Antidepressant suicide risk varies by age: FDA

People under age 25 who take antidepressants have a higher risk of suicide, but adults older than that do not, an analysis by U.S. Food and Drug Administration researchers released on Tuesday showed.

The report by the FDA scientists confirms earlier studies and supports the agency's age-related warnings on the drugs' labeling.

U.S. and European regulators have been sounding alarms on the use of antidepressant drugs since 2003 after clinical trials showed they increased the risk of suicidal thoughts and behaviors in those under age 18.

In February 2005, the FDA added a so-called black box warning -- the agency's strongest warning -- on the use of all antidepressants in young children and teens to draw attention to the possible risks of these medications. In May 2007, it extended the warnings to young adults aged 18 to 24.

Many psychiatrists have criticized the warnings, saying they scare people away from effective treatment for depression, the leading cause of suicide. In fact, recent studies have suggested the warnings triggered an 8 percent rise in suicide among youth and teens in 2004, the biggest one-year gain in 15 years.

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It's the Cymbalta Stupid

Many are outraged that Eli Lilly gave nonprofits $3.9 million in grants last year for medical courses to "educate" doctors about the pain-and-fatigue ailment fibromyalgia--more than it spent for diabetes and Alzheimer's which people already know they have.

But finding new diseases to justify a drug's existence is the normal way pharma operates.

Especially Lilly who agreed to pay $1.42 billion for illegal marketing of its anti-psychotic Zyprexa last month--$615 million for criminally promoting it for dementia--another $62 million to 32 states for illegal pediatric marketing and agreed to resolve Medicaid fraud investigations into "rebates" at the same time. (And how was your year?)

And whose diabetes treatment Byetta is tanking since reports last summer of six deaths, at least two from pancreatitis.

But Lilly's fibromyalgia-fighting drug, Cymbalta (duloxetine)--its second best seller after Zyprexa--is anything but normal.

Starting with the death of 19-year-old Cymbalta test subject Traci Johnson in 2004--who hanged herself in the Lilly Clinic in Indianapolis and had no history of mental problems--it has been beset by reports of baffling, rapid, unprovoked, and out of character suicides and suicide attempts.

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Common antidepressants cut adult suicide risk -study

Common antidepressants suspected of raising suicide risk among children reduce the risk for adults, Italian scientists reported on Monday.

The findings that the drugs cut suicide risk by more than 40 percent among adults and over 50 percent for elderly people should reassure doctors, the researchers said.

But the study confirmed the drugs seriously raise the suicide risk for children, Corrado Barbui of the University of Verona and colleagues reported in the Canadian Medical Journal.

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