The truth behind the increase in child suicides

As seen a Psychiatric Services News Report of the American Psychiatric Association

"In 2003, U.S. physicians wrote 15 million antidepressant prescriptions for patients under age 18, according to FDA data. In the first six months of 2004, antidepressant prescriptions for children increased by almost 8 percent, despite the new drug labeling."

The CDC reports an increase in youth suicide from 2003 to 2004 and some "experts" are blaming this increase on the decline in antidepressant use among youth. However, the Black Box warning was not approved until September 2004 and, even then, it took months before the use of antidepressants among youth began to decline.

Data Courtesy of the SSRI Stories Website

End result? The experts are blaming an increase in suicides on a decrease of antidepressants that did not take place.

UPDATE (via the Furious Seasons weblog)

On September 12th the National Center For Health Statistics (a branch of the CDC) released preliminary death data for 2005 (see Table B of report here).

The suicide rate dropped from 10.9 per 100,000 in 2004 to 10.6 per 100,000 in 2005, a decrease of about 3 percent--still unacceptably high. 2005 was the first full year of the black box warning of possible suicides and suicidal ideation, which technically only applied to ages 0 to 14 at the time (it's been expanded through 24 year olds more recently). The new data won't be broken out by age groups, genders and race until next summer, so for now it isn't possible to say how the 2004 and 2005 suicide data compared.

Which confirms the national trend