Antidepressant Benefits Outweigh Risks for Children

A new study has compared the risks and benefits of antidepressants and the findings show that the benefits far out weight the risks.

Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine carried out the study. The report of the findings was just published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

It the report researchers said that the findings meant the extreme warnings that accompany antidepressants should be revised. One of the main reasons the strong warnings were put in place by the U.S Food and Drug Administration is that it was thought that children and teens faces a very high risk of suicide if they were given antidepressants.

The new study has found that the previous thought suicide risk is actually much lower. One of the researchers, Dr. David Brent, said, "The benefits seem to be much stronger than the risks".

The previous strong warnings did not mean that doctors could not prescribe antidepressants to teenagers and children; they just meant that they should be given with extreme caution. Because of this the fact the U.S Food and Drug Administration feels that there is no need to change the drug warning labels as doctors can prescribe the drug if they feel it beneficial.

This is the largest study to date on the effects of antidepressants in teenagers and children. Information investigated came from a total of 5,310 children. These children had taken part in 27 other studies. In fact the Food and Drug Administration carried seven of these earlier studies out. In 2004 a look over the studies caused the U.S Food and Drug Administration to implement the strong warming labels about children and teenagers taking anti-depressants.

However, when researchers were looking at the combined information for the recent study they found that these warnings were to strong. The results say that for every 100 kids that were taking antidepressants only one more kid had stronger feelings of suicide, this is half of what the U.S Food and Drug Administration said. It is also noted that none of children taking the antidepressants had committed suicide.

Dr. Brent said, "The medications are safe and effective and should be considered as an important part of treatments. The benefits seem favourable compared to the small risk of suicidal thoughts and behaviour." He also went on to tell Reuters, referring to the FDA warning labels, "Clearly, their intent was to protect people, but you have to then re-evaluate whether your warning may be doing more harm than good."

Sources
http://www.reuters.com/article/governmentFilingsNews/idUSN1740045520070417
http://blogs.usatoday.com/ondeadline/2007/04/study_antidepre.html
http://www.cbc.ca/health/story/2007/04/17/antidepressants-teens.html