FDA: Antidepressants risky for young adults

[Nikijad4210]

God forbid warning labels appear and folks read them--What, oh what would the psych industry do making less money off these things if people decided to follow routes not of the psychopharmacological kind?

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16185848/

FDA: Antidepressants risky for young adults
Expanded warning of suicidal thoughts proposed for patients ages 18-24

Updated: 6:31 p.m. ET Dec 13, 2006

WASHINGTON - Treatment with antidepressants increases the risk of suicidal thoughts and behavior in patients age 24 and younger, according to proposed changes to the drugs’ labels unveiled Wednesday by federal health officials.

However, mental health experts are worried that additional warnings about the risk of suicides linked to antidepressants could curtail their use and ultimately do more harm than good.

The proposed changes would expand a warning now on the labels that applies only to children and adolescents treated with the drugs.

The Food and Drug Administration put forth its plan to update the drug labels early Wednesday at the start of a meeting of outside advisers convened to discuss the proposal. The changes also would include a recommendation that patients of all ages be carefully monitored, especially when beginning antidepressant treatment.

Adding “black box” or other warnings could scare off doctors, parents and patients from the drugs, mental health experts caution. They warn that people with untreated depression — about half of those who suffer from the disease — face an estimated 15 percent greater likelihood of death by suicide.

“My concern is that by not simply promoting good standards of care and by putting on a black-box label, the FDA may unwittingly limit further access to care,” said Dr. Carolyn Robinowitz, president-elect of the American Psychiatric Association.

However, use of antidepressants continues to grow, with nearly 190 million prescriptions dispensed in the United States last year, according to IMS Health, a health care information company. That suggests doctors have placed more weight on the long-term benefits of the drugs than on any short-term risks, Dr. Thomas Laughren, director of the FDA’s division of psychiatry products, told panelists.

The Food and Drug Administration recently completed a mass review of 372 studies involving about 100,000 patients and 11 antidepressants, including Lexapro, Zoloft, Prozac and Paxil. When the results are analyzed by age, it becomes clear there is an elevated risk for suicidal thoughts and behavior among adults 18 to 25 that approaches that seen in children, the FDA said in documents released ahead of Wednesday’s scheduled meeting of its psychopharmacologic drugs advisory committee.

The effects of antidepressants on adults from 25 to 64 were mixed, leading the FDA to conclude the drugs had a neutral effect on suicidal behavior for them but possibly lowers the risk of suicidal thoughts. Overall, the risks appear to decline with age and are lessened for seniors, even if the numbers don’t explain why, the FDA said.

The FDA analysis will be incorporated in future changes to antidepressant labels, but the agency wants to first discuss its plans with its outside advisers.

In May, GlaxoSmithKline and the FDA warned Paxil may raise the risk of suicidal behavior in young adults too and changed the drug’s label to reflect that risk.

 

[Space Ghost]

i've been on several anti-deps. celexa, zoloft, paxil, wellbutrin, lamictal and they didn't make me want to kill myself any more then I normally do... go figure

 

[Snail]

that is very interesting.
what about all the misinformation on cannabis, that must be dangerous too.

i vaguely remember a theorie, that scizphrenia only developed after scientists searched for it.

i myself was on several pharmacologic medications (only little psychopharma). the doctors had no interest on my reports on side effects. even if they got payed to send in reports (a way to attach doctors to the pharma industrie).
a lot of these medicaments now have these side effects listed. or are off the market now.
the pharma industrie has mostly an interest to attach their clients, to make money.

peace and love

 

[Nikijad4210]

Not everyone does, Space, I know that. I was on Prozac earlier this year for a little less than a week---Didn't want to kill myself, but I did have numerous flare-ups of indescribable intense rage, was highly verbally abusive, bordered on physically abusive, aggressive all around (physically, verbally, even sexually) Hell, between bouts of that rage & related crap, I was nothing more than a lethargic, emotionally void robot sitting on the edge of the bed staring at the closet doors for hours on end.

