Seriously. The FDA approved the antidepressant for doggies last month, although it seems no one really knew until Bloomberg ran a story today.

This is, by no means, the first time the FDA has endorsed meds for separation anxiety in our canine friends. But if you poke around the FDA web site, you will find a couple of interesting details about Reconcile, which is what Eli Lilly has renamed Prozac in the animal kingdom.

On page 7, under effectiveness, it says that dogs treated with Prozac - whoops, we mean Reconcile - showed improvement with depression. That’s uplifting.

But wait. Back on page 5, Table 3 lists adverse reactions, and 71 of 216 doggies, or 32.9 percent, were listed as calm, lethargic or depressed, compared with just 10.4 percent of the control group. Hard to believe calm is confused with depressed, but still, that’s a big number. And this adverse event was reported more than any other.

In other words, the antidepressant caused dogs to be depressed (or calm, if you’re an optimist).

There was no info on suicides. Maybe that trial data was never given the FDA.

[tags]Antidepressants, Dogs, Eli Lilly, Prozac, Reconcile[/tags]