Antidepressants

On Monday a new study was published with the finding that there is a three- to four-fold increase in the rates of Autistic Spectrum Disorder and Developmental Delay in children, especially boys, born to mothers who have been on antidepressants through pregnancy. There are further studies with comparable findings in the offing. Not only this but it looks as though the SSRIs may redefine what it means to be a teratogen. Other teratogens produce their effects in the first trimester of pregnancy when organs are first being formed. But it looks like antidepressants used in the third trimester can lead to autistic spectrum disorder and developmental delay.

Doris Iarovici, a psychiatrist from Duke University, asks in the New York Times "Are we using good scientific evidence to make decisions about keeping...

Concentrations of Prozac as low as 1 microgram per liter (μg/L), a concentration that has been found in many freshwater environments, were found to significantly...

The average rate of female prisoners in Canada's prison system who receive psychiatric medication has jumped from 42% in 2001 to over 60% today,...

Research on 966 mother-child pairs from the Childhood Autism Risks from Genetics and the Environment (CHARGE) Study finds that prenatal SSRI exposure was nearly 3...

Seeking to rectify the fact that "no meta-analysis has included measures of quality of life, global mental health, self-esteem, or autonomy" (or self-reports of...

The Guardian writes that "Use of antidepressant drugs has become more common than ever before. Perhaps it's time that we looked at the wider causes...

A first-of-its-kind hearing in Texas will determine how future court cases linking SSRIs with congenital malformation will be handled. Pfizer, the manufacturer of Zoloft,...

Antidepressants may be effective over the short term, but research is showing that treatment resistant depression has risen dramatically in the past 30 years; evidence that the drugs may be inducing chronic depression.

From Wednesday's Brown Daily Herald: "Two weeks ago, Edmund Levin and George Stewart, members of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, sent...

Specialist Ivan Lopez, who is accused of killing three people and wounding 16 others at Ford Hood army base yesterday, had been examined by...

From Scientific American: "A commercial sponsored by Pfizer, the drug company that manufactures the antidepressant Zoloft, asserts, “While the cause is unknown, depression...

An important new research paper was published this week on the topic of antidepressant use during pregnancy and preterm birth.  The issue is a crucial one as preterm birth (i.e. birth at less than 37 weeks gestational age) is one of the most challenging problems facing the obstetrical community today.  Rates of preterm birth have been increasing over the past two decades.  Babies born early have increased risks of morbidity and mortality.  At the same time, rates of antidepressant use during pregnancy have increased dramatically.

A recent paper argues that prescribing antidepressants shortly after the death of a loved one is problematic . . . and a few days later, a Harvard academic publicly suggests prescribing antidepressants FOR bereavement. Wait, what?

A detailed meta-analysis of the published research on women taking antidepressants during pregnancy finds that the rate of preterm birth is nearly doubled in the third...

The Sunday Times of London reports on Peter Gotzsche's efforts to obtain pharmaceutical licensing data before the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA)...

What do you do when the media reports stories of children who have killed themselves on SSRIs? Position the stories of these children, not the drugs they were taking, as a suicide risk. Warn that more children will die if mouthy parents are allowed to speak and upstart journalists are allowed to report. And then position psychiatrists as the only people who can talk about suicide without producing an epidemic of self inflicted deaths.

A study in Urology found that men receiving Zoloft for treatment of premature ejaculation had a significant reduction in sperm concentration and significant increase...

MedicalXpress and Science 2.0 interview MiA blogger Jeffrey Lacasse about his recent paper, "Prescribing of Psychiatric Medication to Bereaved Parents Following Perinatal/Neonatal Death: An Observational Study." Article →

David Kupelian writes "Two-and-a-half years ago, a groundbreaking peer-reviewed study out of California-based Kaiser Permanente documented a significantly increased prevalence of children born with autism...

Forest Labs has been hit with a new lawsuit in Massachusetts, over misleading marketing of its antidepressant drugs Celexa and Lexapro to adolescents, even...

Research from MIA blogger Jeffrey Lacasse finds that "at present, there exists no rigorous evidence to support the prescription of Ads (antidepressants) in bereavement....

Commentary in the American Journal of Psychiatry cautions that the “unbridled enthusiasm” about Ketamine as a "miracle cure" for depression "needs to be tempered...

A "systematic review" of all outcome studies of patients with mood disorders, in the March issue of the Australia & New Zealand Journal of...