In 2004, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and European regulators issued warnings against the use of antidepressants known as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) in children and adolescents. Shortly thereafter, the FDA issued a mandate stating that these medications include the following "black box" warning:
Antidepressants increased the risk of suicidal thinking and behavior (suicidality) in short-term studies in children and adolescents with Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) and other psychiatric disorders. Anyone considering the use of [Drug Name] or any other antidepressant in a child or adolescent must balance this risk with the clinical need.Tthese warnings may have backfired, however, leading to a dramatic increase in teen suicides, shows a study published in the September 2007 issue of the American Journal of Psychology.
Authors Hendricks Brown, professor and director of the Prevention Science and Methodology Group at University of South Florida College of Public Health and Robert Gibbons, director of the Center for Health Statistics at the University of Illinois at Chicago, analzyed American and Dutch prescription rates for SSRIs and suicide rates for adolescents between 2003 and 2005. They found that SSRI prescriptions decreased by 22 percent in both countries following the warnings and that the rate of adolescent suicides increased 49 percent in the Netherlands and 14 percent in the United States during this time.
The findings contradict earlier findings suggesting an overall increased adolescent suicide risk with antidepressants.
A related study published in August's American Journal of Psychology shows that the rate of depression diagnosis and antidepressant treatment in adults also declined significantly after these warnings.
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