Posted by sam123 on September 9, 2007, at 0:43:03
In reply to News - Antidepressants Vindicated?, posted by jrbecker76 on September 8, 2007, at 21:40:40
Interesting it is a global finding that AD's reduce suicide. The Netherlands saw black box warnings reduce AD use and also saw the rate of suicide go up.
Brown used several data sources where depressed individuals were treated differently with different classes of antidepressants or no medication, and he examined the rates of suicide along with the rates of antidepressant prescriptions at the county level. He also looked at the reports of suicide detailed by U.S. doctors after medication use.
Brown found that suicide attempts were dramatically lowered once antidepressant medication began, indicating an overall benefit of these newer medications. Also, very few people who died from suicide had been taking antidepressants.
He also found consistent reductions in suicide across counties as well as across countries during the time when there was increased use of antidepressants. Now that the overall level of antidepressants have decreased since the FDA warnings, there is very early evidence of an upturn in youth suicides.
"With the FDA warnings there has been a rapid lowering of antidepressant prescriptions, and there has been a corresponding increase in youth suicides" noted Brown. "We found similar results in the Netherlands once the warning was broadcast there as well."
poster:sam123
thread:781684
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20070831/msgs/781742.html