Alert over antidepressant suicides

[Guest guest]

It is many years since Halcion was taken off the

market because people either killed their best friends

or comitted suicide.

 

Doesnt Big Pharm EVER learn ANYTHING???

 

 

 

 

 

[Guest guest]

It is many years since Halcion was taken off the

market because people either killed their best friends

or comitted suicide.

 

Doesnt Big Pharm EVER learn ANYTHING???

 

Antidepressant linked to suicide risk in adults

 

· Top-selling drug already banned for children

· Minister announces move towards talking therapies

Saturday May 13, 2006

Britain's bestselling antidepressant, Seroxat, can

cause adults as well as children to become suicidal,

according to the manufacturer, GlaxoSmithKline.

GSK, which for years denied there was a problem with

the drug, has sent a letter to all doctors in Britain

warning of the potential risk in some adult patients.

The company has reanalysed data from the clinical

trials of the drug and found that significantly more

adults who were given Seroxat became suicidal than

those given a placebo. Seroxat has been banned from

use in children by the UK drug regulator for the same

reason. The revelation came as the health secretary,

Patricia Hewitt, declared the end of the " Prozac

nation " yesterday, launching a programme to cut the

numbers of patients on drugs such as Prozac and

Seroxat and extend counselling to the thousands of

people with mild to moderate depression and anxiety.

" Millions of people suffer from mild to moderate

mental health problems and treating them takes up

about a third of GPs' time, " she said in a speech to

the National Mental Health Partnership's conference.

" Too many people are prescribed medication as a

quick-fix solution. "

Talking therapies worked just as well as drugs and

people preferred them, she said. Two centres dedicated

to counselling and psychotherapy will open in

Doncaster and Newham as " demonstration sites " with the

intention of extending access to talking therapies

across the UK.

Seroxat is the biggest-selling SSRI (selective

serotonin reuptake inhibitor) in Britain. In 2003

doctors wrote 19m prescriptions for the drug for

patients with anxiety and depression. But concerns

about the drug and others in its class have been

growing.

GSK's letter to doctors is the result of a reanalysis

of its trials requested by the US drug regulator, the

food and drug administration, which is reviewing

SSRIs. Seroxat is given to patients not only for

depression and anxiety but, for a range of other

problems defined by psychiatrists as separate

conditions, such as panic disorder, generalised

anxiety disorder and obsessive compulsive disorder.

The analysis has found that patients taking the drug

for those conditions may also have an increased risk

of suicidal thinking and behaviour. But the clearest

findings come from trials of the drug in people who

were depressed. In those, says the letter, the

frequency of suicidal behaviour was higher in patients

on Seroxat than those who, without knowing it, were on

a placebo. The numbers were small - 11 out of 3,455 on

Seroxat and one out of 1,978 on placebo - but the

difference was statistically significant, meaning it

was unlikely to have occurred by chance.

Because of the small numbers, GSK says the findings

should be interpreted with caution. It adds that " all

of the reported events of suicidal behaviour in the

adult patients ... were non-fatal suicide attempts,

and the majority of those attempts were in younger

adults aged 18 to 30 " . But the data does suggest " that

the higher frequency observed in the younger adult

population across psychiatric disorders may extend

beyond the age of 24 " .

GSK says in the letter that it " continues to believe

that the overall risk:benefit of paroxetine (Seroxat)

in the treatment of adult patients " with depression

and other disorders " remains positive " , but it warns

that young adults particularly should be carefully

monitored on the drug. David Healy, professor of

psychiatry and director of the north Wales department

of psychological medicine, who has for years called

for warnings about the suicide risk of SSRIs, said

yesterday that GSK had been in possession of the

statistics it was now making public for at least 15

years. " Seroxat has a severe withdrawal syndrome, which

seems to me to be worse than for other drugs in the

group, and the withdrawal syndrome in its own right is

linked to people becoming suicidal, " he said.

GSK yesterday rejected any accusation of dragging its

feet on the data on suicidal behaviour in depressed

adults. It had taken advice from experts who had

suggested new ways of looking at the information, a

spokeswoman said. The analysis, completed recently,

had been forwarded to US and UK authorities.