‘Black Box’ Warning on Antidepressants Raised Suicide Attempts.
So I come across an article with this as the headline. Of course it catches my attention and I have to read it.
Interesting article that brought up a couple of things.
First off, I had no idea what a black box warning was. Apparently, the FDA can mandate that, in the case of severe issues with a drug, a warning be placed inside a black box on the labeling of the drug itself or in the literature. Fair enough, seen those forever and never considered they might have a name. Chalk this one up in the “Learn something new every day” category.
The article basically says that the FDA had mandated antidepressant manufacturers include a black box warning that the drug could increase suicidal thoughts and behaviors in kids. Another one, fair enough. Any of us on these types of meds know this comes with the territory. And, suicide is bad, so the government is trying to protect us. Shocker.
This is where it gets odd. Suicide attempts among adolescents went UP 22% and went UP 34% among young adults. WTF? Back up. I had to reread the paragraph a couple of times. It appears that after the warning, antidepressant use in the target age of this warning DROPPED 31%. Now I was totally confused. Then the rest of the article goes on to explain the study. It was a massive cause-and-effect chain. The warning didn’t say anything about this happening in only less than 1% of kids and young adults taking the drugs. And, it didn’t say anything about how the benefits of treatment far outweighed the risk. So, being the loving, caring parents we are (and I mean this in all seriousness), we get home, open the med, read up on it, see this warning and immediately say to ourselves “No way am I giving my kid a drug that may make him want to commit suicide!”. So, we don’t give them the medicine and merrily move along.
This is where several things suddenly popped into my head:
- Why didn’t a doctor explain this to them? Seriously, this is a no-brainer if you know the statistics.
- As a parent with a child being treated for these type of things, learn to ask questions. Challenge your doctor. They are not gods who know everything. Question them. About everything. Always.
- To any caregiver, you are not the one going through the problems. Unless you have experienced these things for yourself, you can’t even imagine what the person is going through. Don’t withhold treatment. Again, question your doctors. You see something like that on a prescription and it scares you, pick up the phone, stop by the doctors office, call your pharmacist. A lot of folks overlook their pharmacist as a source of information, but they are a great source when it comes to drugs. I ask mine questions all the time. They aren’t just folks behind the counter shoveling pills into bottles. They know this stuff.
- Sometimes the smallest of things can have a large, unintended side-effect. Really, who would have guessed that warning would have done that? Not me, for sure.
Anyway, I just found that very interesting and spurred a bit of thoughts for me. Thought I’d pass it along.
Until next time, “wishing you all good mental health”.
Inside the Bipolar Mind 