[drugawareness] New Study - Prozac Good for Kids????

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atracyphd2

Fri, 4 Jun 2004 01:52:25 EDT

[drugawareness] New Study - Prozac Good for Kids????

 

 

Yesterday you likely saw that a new study came out in the news stating that

Prozac is good for children. On NBC Evening News you saw Sherri Walton and her

teen daughters, Katie and Kendell, from Paradise Valley, AZ defending Prozac

and talking about how wonderful the drug has been for them.

 

Now for the rest of the story . . . Sherri is one of the many moms on an SSRI

who regularly end up with daughters on these drugs as well. They start on the

drugs and begin to think they are going crazy because they do not realize it

is the drug making them feel that way. Then they think it must be inherited

and their kids need something too. The presentation to the FDA by Sherri and her

daughter Katie was one out of only TWO parents who came to the FDA to defend

these drugs. Both presentations were by mothers on the drugs themselves.

 

Katie Walton testified along with her mother to the FDA. She stated that she

BECAME SUICIDAL WHILE ON AN ANTIDEPRESSANT and then a doctor found the right

combination of medications for her. So that was part of what you did not hear

on that broadcast.

 

Now let us look at the information we have on this study that was supposed to

assure the world that Prozac is safe for kids. We were told that 71 percent

of the subjects who received Prozac and talk therapy responded well to

treatment, compared with 61 percent of those who received Prozac alone, 43

percent of

who received talk therapy alone and 35

percent of those who received a placebo treatment.

 

I want to know where the evidence is that they were doing better. Show me the

criteria that demonstrates improvement when the suicide rate for those taking

Prozac was DOUBLE and the suicide attempts were FIVE TIMES HIGHER for those

on Prozac than those on placebo! Yet they have the nerve to attempt to tell us

that the patients became significantly less suicidal. Clearly the results of

this study does not demonstrate that.

 

Why did the study go for 36 weeks while they only analyzed the first 12

weeks? What happened in the next 24 weeks if they were already trying to kill

themselves at a FIVE TIMES GREATER RATE those first 12 weeks than those who only

took a sugar pill? Who did the math here to determine that this was evidence

they were doing better?!

 

Was Dr. Graham Emslie who decided that the children were feeling so much

better? Why was he a part of this study and not disqualified due to his

conflicts

of interest? Just how much money has he already made from drug companies in

doing studies on SSRI antidepressants and children? Would he ever do research

for these companies again if the

study results in this study turned out negative for antidepressants in

children?

 

How anyone could report those statistics and then draw those conclusions is

beyond me. But if they have done research for these companies in the past or

hope to in the future do you really think they could have done it any other way?

Someone should be asking how many of the others involved in this study had

done research for Lilly on Prozac previously or one of the other SSRIs and how

much they have made? Now there is a question for a great investigative

reporter.

 

Seriously, no one could be that bad at math . . . unless it paid really well

or protected themselves in some way. What has me really stumpted is why

reporters did not ask any of these questions before putting it on the evening

news

or in the newspapers.

 

Ann Blake Tracy, Ph.D.

Executive Director, International Coalition For Drug Awareness

Author: Prozac: Panacea or Pandora? - Our Serotonin Nightmare

& audio tape on safe withdrawal: " Help! I Can't Get

Off My Antidepressant! "

 

Order Number: 800-280-0730

Website: www.drugawareness.org

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/02/health/02DEPR.html?ex=1087205387 & ei=1 &

en=b320371c07288d71

 

Antidepressant Seen as Effective in Treatment of Adolescents

 

June 2, 2004

By GARDINER HARRIS

 

 

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 reducing the depression than treatment with

placebos. But when combined with drug treatment,

psychotherapy appeared to provide added benefit and to

reduce the risk of suicide.

 

The findings are likely to reassure psychiatrists,

pediatricians and others who increasingly prescribe

antidepressants to teenagers and children. Millions of

young people take the drugs.

 

Experts said that the study was notable for its size and

for the fact that it was carried out without financing by

drug manufacturers. Data on the effects of antidepressants

in adolescents is in short supply. Most studies of the

question have been small trials sponsored by pharmaceutical

companies and have failed to show that the drugs are

effective for depressed teenagers.

 

" This study should put to rest doubts about whether these

drugs work in teenagers with severe depression, " said Dr.

