Dramatic increase in overdoses linked to antidepressants

[scotty]

This is from February, but I don't remember seeing it until now.



http://www2.netdoctor.co.uk/news/ind...=25&M=2&Y=2005

Today's headlines » Friday, 25 February 2005


Dramatic increase in overdoses linked to antidepressants

DEATHS INVOLVING overdoses of antidepressants such as Prozac and
Seroxat have more than doubled in five years.

Doctors and mental health campaigners warned that over-prescribing,
coupled with a lack of accurate research into their risks, was
fuelling the rise in the number of people who have committed suicide
as a result of taking pills which are supposed to alleviate
depression.

More than 3.5 million people in Britain received 20 million
prescriptions for selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs)
last year. But concerns about the safety of the drugs have increased
after reports that some patients who only suffered from mild
depression had committed suicide within days or weeks of being
prescribed the pills.

In 1999, 38 people died as a result of SSRI overdoses, according to
Health Statistics Quarterly, published yesterday by the Office for
National Statistics (ONS). By 2003, this had more than doubled to 81.

Because one of the advantages of SSRIs is their low toxicity level,
most of these deaths are considered to be deliberate overdoses.
Still more people - at least eight in the UK in the past two years -
have killed themselves by other means, such as hanging, after being
prescribed the SSRIs.

The government-run Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory
Agency (MHRA), ruled last December that, for adults, the benefits of
SSRIs outweighed the risks. But the controversy has highlighted how
doctors, patients and regulators such as the MHRA are reliant on
information supplied by the drugs companies making the drugs.

GlaxoSmithKline, which makes Seroxat, is under investigation for
withholding safety data on the drug and only publishing favourable
results from clinical trials.

Richard Brook, chief executive of the mental health charity Mind,
said: "I think these figures are very worrying ... the way in which
SSRIs contribute to suicides has yet to be understood. We haven't
got all the data because we haven't had proper follow-up studies,
post-licensing procedures are poor and, most of all, we still have
to rely on the drugs companies to supply the data, whose record on
this issue is deplorable."

[rdjanis]

Very good article!

[elisa]

Great article Scotty! I saw it somewhere as well. It strikes a very sensitive chord with me as I felt like overdosing on Effexor XR intermittently for 2 years. They were suicidal impulses. It was very fearful having to take the drugs faithfully every day while having these impulses of overdosing.