Andreas Moritz
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 Likewise, how can powerful antidepressants be given to unhappy children, when it has been demonstrated that these drugs increase the risk of suicide? These are questions that reflect physic's "uncertainty principle" which turns the use of medical drugs into a gamble with one's life. The stamp of scientific approval is perhaps one of the most dangerous tools employed by the medical industry today.
I am often asked to supply the exact references for those studies I sometimes refer to, but doing so would place too much credence and reliance on something that is so heavily flawed and unreliable. |
Hyla Cass, M.D.
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 Some evidence suggests that anticonvulsants may raise risk of suicide or suicidal thinking. Stopping these medicines suddenly can cause withdrawal symptoms that include anxiety, nausea, pain, sweating, and insomnia— and seizures.
Nutrients depleted: The drug phenytoin depletes biotin, calcium, folic acid, and vitamins D and K, plus vitamins Bl and B12; primidone depletes biotin and folic acid; and valproic acid depletes carnitine. Note: If you're taking primidone or carbamazepine, note that vitamin B3 interferes with the breakdown of the drugs, and can cause an unsafely high drug level. |
Bottom Line Health
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| In particular, children and adolescents who used antidepressants seemed to be at heightened risk of suicide in the period immediately
Mark Olfson, MD, MP, professor of clinical psychiatry, New York State Psychiatric Institute, Columbia University Medical Center, New York City.
Alec Miller, PsyD, chief, child and adolescent psychology, Montefiore Medical Center, and associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, both New York City. |
Gary Null and Amy McDonald
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 Depression and certain other psychiatric disorders are themselves associated with increases in the risk of suicide. Patients of all ages who are started on antidepressant therapy should be monitored appropriately and observed closely. Families and caregivers should discuss with the doctor any observation of worsening of depression symptoms, suicidal thinking and behavior, or unusual changes in behavior. PROZAC is approved for use in pediatric patients (children and adolescents) with MDD or obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD).
WHAT SHOULD I TALK TO MY DOCTOR OR PHARMACIST ABOUT? |
Charles Barber
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 So horrific is the incapacitation that the highest risk of suicide actually comes when people are feeling slightly better. In the throes of an episode, depressed patients are too dissipated to even muster the energy to kill themselves. Even highly articulate chroniclers of depression are stumped when attempting to describe the depths of pain: a writer as prodigiously elegant as Styron is reduced to using the word indescribable. |
Andreas Moritz
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| Recent studies published in the British Medical Journal (BMJ) indicate that a low level of overall blood cholesterol could increase a person's risk of suicide.
A study published in The Lancet in 1997 showed that high total cholesterol levels are associated with longevity, particularly among the elderly. The research suggests that elderly people with elevated cholesterol levels live longer and are less likely to die from cancer or infection. |
Shannon Brownlee
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 Based on a review of data from more than four thousand children and adolescents, the FDA warned that SSRIs may double the risk of suicide in pediatric patients. A more-recent FDA study has found that SSRIs may trigger suicidality in patients as old as twenty-five.
There are many disturbing aspects to Justin Cheslek's case and others like it, not the least of which is the fact that nobody recognized his symptoms as potential side effects of the drugs he was taking. |
J. Douglas Bremner
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 There was no difference, however, between SSRIs and the older tricyclic antidepressants, suggesting that all antidepressant medications may carry an increased risk of suicide. Questions about suicidal thinking with antidepressants have been around for years, and occurred with the tricyclics. Some doctors, including my father (who is a retired psychiatrist), offer the explanation that the increase in energy that antidepressants experience often gives the suicidal patient enough stamina to go through with the act. |
| And venlafaxine seems to carry the greatest risk of suicide of all the antidepressants, with a threefold increased risk of attempted or completed suicides.
Mood-Stabilizing Agents
Mood-stabilizing agents are used conventionally in the treatment of epilepsy, but they may also be effective in the stabilization of mood in patients with psychiatric disorders, especially patients with bipolar disorder.
