ale_latina said:
1. Do you think that drug companies or the physicians who prescribe antidepressants to adolescents are responsible for the suicides of children taking such drugs?
2. Should parents of children taking antidepressants be informed of warning signs to watch for their children?
3. Do you think that antidepressants administered to children should be banned?
No/yes/not sure
SSRIs are extremely effective for adults, but the results are mixed for kids. I say "not sure" to the third question because I think giving it to children and adolescents can be risky, but in some cases the likely benefits can outweigh the less likely potential risks. I'm not sure it should be necessarily banned completely, but if they are prescribed, a *lot* of consideration should be given to the child and their particular situation. I feel this is obvious but sometimes it's not fully recognized.
On a more personal level, I definitely favor psychotherapy over any kind of drug therapy for depression and anxiety, but I realize for some people drugs are more helpful than harmful. For example, someone in the video had claimed the drugs "created" suicidal thoughts in people who didn't previously have them, but for many others these thoughts are already there and the drugs work to lessen them or get rid of them entirely. I'm not sure the video did a good job of expressing this other side. It really is dependent on the individual case.
I started to watch the video but I'm too tired to finish it
, however I didn't notice many statistics (I may have missed them) so here's one I thought was relevant from another source:
"In the [2007] FDA review, no completed suicides occurred among nearly 2,200 children treated with SSRI medications. However, about 4 percent of those taking SSRI medications experienced suicidal thinking or behavior, including actual suicide attempts—twice the rate of those taking placebo, or sugar pills."
link [www.nimh.nih.gov]
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Sep 05, 2009 @ 05:27:20