Why was I given Prozac in the first place? Depends on what you believe---what came out of the shrink's mouth face-to-face, or what he wrote on paper--Either for a needle phobia, or for "suspected severe depression" because I had an emergency c-section at 32 weeks gestation

Really, now, I have a sweet tat representing my son on my arm---I think I overcame my phobia with surprising inner strength as my motivator, not some piss-ant pill that sent me damn near off the deep end. And I highly doubt I was "depressed" over a preemie resulting from an emergency c-section---I never had any reason to worry about squat, he was early, but he was and still is, healthy, strong and has ZERO problems of any kind. (dig up my threads about that crap if you're not up to speed about it--I'm not going to hijack this thread with it when I already have one for it)

Point being, being doped up on Prozac was pushing me to the breaking point quickly, just in a few days of taking it. I'm pretty damn positive if I'd stayed on the junk instead of flushing it down the shitter where it belongs, I more than likely would have hit the point of either attempting to or outright killing someone---I was already at the point of desperately wanting to beat the fuck out of anyone that so much as glanced at me, that was when I said, "Fuck these pills, I'm losing my self control. Down the toilet with you," *fluussssh*

When I "sobered" up after that, I reflected on my actions, and that actually scared the shit out of me. I'll never pop another head pill again---I didn't need it to begin with, and I still don't, I refuse to ever get sucked into another prescription with the ol' line of "It'll help you feel better" again.

 

[illin]

Ive always felt a little different and earlier this year depression set in again. I went to a head doctor for the first time and was diagnosed as bipolar type 2. He also asked me about drug use. I told him I didnt do drugs. Then he asked about marijuana and I told him I was a daily smoker. He wanted me to go into inpatient drug treatment for marijuana addiction. I refused. He put me on lexapro when I wake and seroquel before bed.

I stayed on both medications for a little over a month and willl never take another psych pill in my life. I walked around fucked up that whole time. Now I like to drink a few beers or take a xanax or two on the weekend. But not all the time like that, it was horrible. I kept thinking that one day my tollerance would build up to where the drugs acted as they were supose to, then I realized that it wasnt going to. I couldnt do my job on the stuff. How a doctor could be against marijuana so much, but prescribe these drugs makes me never want to even go to any doctor again. They are the worst drug dealers in america.

I believe marijuana is the best thing for my condition. It brings me down to a managable level when im manic, and it makes the world more tolerable when im down.

Be careful when takeing any pill

 

[genkisan]

Prescription anti-depressants are designed to keep people complacent, numb and manipulable.......creating just what the Corpo-Nazis need and require: sheep-like herds of brainless consumer/employees.


While marijuana does indeed help with depression, bipolar and many other psyche issues, it also prevents the above mind-numbing, and quite inversely makes folks much more aware of the faults in the system, and the exploitation of the common man by the Corporations......hence it remains illegal while MDs dole out billions of SSRI poison pills...

 

[Blueskink]

There a better ways to treat depression than simply asking someone to pop a pill, i've seen what these drugs do to people, all level, no highs or lows just, bland zombie like behaviour.
These drugs are also more addictive than weed, i could go weeks without weed (after a few days of grumbling) asking someone on anti depressants to do the same would be far more harmful.

 

[I Used To Grow]

Seriously man...these drugs are fucking EVIL!

I should know..I was on some anti psychotic shit for 2 years..Geodon and Depakot...after a year on this shit I went from a normal 185lbs to a total fatass at 265 lbs..
I finally went to my doctor and told him all the weight I had gained and got taken off of all of it..now I am back down to 190 lbs and I feel great.

After all this time of being off of Geodon and Depakot I feel great

Back in September I had to see my doc again..the MOTHERFUCKER tried to put me on some shit called Abilify! I straight up told him he was insane and walked out of his office and never filled that prescription.

These drugs that the companies push are FUCKED UP!

 

[fr33th3w33d]

ive heard this stuff before plenty of times, its pretty sad but what do you expect from the pharmaceutical industry. ANY prescription, even most OTCs have bad side effects. i have an irregular heartbeat and my doctor told me that there is a medicine for it, but the side effects would be worse for my health than the actual condition.

listen to those commercials on tv.. "some side effects have been reported, including, kidney failure, liver damage, increased risk of infection, allergic reactions-sometimes fatal"

 

[Gypsy Nirvana]

....the best anti-depressant is not to believe in depression.....then it cannot exhist within the confines of your mind....

