This is certain to cause a ruckus. Two years after Health Canada warned about prescribing antidepressants to children, a new study reports that the number of children and teens who died by suicide increased 25 per cent after years of steady decline, The Vancouver Sun writes. At the same time, the increased suicide rate coincided [...]

Three years ago, the FDA required makers of antidepressants to supply Med Guides along with their pills. That wasn’t good enough for a couple of New Jersey moms, who have been pushing their state legislature to go even further - a bill requiring a doctor or nurse to obtain informed consent from a minor’s parent [...]

Two weeks ago, the controversy over antidepressants and Black Box warnings for suicides re-emerged after yet another study in the American Journal of Psychiatry suggested that prescriptions fells due to the publicity given the issue three years ago. Then, CDC data was released showing a rise in suicide among youngsters in 2004 - before the [...]

There was an outburst of news last week concerning antidepressants and whether Black Box warnings placed on product labeling was responsible for an increase in suicides. The link between the meds and suicide was already controversial, but the latest study fanned the debate because the increased suicide rate took place during the same year that [...]

In the explosion of information yesterday surrounding the use of antidepressants, suicides and Black Box warnings, there was a little noticed item. The study in the American Journal of Psychiatry was authored by eight people, two of whom have rather noticeable conflicts of interest.
The study, which received front-page treatment in The Washington Post, was co-authored [...]

That’s the conclusion of yet another study in the American Journal of Psychiatry, which finds that teenage suicides rose 14 percent from 2003 to 2004, a year in which the debate that antidepressants actually cause suicide gained widespread publicity. (Here is the abstract).
The data suggest that for every 20 percent decline in antidepressant use among [...]

That’s what Tom Laughren, the FDA official who oversees psychiatric drugs, says may happen if CDC data on suicides in 2005, which will be released at year’s end, is compelling. The potential flip-flop comes amid growing noise by some psychiatrists that the agency’s Black Box warnings in 2004 that antidepressants are somehow linked to suicide [...]

A battle is brewing in the nation’s medicine chest, where the local arm of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry objects to a bill that would require docs and other prescribers to obtain informed consent from parents for psychotropic meds with Black Box warnings. Apparently, this is the first state in which such [...]

And what will be Avandia’s fate? PharmaGossip is conducting a survey about the implications of the cardiovascular warning and, so far, the sentiment indicates that the newly designed Black Box won’t be needed (although that’s a clever shot that PharmaGossip posted, isn’t it?) Visit the site and let your opinion count.
Here are the interim results:
Bouncing [...]

That’s what the FDA is proposing for the diabetes drugs. Two weeks ago, the FDA sent letters to Glaxo and Takeda, which sells Actos, saying the risk of heart failure posed by these meds warrants black box warnings.
“FDA decided to make this request because, despite the existing warnings, these drugs were being prescribed to patients [...]