Antidepressants to get new suicide warnings

As seen here

Antidepressants can increase the risk of suicidal behaviors in people up to age 24, federal public health officials warned Wednesday as they decided to expand a drug warning label that now applies only to children and adolescents.

Users of all ages should be closely monitored, the Food and Drug Administration said after a contentious hearing on an issue that has bitterly divided psychiatrists, mental health advocates and the family members of people who have committed suicide.

After a huge federal analysis of hundreds of clinical trials, an expert federal panel recommended that agency officials tell doctors and the public of the risk but also find a way to note that the risk declines with age and that leaving depression untreated is also risky.

While the studies on the relationship between the drugs and suicide appear contradictory, the experts said one possibility is that the drugs may pose a risk early in treatment but have a protective effect in the long term.

The action taken Wednesday is unlikely to quell the debate.

"I've been out here 21 times and I'm not going to stop," said Kim Witczak, 40, of Minneapolis. She became a crusader for the warning on antidepressants in 2003 after her husband, Woody, hanged himself in their garage shortly after he began taking the antidepressant Zoloft for insomnia. She was one of dozens of people who crammed the hearing in Silver Spring, Md., and said the expanded warning does not go far enough.

"How does a drug know the difference between someone who is 25 and 35 years old?" she asked.

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The FDA based its decision on a review of 372 studies on 100,000 patients and 11 antidepressants, including Lexapro, Zoloft, Prozac and Paxil.[...]