Do anti-depressants really work? Studies show mostly modest effects

More people in the United States are on antidepressants, as a percentage of the population, than any other country in the world. And yet the drugs’ efficacy has been hotly debated.   
 
Some believe that the short-term benefits are much more modest than widely thought, and that harms may outweigh benefits in the long run. Others believe that they work, and that they can be life-changing.
 
Settling this debate has been much harder than you might think.
 
It’s not that we lack research. Many, many studies of antidepressants can be found in the peer-reviewed literature. The problem is