Current Research on AntiDepressants promotes bad medicine

As reported in the British Medical JournaL

How safe and effective are antidepressants in children and adolescents? The authors of this review have found disturbing shortcomings in the methods and reporting of trials of newer antidepressants in this patient group.

To put it bluntly,

Conclusions on the efficacy of newer antidepressants in childhood depression have exaggerated their benefits
Additional benefit from drugs is of doubtful clinical significance
Adverse effects have been downplayed
Antidepressant drugs cannot confidently be recommended as a treatment option for childhood depression

As noted toward the end of the paper,

Randomised controlled trials usually underestimate the serious adverse effects of drugs. The fact that serious adverse effects with newer antidepressants are common enough to be detected in randomised controlled trials raises serious concerns about their potential for harm.

The magnitude of benefit is unlikely to be sufficient to justify risking those harms, so confidently recommending these drugs as a treatment option, let alone as first line treatment, would be inappropriate.

In other words, it's bad medicine.