 

[Guest]

Antidepressants also mess with your neuro-chemical balance and can cause irregular behaviour..

I got comfortably numb emotionally..

And forget about tranquilizers.. Zombie nation

Thats what I found

I would like to suggest that MJ in moderation coupled with insight might be the best cure for depression

 

[I Used To Grow]

FUCK THE BIG INDUSTRY DRUG PUSHERS!! FUCK THEM IN THE ARSE!!


MEDS MY ASS!! THEY ARE BAD< BAD THINGS MAN

 

[Pops]

Many bouts of depression and panic/anxiety are caused by environmentel situations, and in some cases , by endocrine or hormonal imbalances. Doctors would far rather put you on dangereous chemicals than find out what is really wrong with you.

Gypsy is correct in saying that depression does not exist if you banish it from your mind, but many people do not have the strength to do that. My daughter is adult add and was prescribed Adderol. She took a child's dose(she is 36 years old) of 5mg and was completely suicidal. I spent 3 hours on the phone talking her down. I'm glad she didn't take the 25mg pill.

It is unfortunate these days that doctors do not take the time to find out what the root causes of depression and anxiety are, they just mask the symptoms of the disease and hope it goes away. America is one of the most drugged societies on earth. No wonder we are so fucked up!

 

[I Used To Grow]

I can't tell you how much I hated being on Geodon and Depakote...i was fat...depressed...hungry...sleepy...pissed off and totally useless for 2 years

now that I've been off of that SHIT for 8 months I am working 2 jobs..have my own place...go to a lot of concerts...smoke herb pretty much whenever I can...drink on the weekends with friends and family..shit man, I am loving life right now..

much better off that shit than on

 

[sproutco]

This stuff is crap

This stuff is crap

Thanks Niki for bringing this to our attention. I feel better today in years. I stopped taking anti-depressants a week ago. Felt like I was walking around with two cinder blocks hanging from my shoulders. Today I feel normal and the only way to describe it is "light" and relaxed. I was washing some dishes a few months ago and all of a sudden got the thought "kill my self". I was just washing dishes and being Sprout. This is just what they are talking about with suicidal thoughts. They were supposed to give me more energy after my parents became concerned that my hygiene was lacking. I weaned myself off of these by taking them every other day for a week. Now none. Goodbye B.S.

P.S. My hygiene improved greatly today. I spent 4 hours cleaning house. Have not done this in months. I used to clean house daily before the drugs.

 

[Nikijad4210]

It is unfortunate these days that doctors do not take the time to find out what the root causes of depression and anxiety are, they just mask the symptoms of the disease and hope it goes away. America is one of the most drugged societies on earth. No wonder we are so fucked up!

Indeed, Pops. It seems like this country's become obsessed with more than just quick fix instant gratification, now everyone has to be numbed up.

Did anyone hear about the "memory eraser" pill they've come up with yet? THAT'S fucking horrifying, instead of teaching people to deal with a bad/unpleasant memory, they'll have the option of blocking it with a friggin' pill instead. I can understand it's use in extreme, severe cases, but it has the potential to be used, abused, and pushed on the general public heavily. "Can't sleep because of a nightmare once or twice a decade? Take this pill!" That's disturbing as hell. I can see the drug being the new & unstoppable "Pandora's Box"...Let me see if I can track down the article...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A43210-2004Oct18.html

Is Every Memory Worth Keeping?
Controversy Over Pills to Reduce Mental Trauma

By Rob Stein
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, October 19, 2004; Page A01

Kathleen Logue was waiting at a traffic light when two men smashed her car's side window, pointed a gun at her head and ordered her to drive. For hours, Logue fought off her attackers' attempts to rape her, and finally she escaped. But for years afterward, she was tormented by memories of that terrifying day.

So years later, after a speeding bicycle messenger knocked the Boston paralegal onto the pavement in front of oncoming traffic, Logue jumped at a chance to try something that might prevent her from being haunted by her latest ordeal.

