Actually . . .

I see no problem with the math.

The figures clearly indicate a 55% greater chance of risk for cardiac failure between the two groups.

While I agree with you that Big Pharma routinely misuses and misreports statistics, as do their apologists, what is being talked about is not actual incidences of side effects but the increased risk of side effects.  If 10 out of 1000 people who do not take anti-depressants have a side effect, and 20 out of 1000 people who do take them have a side effect, then those who take anti-depressants are twice as likely to have side effects than those who do not take them.  It is Big Pharma and their apologists who would say "you only have a 1% higher risk" , or more likely say "there is no statistically significant increase of risk".

I think that consumers would be very interested in knowing how many times more likely a side effect like cardiac failure was from taking a drug; whatever the actual percentages of incidence might be.  Such as this information quoted in the article I posted:

Studies indicate,” he explains, “that mothers who take an SSRI during pregnancy have 1.5 to 2 times the risk of giving birth to a baby with a heart defect such as an atrial septal defect or ventricular septal defect, and are 6 times more likely to give birth to a baby with a severe and life-threatening lung disorder known as persistent pulmonary hypertension (PPHN).

And speaklng of statistics, how about the math in this part of that article:

Ms Brody notes that in the March 2005 New England Journal of Medicine, two specialists, Dr Edward Boyer of the University of Massachusetts Medical School and Dr Michael Shannon of Children’s Hospital Boston, found that more than 85% of doctors were “unaware of the serotonin syndrome as a clinical diagnosis.”

I wonder why the doctors were so uninformed?  Probably from failing to read the fine print or to be provided with the information in the first place and instead being bombarded with information from slick sales reps bearing incentives and gifts but nary a negatvie word, from ads on every other page in their professional journals, from full page ads in popular magazines and daily newspapers, from a constant stream of slick commercials on television about "how effective" the mainstream medications are and from the demand from their patients who have likewise been bombarded with such advertising and constantly advised that better health is a matter of being sure to "ask your Doctor about (fill in the evil drug here)"

The figures and information like what you referred to in your post is exactly what doctors and the public receive, and worse, straight from the horses mouth (though I think more of the horses nether end for such sources and misinformation).

As the saying goes, there are lies, there are damned lies and then there are statistics.

And then there is Big Pharma.

DQ