Bipolar disorder (formerly known as manic-depressive disorder) is a condition that affects more than 2 million Americans. |
Melody Petersen
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 Shaffer announced that he had shown that screening adolescents at school could find those at risk of suicide, Solvay Pharmaceuticals, the maker of the antidepressant Luvox, presented two checks, each for $250,000, to the Foundation for Suicide Prevention, where Dr. Shaffer served as president. The checks were part of Solvay s pledge to pay $1 million to the foundation, which has helped spread the word about TeenScreen. In 2005 the foundation's chairman was David A. Dodd, the former chief executive of Solvay. |
Hyla Cass
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| Some evidence suggests that anticonvulsants may raise risk of suicide or suicidal thinking. Stopping these medicines suddenly can cause withdrawal symptoms that include anxiety, nausea, pain, sweating, and insomnia?and seizures.
Nutrients depleted: The drug phenytoin depletes biotin, calcium, folic acid, and vitamins D and K, plus vitamins Bj and B12; primidone depletes biotin and folic acid; and valproic acid depletes carnitine. Note: If you're taking primidone or carbamazepine, note that vitamin B3 interferes with the breakdown of the drugs, and can cause an unsafely high drug level. |
Gary Null and Amy McDonald
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| Some people with bipolar disorder become suicidal. The risk of suicide is greater in the beginning stages of the illness.
Conventional treatment of bipolar disorder involves mood-stabilizers and anticonvulsants, such as lithium and valproate, and psychosocial therapy. Some doctors use antidepressants as well, but even mainstream medicine has realized that adding more drugs to the mix is not the answer. |
| The London-based BMJ, formerly called the British Medical Journal, did not retract its contention that the documents show the antidepressant is linked to increased risk of suicide or violence.
"All we have retracted is the statement that these documents went missing," wrote acting editor Kamram Abbasi, in an e-mail to CNN.
The BMJ had written that the documents "went missing" during the 1994 lawsuit brought by relatives of victims of Joseph Wesbecker, who five years before shot and killed eight of his co-workers at a Louisville, Ky, printing plant and then killed himself. |
Ann Blake Tracy, Ph.D.
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| PZ 879 1966, March 3, 1986 telex]
- - 9/12/86: German BGA concerned with the risk of suicide, finally approved Prozac on the condition that physicians be warned of the risk of suicide and told to consider using sedatives and
September 12, 1986] Lilly actually warned physicians in Germany and other countries that this measure "can be necessary" to minimize the risk of suicide, [PZ 1341 402, December 6, 1989 German warning; PZ 2469 490]
- - 2/7/90: In response to the Harvard study on Prozac and suicidal ideation, Teicher, et al. |
Bottom Line Health
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| Tricyclic antidepressants were also significantly linked with suicide attempts.
With the exception of (sertraline) Zoloft, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), were not significantly associated with suicide attempts, the study authors report.
IMPLICATIONS
It is likely that the differences in suicidal thoughts and behaviors among children were, in fact, due to the drugs they were taking, Olfson surmises.
"In order to be due to the depression, there would have to be differences in depression between groups," Olfson explains. |
| Though much of the previous research had focused on users' suicidal thoughts and actions, this study "focused on things that are at the far more severe end of the spectrum— kids coming into the emergency room following suicide attempts and those who actually die," says Dr. Mark Olfson, lead author of the study and a professor of clinical psychiatry at the New York State Psychiatric Institute at Columbia University Medical Center in New York City. "These are things that are many, many times less common, thankfully, than the sorts of things that have been studied. |
Greg Critser
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 Healy recalled that when SmithKline originally submitted Paxil suicide figures to the agency in 1989, they indicated an eight times greater risk of suicide for adults on Paxil than for those on a placebo. But the FDA, already getting an earful about suicide risk and Prozac, was worried about the "public relations" effect of such figures, and wrote SmithKline, telling the company to resubmit its data. As a number of court cases now reveal, SmithKline reran the numbers, giving the drug a more benign profile. Paxil sailed to approval. |
Kelly Patricia O'Meara
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 The results of the two studies showed no increased risk of suicide with the newer antidepressants. However, just nine days later, Dr. Robert Temple, the medical policy director of the FDA's Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, is quoted in the FDA "Pink Sheet" stating: "The new study bears only a tangential relationship at best to the previous information. |
| Strattera may increase the risk of suicide and cause liver problems that could result in death? How bad must the wiggling, talking out of turn and losing homework be that a parent would decide the alleged benefit of taking Strattera, or any of the mind-altering drugs manufactured to treat ADHD, outweighed the known risk of the serious and potentially life-threatening side effects?
