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Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), include the drugs Prozac, Paxil, Zoloft, Lexapro, and Celexa. The drugs increase the availability of serotonin, which acts as a chemical messenger in the brain among other areas. Millions of Americans take SSRIs for depression and other mood disorders, and in the U.S. alone sales of the drugs top $10 billion a year. In a newly published essay, anatomy professor Jonathan Leo, PhD, along with colleague Jeffrey Lacasse, say that SSRI ads aimed at the public are often misleading. Leo teaches neuroanatomy at Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine in Bradenton, Fla. "The advertising is...

BETHESDA, Md., Sept. 14 - Federal drug regulators should warn physicians and patients in the strongest possible terms that antidepressants not only cause some children and teenagers to become suicidal but most have also failed to cure their depression, a federal advisory committee voted Tuesday. The committee voted 15 to 8 that the Food and Drug Administration should mandate that the drugs contain "black box" warnings on the sheet of information that physicians review when prescribing drugs. This type of warning is in boldface type, surrounded by a black border and placed at the top of a drug's warning label....

PHOENIX, June 1 — In the midst of a worldwide debate on whether depressed children should be treated with antidepressant drugs like Prozac, a landmark government-financed study has found that Prozac helps teenagers overcome depression far better than talk therapy. But a combination of the two treatments, the study found, produced the best result. The study, sponsored by the National Institute of Mental Health, was the first to compare psychotherapy and drug treatment for depressed adolescents. Statistically, the researchers found, talk therapy — in which a patient discusses problems with a therapist — was by itself no more effective in...

The number of depressed American children being treated with antidepressants has soared over the past decade -- a tectonic shift in the practice of psychiatry -- but new scientific reviews of the research that fueled the trend suggest that the drugs' benefits have been dramatically oversold. The use of antidepressants among children grew three- to tenfold between 1987 and 1996, data from various studies indicate, and a newer survey found a further 50 percent rise in prescriptions between 1998 and 2002. The explosion in antidepressant use occurred even though the vast majority of clinical trials have failed to prove that...

Top Food and Drug Administration officials admitted yesterday that they barred the agency's top expert from testifying at a public hearing about his conclusion that antidepressants cause children to become suicidal because they viewed his findings as alarmist and premature. "It would have been entirely inappropriate to present as an F.D.A. conclusion an analysis of data that were not ripe," Dr. Robert Temple, the Food and Drug Administration's associate director of medical policy, said in an interview. "This is a very serious matter. If you get it wrong and over-discourage the use of these medicines, people could die." Dr. Temple...

<p>The study examined antidepressant use from 1998 to 2002 among 2 million youngsters ages 18 and younger who were covered by commercial health insurance. About one in 15 children in the United States is covered by commercial insurance, according to officials of Express Scripts Inc. of St. Louis, which conducted the study.</p>

Check your local listings for airtimes. (Current show is updated every weekday at 5pm EST.) HEALTH Health Experts Warn of Antidepressant Dangers for Children, Teens By Darla SittonCBN News Producer In America, Prozac is the only drug the FDA has "approved" for pediatric depression. CBN.com – (CBN News) - As many as one in eight adolescents suffers from clinical depression. And these kids are often treated with anti-depressant drugs that have been tested and approved for adult use. But the drugs may not be safe for children. Corey Baadsgaard doesn't remember storming into his honors English class with a...

Source: Stanford University Medical Center Date: 2003-07-17 Antidepressant Helps Alleviate Compulsive Shopping Disorder, Stanford Researchers Find STANFORD, Calif. - While a trip to the mall may mean a cute sweater or new CD for most of us, it has ominous implications for the thousands of Americans who suffer from compulsive shopping disorder, a condition marked by binge shopping and subsequent financial hardship. Now Stanford University Medical Center researchers have found that a drug commonly prescribed as an antidepressant may be able to curb the uncontrollable shopping urges. In a study appearing in the July issue of the Journal of Clinical...

Homeschool killings By CAROLYNN BRIGHT, IR Staff Writer - 08/29/02 Officials try to squelch attempts to explain murder of 2 children. As officials investigating the alleged murder of two Augusta youths by their mother earlier this week clamp down on details of the case, area residents have developed their own explanations for the tragedy. Some newspaper reports quote sources who point accusatory fingers at the anti-depressant Paxil — a drug Jeanette Swanson’s mother said her daughter started taking only weeks before she called 911 stating that she shot her 10-year-old daughter Louisa, and her 14-year-old son, Swen. Other conjecture...

<p>Jeanette Swanson was taking an antidepressant that can cause delusions and mania -- and is similar to the drug taken by Texas mom Andrea Yates, recently convicted of drowning her five children in a bathtub.</p> <p>Swanson of Augusta is accused of shooting two of her children Monday.</p>