Other metastudies show only a weak effect in the most severely depressed patients. That's not the conclusion in the articles you posted. From the PLOS Medicine

Other metastudies show only a weak effect in the most severely depressed patients. That's not the conclusion in the articles you posted. From the PLOS Medicine article: These findings suggest that, compared with placebo, the new-generation antidepressants do not produce clinically significant improvements in depression in patients who initially have moderate or even very severe depression, but show significant effects only in the most severely depressed patients. And from the JAMA article: The magnitude of benefit of antidepressant medication compared with placebo increases with severity of depression symptoms and may be minimal or nonexistent, on average, in patients with mild or moderate symptoms. For patients with very severe depression, the benefit of medications over placebo is substantial. These conclusions are the opposite of your statement.