"I didn't want to suffer years and years of cold sweats and nightmares and not being able to function again," Logue said. "I was prone to it because I had suffered post-traumatic stress from being carjacked. I didn't want to go through that again."

Logue volunteered for an experiment designed to test whether taking a pill immediately after a terrorizing experience might reduce the risk of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The study is part of a promising but controversial field of research seeking to alter, or possibly erase, the impact of painful memories -- a concept dubbed "therapeutic forgetting" by some and taken to science fiction extremes in films such as this summer's "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind."

Proponents say it could lead to pills that prevent or treat PTSD in soldiers coping with the horrors of battle, torture victims recovering from brutalization, survivors who fled the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001, and other victims of severe, psychologically devastating experiences.

"Some memories can be very disruptive. They come back to you when you don't want to have them -- in a daydream or nightmare or flashbacks -- and are usually accompanied by very painful emotions," said Roger K. Pitman, a professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School who is studying the approach. "This could relieve a lot of that suffering."

Skeptics, however, argue that tinkering with memories treads into dangerous territory because memories are part of the very essence of a person's identity, as well as crucial threads in the fabric of society that help humanity avoid the mistakes of the past.

"All of us can think of traumatic events in our lives that were horrible at the time but made us who we are. I'm not sure we'd want to wipe those memories out," said Rebecca S. Dresser, a medical ethicist at Washington University in St. Louis who serves on the President's Council on Bioethics, which condemned the research last year. "We don't have an omniscient view of what's best for the world."

Some fear anything designed for those severely disabled by psychic damage will eventually end up being used far more casually -- to, perhaps, forget a bad date or a lousy day at work.

"You can easily imagine a scenario of 'I was embarrassed at my boss's party last night, and I want to take something to forget it so I can have more confidence when I go into the office tomorrow,' " said David Magnus, co-director of Stanford University's Center for Biomedical Ethics. "It's not hard to imagine that it will end up being used much more broadly."

So far, only a handful of small studies have been conducted in people in the United States and France, most testing a drug called propranolol, which blocks the action of stress hormones that etch memories in the brain. The results suggest drugs may be able to prevent traumatic memories from being stored with such disturbing intensity in the first place, or perhaps deaden effects of old memories if taken shortly after they have been reawakened. The results have been promising enough that researchers are planning larger studies in several countries, including the United States, Canada, France and Israel, testing propranolol and other drugs, including the active components of marijuana.

"You always have the ability to misuse science," said Joseph E. LeDoux, a New York University memory researcher planning one of the studies. "But this isn't going to be radical surgery on memory. All we'd like to do is help people have better control of memories they want or prevent intrusive memories from coming into their minds when they don't want them."

The ability to manipulate memory has long been the stuff of science fiction, inspiring fears of government mind control and films such as the 1962 classic "The Manchurian Candidate." No one is anywhere near having the power to extract the memory of a love affair or implant complex new memories, as depicted in "Eternal Sunshine" and a 2004 "Manchurian Candidate" remake.

But scientists have started taking the first tentative steps toward developing treatments based on new insights into why emotionally charged events -- whether it be President John F. Kennedy's assassination, Sept. 11 or a first kiss -- create such indelible memories.

"Whatever is being learned at the time of emotional arousal is learned much more strongly," said James L. McGaugh of the University of California at Irvine. McGaugh demonstrated that strong emotions -- fear, love, hate, panic -- trigger stress hormones such as adrenalin and cortisol, which activate a part of the brain called the amygdala, creating unusually vivid, emotionally charged memories. "Any strong emotion will have that effect. It could be winning a Nobel Prize. It could be a very faint whisper in the ear, 'I love you,' at the right time."

Propranolol, widely used for heart patients, blocks the action of stress hormones on the amygdala, which led researchers to start testing whether it could prevent PTSD. The study Logue was in, along with a similar one in France, found that people who took propranolol immediately after a traffic accident or some other traumatic experience had fewer physical symptoms of PTSD months later.

"I really think it helped," said Logue, 35. "It helped not bring back my earlier bout with post-traumatic stress and made it easier to cope with this new incident. I look both ways before I cross a one-way street now, but I'm not in a panic."

