kelly’s piece is more focused on her ethos and personal opinions about the medications she had taken to help with her depression. There aren’t any facts to back up her claims, there simply is just opinions made by herself or quotes from the authors who wrote about the benefits of antidepressants. Although both articles are subjected towards a sensitive topic, Bischoff’s audience is slightly more directed towards adults who are inflicted with someone they