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Editor: Robert Binstock
Profession: Paxil Side Effect Attorney

Category: Paxil News

A new study should help to silence critics claiming that suicide warnings on antidepressants caused thousands that could reap benefits from antidepressant medications, to stray away from the drugs due to the fear of suicidal thoughts and actions associated with them. The study says that this is not the case at all. As it turns out, since the warnings were placed on the labels of all antidepressants in 2004 there has not been a sharp drop-off as many have speculated, but rather slight decline in antidepressants prescribed to adolescents.

The study was based on an analysis of prescriptions rates before, during, and after suicide warnings were called for by the FDA. The study canvases a time frame of over a 3 years and shows only a slight drop-off in prescriptions throughout the period. Paxil was hit hard by the warnings showing a 44 percent drop in prescription rates that corresponds directly to the FDA announcement, but Prozac and others only show a slight impact on prescription rates.

In sum, the drug agency's warnings seemed to prompt caution rather than panic. "The concern that the warnings would have a chilling effect on the treatment of depression in young people was not born out by the data," said the study's lead author, Dr. Mark Olfson, a professor of clinical psychiatry at Columbia. His co-authors were Steven C. Marcus of the University of Pennsylvania and Dr. Benjamin G. Druss of Emory University.