The Minneapolis Star Tribune (8/10, Olson) reports on University of Minnesota public-health professor Ezra Golberstein’s research showing that the public response to the FDA’s 2004 “black-box warning” about antidepressants and suicide risk among teenagers may have “gone too far, leaving depressed teens with less treatment.” In the three years following the FDA warning, antidepressant use in adolescents declined by as much as 30%, but there was no commensurate increase in other forms of therapy such as counseling, however, and Golberstein also found that during that time the average grade of depressed teen girls dropped from a B to a B-. “Depressed adolescents also became more likely to abuse illicit and prescription drugs, and to fight and steal,” the Star Tribune reports in citing research that was based on over 100,000 responses to the National Survey on Drug Use and Health from 2001 through 2007.
Related Links:
— “Warning about antidepressants, suicide risk leads to unintended consequences,” Jeremy Olsonhealth, Minneapolis Star Tribune, August 10, 2014.