So far, the research has suggested only that the emotional effects of memories may be blunted, not that the memories themselves are erased.

"I think it's an unfortunate misconception that it's blotting out memories," said Charles R. Marmar of the San Francisco Veterans Affairs Medical Center, who helped conduct the French study. "What it does is help people manage the memories so they can tolerate them."

But other researchers are trying to go further, possibly deadening or even obliterating any effects of old memories.

"People had thought that once a memory was stored or consolidated it stays that way. People thought, it's there for life -- it's fixed," said Karim Nader, a neuroscientist at McGill University in Montreal. "We showed that wasn't the case."

Laboratory rats trained to fear a tone completely lost that fear when scientists injected into their brains a drug that blocked formation of proteins necessary for memory storage while the animals were prompted to reexperience fear and store the memory again.

"When you activate a memory, it comes back up in a dynamic state and has to be restabilized using the same mechanisms that stored it in the first place. You can interfere with that," Nader said.

A small preliminary study being presented next week at a Society for Neuroscience meeting in San Diego tested for the first time whether propranolol can affect old memories in people.

"We have no idea whether it's erasing memory or putting a fence around the memory," LeDoux said. "But from the point of view of the PTSD patient, it doesn't matter as long as the effects are gone."

But some ethicists question this whole line of research.

"Our experiences and our memories in a lot of ways define us and define who we are," Magnus said. "And so that's a scary step to go down. We should be very careful about going down a path that could lead to a serious alteration of the core essence of our identities."

Beyond the personal impact, ethicists also worry about the societal implications.

"Consider the case of a person who has suffered or witnessed atrocities that occasion unbearable memories: for example, those with firsthand experience of the Holocaust," the President's Council on Bioethics wrote. "The life of that individual might well be served by dulling such bitter memories, but such a humanitarian intervention, if widely practiced, would seem deeply troubling: Would the community as a whole -- would the human race -- be served by such a mass numbing of this terrible but indispensable memory?"

The researchers acknowledge the prickly ethical questions but argue that the research should go forward because of its potential to alleviate suffering.

"I approach it from a medical standpoint -- that PTSD is as much a medical disorder as a broken leg," Pitman said. "I don't say they don't have legitimate concerns, but it's hard to argue we shouldn't pursue this just because of ethical speculations."

Psychiatrists at the University of California at San Diego are finishing a follow-up pilot study on accident victims. Pitman and the French team are starting bigger studies to confirm their initial emergency room findings. And Nader and colleagues in Montreal, and LeDoux and his colleagues in New York, are beginning studies in PTSD patients who will take propranolol immediately after reliving their traumatic memories to see if it can affect memory re-storage, known as "reconsolidation." Researchers at Hebrew University in Jerusalem are planning a similar study involving the active ingredient in marijuana.

Marmar and Pitman are working on identifying those most prone to PTSD, with the idea that they could receive propranolol immediately after a terrorist attack or some other traumatizing disaster.

"If this is safe and effective, it's one of the few tools we'd have in the case of a mass disaster," Marmar said. "What are you going to do if there's a dirty bomb? You'll have widespread panic. Do you want these poor people to be haunted by this searing memory?"

 

[newtothesport]

ill tell you a little story about a boy who was 12, and just a lazy stoner..

boy was lazy, didnt want to go to school, parents brought to phycoligist, all the sudden boy is labeled depressed, prozac ensues, somewhere between a 2 year strech all it did was make him have sucidal thoughts, while on the medicine, dropped out in 7th grade, and totaly shut down, he eventually ran away and stop taking the meds and instead he grows pot to make rent.

 

[naga_sadu]

I'd never trust anything that comes from the labs and production halls of the pharmaceutical industry. Especially when that industry is responsible for supplementing and actively supporting a war on drugs, which has nothing to do w/ peoples' wellbeing.

If the pharma corpos are willing to support a programme (drug war) that sends people to jail over a plant they choose to smoke, then publically releasing produce which has harmful side effects won't be much of an ethical issue for them.

And last but not least- Vioxx is responsible for more American casualties than is Bin Laden.