FDA Issues Warning About Popular Antidepressants

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[chance33_98]

FDA Issues Warning About Popular Antidepressants

Drugmakers Asked To Add Suicide Warning Labels

POSTED: 11:04 a.m. EST March 22, 2004

WASHINGTON -- Federal health regulators warned Monday of a possible link between some popular antidepressants and suicide.

The Food and Drug Administration issued a public health advisory for doctors, patients, families and other caregivers, telling them to watch carefully for signs of worsening depression or suicidal thoughts at the beginning of antidepressant therapy or whenever the dose is changed.

The agency also asked the makers of 10 drugs to add the caution to their labels. The drugs of concern are all newer-generation antidepressants: Prozac, Paxil, Zoloft, Effexor, Celexa, Remeron, Lexapro, Luvox, Serzone and Wellbutrin. Most of them are known to affect the brain chemical serotonin.

The FDA has been looking into a connection between the drugs and suicides, but the investigation initially focused on children. Monday's warning is aimed at adults as well as children.

The FDA emphasizes that there's no clear evidence yet that the drugs actually lead to suicide, but experts who advise the FDA believe stronger warnings are needed until that's settled.

[Dianna]

And remember the big push by Paxil to treat "Social Anxiety Disorder"?

I absolutely do! Paxil is the med I am familiar with. I really wish people wouldn't dismiss these claims so quickly.

[Dianna]

You lost me there. Who's doing that? You're suggesting a different way to make sampling for unintended effects more valid, and that's a good idea.

It seems to me that most people on this thread have dismissed the thought that these meds may cause an increase in suicide attempts well beyond what might be typically seen in depressed people in general. There is a suspicion that the drug companies knew of this effect and buried it in the trials and downplayed it in the patient inserts, leaving doctors and families caught totally unawares.

So many people are taking these meds, and because they are our friends, our loved ones, we NEED to find the answers here.

[mlmr]

one of the most dangerous times of treatment is during the initial lifting of the depression.

This is also true.

[garden variety]

Ping

[Clinging Bitterly]

Yup. Read this in the paper the other day, but there wasn't much there in the way of new information. There are plenty of stories out there that show this association, but it has taken the "authorities" until now to notice. But as others have said, it may not be the drugs at all, but the condition that indicated drugs to begin with.

DP had been taking them, if you didn't know (not sure which one). I'm still troubled over what happened with him. I wouldn't mind chilling with someone going through a tough time, sometimes that's probably all they need. But we grew apart due to lifestyle differences, so the opportunity wasn't there to be aware of what was going on.

But it's hard to pick out just who is going to do it, and you can't just put everybody on suicide watch, so some are bound to slip through the cracks. There are good reasons to look in on folks in that situation though, when one knows about them.

P.S.: Happy Birthday!

[garden variety]

I am also still troubled over what happened to DP. I don't think he had been on medication very long. His alcoholism had to have intensified his depression. He slipped into a dark hole and could not get out. Maybe he was counting on the medication to give him better results than what it did. I don't know. That dark hole is sometimes a hard place to get out of. People expect you to just snap out of it. It's not as easy as that. It might be jumping the gun (so to speak) to say that antidepressants are causing suicide. By the time medication is prescribed, they have probably been in that dark hole for a long time. Anyone in that situation should be closely monitored. Although, our cousin had an appointment with his doctor the very day he killed himself. So what can the doctor do? They can't move in with every patient to watch them.

[ArrogantBustard]

They talked about him with him in the room, as though he were a piece of furniture.

I have witnessed this in several families with children undergoing psychiatric drug treatment. In more than one case my very unprofessional diagnosis is that the poor kid is depressed because his circumstances are objectively depressing. His parents are assholes, and this of talking about him in the third person in his presence is only the beginning. Solution? Drug the kid.

Bah!