Posted on 03/07/2006 6:10:12 PM PST by neverdem
Antidepressant drugs raise the small risk of suicidal thoughts and behavior in depressed children and adolescents, scientists at the Food and Drug Administration are reporting today in a detailed published account of findings they reached in 2004.
The study, an analysis of 4,582 patients in 24 drug trials, is the first widely published evaluation of data that the agency reviewed that year. The analysis found that about four children and adolescents of every 100 who took the drugs reported suicidal thoughts or behavior, twice the number among those who took dummy pills.
The publication of the study is not likely to alter the debate about the relative risks and benefits of antidepressant treatment, experts said. No one in the trials committed suicide, and the suicide rate among adolescents has dropped significantly since doctors began prescribing the drugs to minors in the early 1990's.
But some experts said publication of the report, in today's issue of The Archives of General Psychiatry, may make it harder to deny that antidepressants like Prozac, Zoloft and Effexor cause a worsening in a small number of children and adolescents with depression, stirring in them thoughts of suicide they would not otherwise have had. The findings so impressed F.D.A. officials in 2004 that they voted then to require a suicide warning on the drug's labels, "and we felt and still feel that was the right thing to do," said Dr. Thomas Laughren, director of the agency's Division of Psychiatry Products, who was a co-author of the study.
Still, a spokesman for the American Psychiatric Association, Dr. David G. Fassler, a child and adolescent psychiatrist in Burlington, Vt., said the study had yet to clarify the relationship between suicidal thinking and behavior.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
People who are depressed take anti-depressants, correct? People who are depressed, have thoughts of suicide, correct? Why on Earth would anybody blame the pills?
No.
I know someone that suffers from depression, and is constitued so that that person can't/won't commit suicide.
You are lucky to have never run across mental illness in your own circle of family/friends, or clueless enough to not understand it.
/johnny
How did they pick the population to do the pills test on? If the general population this would be unethical. If kids with demonstrated problems, it might also be unethical to have some of them forego treatment (how can they make an informed choice to participate?)
ARRRRGHHHHHHHHH. You people think you know everything. SO NOBODY who is depressed would even CONSIDER suicide without the medication? Do you know how ridiculous you sound? really.
Some of these medications can have annoying and distressing side effects. That piles on top of the griefs that the patient was already experiencing.
SOME suffer suicidal thoughts. Others don't.
Exactly. So how do you tell the difference...How do you know if it's the medication, or not? My point is ...what's the end game here? To do away with anti-depressants. Anti-depressants help millions of people...because some people probably follow through on their initial thoughts of suicide, you're willing to punish the majority? Sigh.....
If a test shows that pills prescribed at random to this group raises the probability of untoward events, someone should take notice. Certain pills, that in fact may help most people that get them, may upset the rest worse than if they got nothing.
You are taking a very shallow look at a very deep subject.
I lost my second wife to mental illness. It's not cut and dried. It's messy and ugly and personal.
Get a grip, and pray for the souls that are tormented here on Earth.
/johnny
I do pray for them, that's why I don't want their medication taken away from them...is that what you want? What is it that you want?
Come on now, be sensible. They don't know absolutely nothing about the patient's history in a study. They'd know if "thoughts of suicide" were a problem the patient had prior to medication. They can determine if the thoughts "come and go" with the medication as well.
And sometimes, family has to make decisions, in lieu of a functional adult.
I want everyone able to make rational decisions for themselves, and, barring that, I want their family to have enough information to make good decisions on their behalf.
And those medications can assist a mentally unstable person in chosing wrongly.
I'm also anti-abortion.
/johnny
You didn't answer my question..what is it you want..you want anti-depressants to be outlawed?
You're a bit of a control freak, aren't ya.
I would love to argue with you but I have no idea what 'constitued' means. Oh well.
Are you Tom Cruise?
Does that work better? This keyboard sux.
/johnny
And as far as control goes? I gave that up to the catz, about a month and a half ago. They run the house. I'm just here to put out the fires.
/johnny
/johnny
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