A team of leading medical experts have said following a series of clinical trials that psychiatric drugs might do more harm than good.

They also said that the use of most antidepressants and dementia drugs can be stopped without causing harm.Peter Gotzsche, professor and director of the Nordic Cochrane Centre in Denmark, wrote in a British Medical Journal that psychiatric drugs might do more harm than good.Gotzsche claimed that half a million people over the age of 65 die as a result of the use of psychiatric drugs every year in western countries.

However, the view is being opposed by many experts in mental health. Others say that the use of psychiatric drugs should be discussed and the fact that such drugs is being overused to help aggressive patients with dementia.

Gotzsche claims that trails have been carried out by funding from the pharmaceutical companies and are mostly biased as the patients have been on other medication first. He explained that the patients stop their drugs and often experience a withdrawal phase before the trial and then the drug appears to be beneficial. He also claims that deaths from suicide in clinical trials are under-reported.

Gotzschewrote, "The short-term relief seems to be replaced by long-term harms. Animal studies strongly suggest that these drugs can produce brain damage, which is probably the case for all psychotropic drugs. Given their lack of benefit, I estimate we could stop almost all psychotropic drugs without causing harm - by dropping all antidepressants, ADHD drugs and dementia drugs and using only a fraction of the antipsychotics and benzodiazepines we currently use."