Friday, August 20, 2004

Antidepressant Study Seen to Back Expert
New York Times story - "A top government scientist who concluded last year that most antidepressants are too dangerous for children because of a suicide risk wrote in a memo this week that a new study confirms his findings. The official, Dr. Andrew D. Mosholder, a senior epidemiologist at the Food and Drug Administration who assesses the safety of medicines, found last year that 22 studies showed that children given antidepressants were nearly twice as likely to become suicidal as those given placebos. His bosses, however, strongly disagreed with his findings, kept his recommendations secret and initiated a new analysis. In his memo, dated Monday, Dr. Mosholder said that the results of the new analysis, undertaken in part at Columbia University, matched his own. Though the two studies used different methods and different numbers, they came to similar conclusions..." [Viewing New York Times resources requires registration, which is free]. See also FDA Analysis Backs Antidepressant Concern (AP story at Yahoo) and FDA Sees Changes to Antidepressant Labels (Reuters story at Yahoo) - "The U.S. Food and Drug Administration plans to update antidepressant labels to reflect studies that suggest a link between the drugs and suicide in youths, according to documents released on Friday."