Wednesday, February 02, 2005

U.S. Youth Antidepressant Use Drops in 2004 - Report Reuters Health story at Yahoo - "Antidepressant use among children declined 10 percent in 2004, after U.S. regulators warned the drugs may be linked with increased suicide risk, pharmacy benefits firm Medco Health Solutions said on Tuesday. Use of drugs including Eli Lilly and Co.'s Prozac and GlaxoSmithKline Plc's Paxil fell 16 percent in the final quarter of the year, a time when use of the medications typically peaks, according to Medco. The drop began when the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in October 2003 cited reports of suicidal attempts among kids on certain anti-depressants." See also Study: Benefits of Antidepressants Outweigh Risks (HealthDay, at Yahoo), based on a study that appeared in the February issue of Nature Reviews: Drug Discovery - "Despite recent controversy over the potential effects of antidepressants in young users, the lifesaving benefits of drugs such as Paxil, Prozac and Zoloft far outweigh their risks, a new study suggests.  A comprehensive review of decades of data from Europe and the United States reveals a close correlation between dramatic declines in suicide and the introduction of the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) family of antidepressants into the marketplace..."