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Study Finds Medication Raises Suicide Risks in Young Adults
NY Times ^ | December 6, 2006 | BENEDICT CAREY

Posted on 12/06/2006 12:24:39 AM PST by neverdem

In a long-awaited analysis, health officials reported yesterday that antidepressant medications appeared to increase significantly the risk of suicide attempts and related behaviors in adults under 25, while reducing such risks in older people.

The analysis, the most comprehensive and rigorous to date, found that suicidal behavior of any kind was rare, and that people taking the medications were no more likely to kill themselves than those taking placebo pills. But adults under 25 taking the drugs were more than twice as likely as those on placebos to report a suicide attempt, or to prepare for one by, say, writing a suicide note.

The report, which included more than a dozen medications, was compiled by the Food and Drug Administration and posted on its Web site.

The findings are the latest chapter in a yearslong debate that has recently focused on children and adolescents. In 2004, after doing a similar analysis, the F.D.A. required drug makers to include on their labels prominent warnings that the drugs were associated with an increased risk of suicidal thinking and behavior in minors. The new study is likely to shift the same attention to young adults, experts said, and may encourage patient advocates who believe that antidepressants like Prozac have hidden dangers, and psychiatrists who insist that the medications are safe.

Dr. Kelly Posner, an assistant professor of child psychiatry at Columbia, who helped the F.D.A. analyze the data, said the findings should be treated with caution, because the drug trials studied were not designed to evaluate suicide risk.

“We have better, more interpretable data than we’ve ever had before,” Dr. Posner said, “but it’s still not clear that the drugs caused the behavior.”...

(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Government; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: antidepressants; fda; mentalhealth; suicideattempts; suicides

1 posted on 12/06/2006 12:24:42 AM PST by neverdem
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To: neverdem
Adolescence is a difficult enough time in life, with its raging hormones, physical changes, and sorting out everything from career goals to your place in the local 'pecking order'.

All that is naturally depressing enough, subject to mood swings, etc. Just a part of growing up.

I have maintained for years, that it is difficult enough to do with a clear head, even more so doped up.

These results do not surprise me, it just saddens me to thing of the countless kids who have been used as guinea pigs.

2 posted on 12/06/2006 12:29:49 AM PST by Smokin' Joe (How often God must weep at humans' folly.)
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To: neverdem

Not to mention murder-suicide. Ask the columbine killers' parents if their evil offspring had prescription "happy pills"


3 posted on 12/06/2006 12:38:54 AM PST by pissant
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To: Smokin' Joe; neverdem
Not to mention that resent research has shown that the brain itself does not mature until at least 25 years of age. The studies show that the actual brain structure of those under 25 are markedly different than those over 25.

So it only makes sense that you can not necessarily treat a brain malady in someone under 25 with the same drug that you do someone over 25.

It also explains why after you reach the ripe old age of 30 you look back on those younger years and think “Boy was I an idiot back then!”

4 posted on 12/06/2006 1:42:40 AM PST by Pontiac (All are worthy of freedom, none are incapable.)
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To: neverdem
...antidepressant medications appeared to increase significantly the risk of suicide attempts and related behaviors in adults under 25

When will they come out with the "news" that high school mass killings are also related? Mucking with brain chemistry as this early stage of medical development is crazy...

5 posted on 12/07/2006 7:37:41 AM PST by GOPJ (Male homosexuality-worse for your health than sugar, transfats, obesity, and SUV's together.)
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