A study led by researchers at the University of Pennsylvania indicates that the antidepressants(抗抑郁药)work no better than placebo

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问题     A study led by researchers at the University of Pennsylvania indicates that the antidepressants(抗抑郁药)work no better than placebos(安慰剂)for people with mild to moderate depression. It sounded true. After all, any number of experts have argued that antidepressants are over-hyped and oversold. Yet in all the excitement about the study, a more slightly different and truer story about mental health care in America was all but lost.
    That story begins to take shape when you consider what the new study actually said: Antidepressants do work for very severely depressed people, as well as for those whose mild depression is chronic. However, the researchers found, the pills don’t work for people who aren’t really depressed-people with short-term, minor depression whose problems tend to get better on their own. For many of them, it’s often been observed, merely participating in a drug trial can be antidepressant enough.
    After all, people who are depressed for the first time, or have been depressed for only a short time, or are upset after a personal setback, aren’t considered ideal candidates for immediate drug therapy. And, contrary to popular belief, there’s no evidence that most psychiatrists regularly prescribe pills straight off to people who can get better by reading about depression, exercising or doing nothing. What numbers do exist, said Peter Kramer, who has written extensively on antidepressant use, indicate that relatively few people with minimal depression leave psychiatrists’ offices with a prescription.
    That people have come to believe otherwise may be in part because most patients with depression are treated by general practitioners(全科医生), not psychiatrists. Studies have shown that these primary care doctors don’t seriously enough screen their patients for depression before prescribing drugs, or closely monitor their care afterward.
    And here the truer story about mental health care in America begins to unfold. The trouble is not that the drugs don’t works it’s that the health care is not very good.
    Inadequate treatment by non-specialists is only a piece of the problem. In fact, most Americans with depression, rather than being overmedicated, are undertreated or not treated at all. This might have been big news, too, had anyone noticed another academic study, a survey of nearly 16, 000 people published in The Archives of General Psychiatry, which looked more broadly at the picture of depression in America. The survey found that those who did get care were given psychotherapy more often than drugs. That finding might give heart to those who would prefer to see more alternatives to psychiatric drugs—if it weren’t for the fact that so much psychotherapy is so bad.
    In 2008, a team of psychologists brought this point home in blunt terms in the journal Psychological Science in the Public Interest. "Despite the availability of highly effective interventions, " they wrote, "relatively few psychologists learn or practice these interventions. "
What can we learn from the first two paragraphs?

选项 A、The antidepressants work on people with mild depression.
B、Those with chronic minor depression tend to recover on their own.
C、The short-term and mild depression needs no external treatment.
D、Experts’ statements promote the consumption of antidepressants.

答案C

解析 根据题干提示定位到原文的前两段。由第二段第二句:...the researchers found,the pills don’t workfor people who aren’t really depressed--people with short-term,minor depression whose problems tend to getbetter on their own.可知,抗抑郁药物对不是真正抑郁的人来说不起作用,有短期、轻微抑郁症状的人会自动康复。由此可知,C)项正确。
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