Graham Emslie, a professor of psychiatry at the University

of Texas Southwestern Medical Center and an author of the

study, which was presented here on Tuesday at a meeting of

psychiatric drug researchers.

 

Still, the findings are unlikely to resolve the controversy

over whether Prozac and similar drugs lead a small number

of teenagers and children to become suicidal.

 

Such concerns led the Food and Drug Administration to warn

earlier this year that patients taking the drugs should be

watched closely for signs of suicide or other harmful

behavior in the first weeks of therapy. The agency is

reanalyzing suicidal events that occurred during

drug-company trials of antidepressants in children and

teenagers. British drug regulators have banned the use of

all but Prozac in those younger than 18.

 

The government study, called the Treatment for Adolescents

with Depression Study, involved 439 youths ages 12 to 17

who were suffering from moderate to severe depression.

 

The adolescents were randomly assigned to be treated for a

period of 36 weeks with either Prozac, the antidepressant

drug made by Eli Lilly & Company; a form of talk therapy

known as cognitive behavioral therapy; placebo pills; or a

combination of Prozac and talk therapy.

 

The researchers collected data on the subjects for a year,

but have only analyzed information from the first 12 weeks

so far. Of the youths recruited for the study, 378

completed the first 12 weeks of treatment. Their mean age

was 15. Depression levels were measured using several

common psychological scales.

 

Using one measurement scale, the researchers found that

after 12 weeks, 71 percent of the subjects who received

Prozac and talk therapy responded well to treatment,

compared with 61 percent of those who received Prozac

alone, 43 percent of who received talk therapy alone and 35

percent of those who received a placebo treatment. By

another measure, talk therapy alone fared no better than

treatment with placebos.

 

The researchers also found that patients became

significantly less suicidal, no matter which treatment they

were given. No patient committed suicide during the trial.

But the risk of a suicide attempt among the patients given

Prozac was twice that of those who did not, the study

found. There were five suicide attempts among those given

Prozac and just one among other participants.

 

Dr. John March, a professor of psychiatry at Duke

University and the study's lead investigator, said that the

findings showed Prozac's benefits for depressed teenagers

and children far outweighed its risks. " The take-home

message is that these adverse events are extremely rare,''

he said.

 

Dr. March acknowledged, however, that the controversy about

suicide and antidepressant therapy was far from resolved.

" We're all holding our breath to see what the F.D.A. is

going to do,'' he said.

 

Psychologists, who are often the providers of talk therapy

and who cannot prescribe drugs, are likely to be

disappointed in the finding that cognitive behavioral

therapy was found to be little better than a sugar pill. A

recent major trial comparing drugs with talk therapy in

children with attention-deficit disorder also showed that

the drugs worked better.

 

But the findings of another study presented on Tuesday

suggest that for some conditions, talk therapy may be more

effective than antidepressants. That study compared

cognitive behavioral therapy with Zoloft, an antidepressant

similar to Prozac that is made by Pfizer, in teenagers who

suffered from obsessive compulsive disorder. Those who

received the talk therapy, the study found, improved more

than those who were treated with the drug.

 

Dr. Thomas Insel, director of the National Institute of

Mental Health, said he was pleased the results of the

depression study were so clear. The institute spent $17

million over six years financing the trial. " The most

striking thing about the study is that, in all groups,

there was a dramatic decrease in the amount of suicidal

thinking,'' he said, suggesting that all the therapies were

protective.

 

Dr. David Brent, a professor of psychiatry at the

University of Pittsburgh not involved with the study,

suggested that another form of talk therapy called

interpersonal therapy might have fared better than

cognitive behavioral therapy.

 

In interpersonal therapy, clinicians focus on a patient's

relationships with peers and family members and the way

they see themselves. In cognitive behavioral therapy,

clinicians teach patients to try to think more positively

and do things that make them happy.

 

Dr. Brent said it was good news that drugs produced better

results than talk therapy " because it's hard to get people

into cognitive therapy anymore. They just don't want to

take the time.''

 

The researchers said they plan to publish the preliminary

results of the study this summer, with further analyses

later.

 

Dr. Insel said that the most useful information from the

study is yet to come. " We need to know which treatments

work best for what kinds of kids and who may be the most

vulnerable to the side effects,'' he said. Those sorts of

answers would come from more data analysis, he said.

 

" We're going to get a lot out of this study that the public

really needs to know right now,'' Dr. Insel said.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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