Warning on Prozac for Children - European Medicines Agency ruled

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_http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,1470111,00.html_

(http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,1470111,00.html)

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Warning on Prozac for children

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Sarah Boseley

Tuesday April 26, 2005

The Guardian

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Doctors were yesterday told not to give Prozac to children by the European

medicines regulator, ruling out the one antidepressant of its class that the

British authorities had allowed to be prescribed to under-18s.

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Prozac and other drugs of the class called SSRIs (selective serotonin

reuptake inhibitors) can make some children and adolescents feel suicidal or

become hostile and aggressive, the European Medicines Agency ruled

yesterday.

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Reviews of the clinical trials carried out on these drugs with children show

that they offer little benefit to weigh against the potentially

life-threatening side-effects some under-18s experience.

The one exception made by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory

Agency, which came to a similar conclusion in Britain in June 2003, was

Prozac.

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The European decision puts doctors in a bigger quandary than before. Those

who were convinced that antidepressants worked in children would have

prescribed Prozac but GPs and psychiatrists will have problems offering

anything else, because there is a serious shortage of alternatives. There

are long waiting lists for the so-called " talking therapies " because of

shortages of funds and counselling staff.

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