Word: prozac
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Baker is convinced Paxil is what killed her daughter, and that's what she'll tell a U.S. Food and Drug Administration panel meeting this week in Bethesda, Md. For years a small but vocal group of patients and doctors have insisted that certain antidepressants, including Paxil, Zoloft, Prozac and other medications known as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), carry an unacceptable risk of antisocial behavior and suicide in kids who take them. Many clinicians and most pharmaceutical companies disagree. Major depression is a dangerous illness that in itself can lead to suicide, and they insist that the benefits...
...issue is coming to a head. By last December, the British Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency, the equivalent of the FDA, had declared Celexa, Effexor, Lexapro, Luvox, Paxil and Zoloft (but not Prozac) too risky for kids under 18. Two weeks ago, a task force of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology fired back, saying that despite the risk of potentially serious side effects, it's riskier to withhold the drugs...
...possible increase in suicidal thinking. In October the FDA issued a broader public-health advisory alerting physicians that in clinical trials, Paxil, along with about half a dozen other antidepressants, wasn't any more effective than a placebo at treating depression in kids. Indeed, no antidepressant other than Prozac has been formally approved for young people. But that's not the same as a ban. Once a drug is legal, doctors can prescribe it at will...
Nonsense, say scientists who favor sharing such data. The reason some studies remain unpublished is that the drug companies don't like to admit negative results. According to Dr. Martin Teicher, a researcher at McLean Hospital outside Boston who has published case reports linking suicide and Prozac use, an internal Eli Lilly study of adults taking the drug showed "a substantially greater incidence of suicide attempts in people in the study receiving Prozac than in people receiving placebo or other antidepressants...
Doctors are more divided than ever over the safety of prescribing antidepressant drugs--Prozac, Paxil and Zoloft and other so-called selective serotonin-reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs)--to depressed children and teens. British health-care officials last month warned doctors against giving any SSRI but Prozac to kids, citing studies that suggest the drugs may trigger suicidal behavior. The FDA issued a similar warning against Paxil but held off on the other SSRIs pending further study. Now an American College of Neuropsychopharmacology task force, having reviewed the data, says the link to suicide is weak and that the drugs' benefits outweigh...