The Depression Test By screening all teens, doctors hop to identify those with mental disorders

Soon after her sister committed suicide, Caroline Downing started doing poorly at school. During math tests she would freeze up, and she found her mind wandering constantly. Officials at St. Andrew's Episcopal School in Potomac gently suggested that the high school sophomore get a mental health screening.

The idea of a psychiatric evaluation sent chills down the spine of Caroline's mother, Mathy Milling Downing, who believed that her younger daughter, Candace, had committed suicide because of an adverse reaction linked to a psychiatric drug -- the antidepressant Zoloft. Shortly after Candace's death, the Food and Drug Administration placed black-box warnings on several antidepressants to say they elevated suicidal thinking among some children. If Caroline were going to get the same kind of mental health care as Candace, Downing wanted no part of it.

Downing's family offers a powerful case study into the pros and cons of new guidelines recommending widespread screening of adolescents for mental disorders: Last month, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, a federal group that makes public health recommendations, said that all adolescents between ages 12 and 18 should be screened for major depression. In March, the Institute of Medicine, which advises Congress on scientific matters, told policymakers that early screening was key to reducing the financial and medical burden of mental disorders in the United States.

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Which antidepressants are most effective?

The glut of antidepressant drugs on the market and the ads for them may have you – not to mention doctors – wondering how to tell one from the other. But a new study sheds light on which ones may be most effective in battling the blues.

Topping the list of a dozen prescription antidepressants reviewed: Zoloft and Lexapro. Patients taking those drugs in trials were also the least likely to drop out. But because Zoloft, made by New York-based Pfizer, is now off patent and available in relatively cheap, generic form, it may be the better choice for patients starting antidepressant therapy, write authors of the study published today in The Lancet, who are from Italy, Greece, England and Japan.

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Drug-therapy combo best for anxiety in kids -study

A combination of a common antidepressant and a specialized form of talk therapy offer the best treatment for children and youth with anxiety disorders, U.S. researchers said on Thursday.

The findings come from the largest study of anxiety in children yet and offer much-needed guidance about how best to treat young people with separation anxiety, social phobia and generalized anxiety disorder -- conditions that affect as many as 20 percent of children and teenagers in the United States.

The study "clearly showed that combination treatment is the most effective for these children," Dr. John Walkup of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, who worked on the study, said in a statement.

But he said either therapy alone or sertraline alone helped well. Sertraline is the generic name of Pfizer Inc's (PFE.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) Zoloft, which is one of a class of antidepressants called selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors.

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US troops in Iraq and Afghanistan turning to anti-depressants in record numbers

Overwhelmed by the horrors and rigours of war, American troops are turning to prescription anti-depressants in record numbers.

America is facing accusations that it is maintaining the troop strength of its overstretched forces through a quiet policy of plying soldiers serving in Iraq and Afghanistan with prescription drugs.

The numbers of American servicemen on medications such as Prozac and Zoloft in combat zones now exceeds 20,000.

Critics claim a regulatory sleight of hand by service chiefs triggered the explosion in drug use. In November, 2006 the military issued a fresh order banning the use of older drugs, including lithium, anticonvulsants and antipsychotics, but omitted new generation of psychotropic medicine.

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Requiem for the Paxilated

Prozac was introduced by Eli Lilly to the US market in January 1988. Zoloft and Paxil followed in 1991 and 1992, respectively. Some 45,000 reports of adverse reactions to Prozac have been filed with the FDA. These include reports of about 2500 deaths, with the large majority linked to suicide or violence.

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Antidepressant studies find low birth-defect risk

Use of antidepressants by pregnant women doesn't significantly increase the risk of birth defects, with rare exceptions, two studies found.

The overall risk of having a child with a defect increased by less than 1 percent in women on the drugs, including Pfizer Inc.'s Zoloft, GlaxoSmithKline PLC's Paxil and Forest Laboratories Inc.'s Celexa, according to research published today in The New England Journal of Medicine.

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