Quote: "But there are undoubtedly other reasons for its neglect. Pharmaceutical companies have nothing to gain from this cheap, ubiquitous element." Ah, of cou

Quote: "But there are undoubtedly other reasons for its neglect. Pharmaceutical companies have nothing to gain from this cheap, ubiquitous element." Ah, of course. This is why lithium is ignored or actively disparaged, while drugs whose ineffectiveness has been demonstrated in a now-famous meta-analysis -- http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pmed.0050045 http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fj... "Meta-analyses of antidepressant medications have reported only modest benefits over placebo treatment, and when unpublished trial data are included, the benefit falls below accepted criteria for clinical significance." [emphasis added] -- continue to be aggressively marketed. This is not to say that lithium is a panacea or not dangerous if mishandled. It is to say that it has measurable beneficial effects in the right doses, on the right people. No one knows why this is true, but that's true of all such medications.