The silent treatment, part two

It's no secret I've been on an anti-antidepressant kick for years
now. If you've been with me for any amount of time at all, you
know I think that "depression" is one the most over-diagnosed
diseases in modern America. You also know that the reason I
believe the condition has exploded in the last 2 decades is because
of drug companies' efforts at "educating" our doctors and mental
health professionals about their patented poisons...

But you'd have to have been a under a rock for the last year and a
half to not know that a significant body of research has concluded
that certain antidepressants increase the risk of suicide in
adolescents — or that the state of New York has actually brought
suit in a court of law over this link. I've written about this topic
prolifically (Daily Dose, 3/26/2004), and everyone from the AP to
the New York Times has covered it too. But what you may NOT
know is this:

The FDA SUPRESSED EVIDENCE of the antidepressants/teen
suicide connection.

A little more than 6 months ago, they gagged a scientist who was
making waves about certain drugs' safety. According to reports
earlier this year in both the New York Times and Reuters Health
(and others, I'm sure), one of the FDA's leading experts had
penned a detailed 33-page memorandum concluding that children
who were given antidepressants were TWICE AS LIKELY to
commit suicide as those treated with placebos.

In summary, he urged the agency to discourage doctors from
prescribing to children all but one in the entire class of
antidepressant drugs. Just like with the arthritis drugs more
recently, this doctor was also scheduled to speak on the topic at a
public conference, but was yanked from the schedule once the
FDA found out what he was going to say.

Naturally, his superiors called his research "alarmist" and
"premature."

But apparently, several in the U.S. congress didn't think the
researcher went off half-cocked — a pair of Republican Senators
have launched their own investigations on the matter. At least one
of these is pushing for hearings to get to the bottom of whether the
FDA inappropriately withheld timely information about
antidepressants.

What's really slimy is this: Even though the FDA went to great
lengths to pull the rug out from under one of its own experts, they
didn't actually DENY the link between most antidepressant drugs
and teen suicide — leaving the door open for them to claim that
their research wasn't concluded yet. They simply quelled the initial
report long enough to do a cost/benefit (or should I say lives-per-
dollar) analysis. Keep reading...

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The truth gets a grudging win

After carefully testing the wind — and no doubt factoring in the
risk of high-profile congressional hearings — the Food and Drug
Administration seemingly COMPLETELY REVERSED its
position on antidepressants for kids!

Whereas back in the spring, they hushed-up their most
knowledgeable man on the topic, now they're confirming the very
risks he would have revealed (never mind that a few over-
medicated teenagers might've killed themselves in the interim).
Though not yet publicly disclosed despite pressure from Congress,
a detailed FDA analysis of the antidepressant/suicide link does
indeed exist — and it reinforces exactly the same claims the FDA
tried so hard to suppress half a year ago, according to a recent
Washington Post report.

Why the flip-flop?

Because with drug makers themselves issuing cautions (Wyeth
warned docs months ago about the dangers of its Effexor for
children) — and with no less than the bloody British government
recently issuing formal warnings to physicians about the
prescription of antidepressants for kids — the FDA simply had no
other choice but to reveal that they will soon issue new warnings of
their own, despite the cost to their cronies at the drug companies.

What's this mean to the antidepressant industry? Bigger warning
labels, and most likely nothing else. No bans, no penalties, just the
cost of printing some new labels.

For the FDA, it simply means that when formulating the policies
about which drugs are safe for us to take (or rather, how much risk
of death is acceptable per dollar the drug biz rakes in), they have to
pay more attention to headlines and hearings than their own
scientists...

But for us, it means still having to wonder whether what our
doctors are prescribing might kill us.

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