(CBS News) 

Some new scientific research is causing quite a stir in the medical community.

The fight is over antidepressants, and whether they work any better than a simple placebo.

In an report airing this Sunday, “60 Minutes” correspondent Lesley Stahl spoke to the psychologist behind the study, Irving Kirsch, associate director of the Placebo Studies Program at Harvard Medical School.

Preview: Treating Depression

He says that his research challenges the very effectiveness of antidepressants. Kirsch says the difference between the effect of a placebo and the effect of an antidepressant is minimal for most people.

In her interview with Kirsch, Stahl asks, “You’re saying if (patients taking antidepressants) took a sugar pill, they’d have the same effect?”

Kirsch replied, “They’d have almost as large an effect, and whatever difference it would be, would be clinically insignificant.”

Stahl presses, “But people are getting better taking antidepressants, I know them. we all know them.”

“People get better when they take the drug, but it’s not the chemical ingredients of the drugs that are making them better,” Kirsch said. “It’s largely the placebo effect.”

Kirsch’s specialty has been the study of the placebo effect — the taking of a dummy pill without any medication in it, that creates an expectation of healing that is so powerful, symptoms are actually alleviated.

In addition to an interview with Kirsch, Stahl interviewed doctors who don’t agree with Kirsch’s study.

On “CBS This Morning,” Friday Stahl called the report “explosive.”

She said, “Basically (this report) is saying that — except for those very severely depressed, because everybody says that these antidepressants do work if you’re — if it’s a depression that you just can’t get over. But if you’re moderately depressed or mildly depressed, a sugar pill would be just as good.”

“It’s the placebo effect,” Stahl continued. “And part of our story involves how the mind is so powerful over the body that the placebo effect shows up even if you have knee surgery, with osteoporosis, if you have Parkinson’s disease. All these diseases that somehow involve the mind and it’s not just in the mind. A sugar pill can actually change your blood pressure, they’ve monitored the brain, it can change the brain chemistry and the doctor giving you the pill, if it’s a sugar pill, just telling you he cares and, ‘Yes, I know you’re sick and here’s something to help you, that doctor is part of the placebo effect.’”

So are doctors prescribing sugar pills?

Stahl said she asked that question throughout her reporting, but learned it’s not an ethical practice.

“There are side effects with antidepressants,” she said. “It’s not ethical. But you know, in my head, to give a pill that is as good as a placebo with side effects isn’t ethical either. So I think why not give a sugar pill. But they don’t do it, they won’t do it.”

For more with Stahl on her upcoming report, including what it means for people taking antidepressants and the companies that make these prescription drugs, watch the video in the player above.

(CBS News) 

Two communities are in mourning today over the sudden deaths of star athletes.

Matthew Hammerdorfer, 17, was captain of his Fort Collins, Colo. high school rugby team. During a match Saturday, he took a hit to the chest, then collapsed. an autopsy found he died due to a congenital heart defect.

Two days earlier, 16-year-old Wes Leonard collapsed and died on a Michigan basketball court, just after sinking a game-winning shot. The cause of death was determined to be an enlarged heart.

Kids in Wes Leonard’s town wanted to “be like Wes”

But how does this happen to such athletic, young people?

On “The Early Show” Monday, CBS News Medical Correspondent Dr. Jennifer Ashton explained that Matthew’s death was likely due to a congenital heart defect.

Special Section: Dr. Jennifer AshtonDr. Jennifer Ashton’s Twitter page

She said Mathew’s case “was reported to be (a congenital heart defect called) Tetralogy of Fallot, which really had four different types of problems in the heart. It’s usually surgically corrected at three-to-six months. in his case, he had at least one operation to correct that. But some of the problems are never fully corrected. and with that particular congenital heart defect, it can predispose someone to electrical abnormalities, arrhythmias, abnormal heart rhythms and that likely caused his sudden cardiac death.”

“Early Show” co-anchor Chris Wragge asked, “(He was) also playing a contact sport. took a hit moments before he did collapse. Could that have been a determining factor?”

Ashton said, “We hear about these tragic cases every year, and the term for that is commotio cordis. It’s when a forceful blow to the chest strikes the heart at just this precise moment in the electrical activity of the heart that then results in cardiac standstill. Very, very rare. The coroner in his case says that they think it’s just a coincidence.”

However, with his history of heart operations, Wragge asked, should someone who has had a history of heart issues be playing contact sports?

Ashton said that’s “such a difficult question.”

She said, “The pediatric cardiologists who are responsible for clearing teenagers, boys and girls, for contact sports or competitive athletics deal with this all the time. We spoke with an expert at Montefiore Medical Center here in New York City last night who said, ‘You have to understand the social context of this. For boys, particularly, athletics is their social currency.’ So sometimes a doctor might say, ‘You’re not cleared,’ and they might go ahead and participate anyway.”

Wragge asked if heart screenings could help.

Ashton answered, “You know, to screen every child, even if they have no symptoms, is probably not feasible. But again, you want to talk to your pediatrician. Our hearts and prayers go out to the families.”

After the segment aired, Dr. Ashton addressed one portion of her interview. She pointed out, “I obviously misspoke the statistic about babies born with congenital heart defects. The true number is approximately 35,000 per year. We are proud of our accuracy in reporting medical news and are eager to correct this verbal error.”

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