To the Editor: We appreciate the interest in our work and the thoughtful comments made by Dr. Kripke and his colleagues. We agree that in establishing a priori criteria for study inclusion we "set the bar" a bit higher than in their Cochrane review. We believe our study inclusion criteria, as described in the article, are reasonable and consistent with conventional standards for clinical trial study design
+(1). Also, in contrast to the Cochrane review, we focused on a more homogeneous diagnostic group (e.g., we did not include studies of subsyndromal depression, schizoaffective disorder, or bipolar disorder) and age range. In addition, we set parameters for a minimum therapeutic dose of active treatment, as well as a maximum amount for placebo conditions.