E-drug: Increased Antidepressant Use Link to Fall in Suicide Rates
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Increased Antidepressant Use Link to Fall in Suicide Rates
Conference Coverage
16th European College of Neuropsychopharmacology Congress
By Richard Woodman, Reuters Health
LONDON Sept 24 - Suicide rates have fallen dramatically in many
countries following wider use of modern antidepressant drugs,
psychiatrists heard on Wednesday.
This finding contrasts with charges from some patients and advocacy
groups that SSRIs (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors) are
addictive and can trigger violence and suicide.
A jury awarded $6.4 million in 2001 against GlaxoSmithKline after
deciding Paxil was partly to blame for the behaviour of Donald Schell
who, after taking the drug, shot dead his wife, daughter and
granddaughter and then himself.
Earlier this year UK regulators said that the Glaxo drug and Wyeth's
Efexor (Effexor in the US) should not be taken by under-18s because
of an increased risk of suicidal thoughts in this age group. A recent
change in the drug label also says the risk of suicide can be higher in
the early days of therapy.
But Goran Isacsson, professor in the department of psychiatry at the
Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, said studies in several countries
showed suicide rates had declined, sometimes dramatically, since the
SSRI drugs were introduced.
He told the European Neuropsychopharmacology Congress in
Prague that analysis of suicides in Sweden suggested about 100
deaths were prevented in 1990 following the drugs' Swedish launch.
As the use increased, so the suicide rate continued to decline.
Another study, of 15,400 Swedish suicides between 1992 and 2000,
showed that the suicide rate in people taking antidepressants was
217 per 100,000 person years compared with 477 in people not
taking antidepressants.
Evidence from other Nordic countries, Australia, and a dramatic
decline in suicides among young people in the United States also
backed the association between rising drug use and declining suicide,
though he stressed this did not prove antidepressants prevent
suicide.
David Baldwin, senior lecturer at Southampton University, UK, said
suicide rates had declined in the UK from 6.3 per 1000 person years
in the era before treatment to 5.7 in the ECT era, to 3.3 following the
introduction of the first antidepressants in the 1960s.
"We can't say this is due to the arrival of antidepressants or ECT --
there are many other factors to consider -- but certainly there has
been no increase in suicide as antidepressant treatments have
become available," he said.
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