Before addressing that question, one must also consider another problem associated with treating children with antidepressants and the equivalent of cocaine daily for years on end—the possible peripheral effect. |
| As patients with a risk of suicide were excluded from the studies, it is probable that this high proportion can be attributed to an action of the preparation [Prozac]..."
• March 29, 1985: Benefit/Risk Consideration - "the incidence rate [suicide] under fluoxetine [Prozac] therefore purely mathematically is 5.6 times higher than under the other active medication imipramine... The benefits vs. risks considerations for fluoxetine [Prozac] currently do not fall clearly in favor of the benefits. |
Greg Critser
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| In October 2004, the FDA ruled that it would require all makers of antidepressants to underscore the risk of suicide by placing a black-box warning on each and every prescription. No one referred to it as a victory.
Yet one question — still largely unanswered — has continued to swirl around the subject of children and adolescents vis-a-vis psychiatric drugs. Why do they seem to display vulnerabilities not displayed by adults? Why does their akathisia play out as suicide and not, say, as generalized anxiety disorder? |
Kelly Patricia O'Meara
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| Tens of millions of Americans, including young children, have popped Prozac and other antidepressants for years on end as if it were baby aspirin, and it only took the federal drug agency 13 years to figure out that Prozac, along with all the other antidepressants on the market, may increase the risk of suicide and other harmful behaviors. But the larger question for Americans to ask is: whose mother, father, sister, brother or child is the acceptable risk, the apparent standard for allowing a drug on the market. |
Dr. Timothy Scott
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 As patients with a risk of suicide were excluded from the studies, it is probable that the high proportion can be attributed to an action of the preparation."15 The "preparation" was, of course, Prozac.
So great was the BGA's concern, they told Lilly they could not approve Prozac for use in Germany. That was 1985. Prozac was approved in 1987 in the U.S., and the marketing was so effective that German psychiatrists were clamoring for "the safest and most effective antidepressant ever developed. |
Kelly Patricia O'Meara
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| So, according to the USPSFT, there is insufficient evidence to support the claim that screening reduces the risk of suicide attempts, and it further states that there is insufficient evidence that "treatment" reduces suicide attempts. This is important information when one considers the other goal associated with the nationwide mental health plan. |
| For example, out of 350 high school students screened by TeenScreen in Colorado, 87 percent of those tested were found to be either at risk of suicide or had a history of suicidal ideation. And, at Colorado youth homeless shelters, 71 percent screened positive for a psychiatric disorder.24
Does the word "absurd" come to mind? |
Joseph E. Mario
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 After 4-8 years, increases risk of suicide 8 times, and breaks up 2/3 of marriages. Makes Lymphocytes divide more rapidly, so increases chromosomal error and lymphoma/cancer of the lymph glands 1000 times after 6-10 years of such affliction. Estimated to cause 5-50 billion dollars loss annually in America; 250 million dollars in Canada. |
Ann Blake Tracy, Ph.D.
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| PZ 879 1966, March 3, 1986 telex]
- - 9/12/86: German BGA concerned with the risk of suicide, finally approved Prozac on the condition that physicians be warned of the risk of suicide and told to consider using sedatives and
September 12, 1986] Lilly actually warned physicians in Germany and other countries that this measure "can be necessary" to minimize the risk of suicide, [PZ 1341 402, December 6, 1989 German warning; PZ 2469 490]
- - 2/7/90: In response to the Harvard study on Prozac and suicidal ideation, Teicher, et al. |
Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
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 There have been many cases where children were denied an education because their parents refused to put them on narcotic stimulants, antidepressants and other drugs that we now know cause violent behavior and increased risk of suicide. There were schools actually forcing parents to put their children on drugs that would cause aggressive behavior and suicidal thoughts. |
Dr. Timothy Scott
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| The German regulators concluded that if Prozac were to be approved (as it was in 1990, 5 years after they had first rejected it), it would be "on the condition that physicians be warned of the risk of suicide."19 Those should have been prescription-stifling warnings. But marketing can always trump science. The German warnings were ignored by our FDA as were the many research reports suggesting the suicide risk was very real. |
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