Medical News Summary: The UK is trying to stamp out antidepressant use in children and teenagers

About: The UK is trying to stamp out antidepressant use in children and teenagers
Date: 10 December 2004
Source: News Scotsman
Author: Lyndsay Moss
Medical News Summary (summary of medical news story as reported by News Scotsman): The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency last year ruled that Prozac was the only selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor that should be used in children to treat depression and anxiety. However, the European Medicines Agency states that no SSRIs should be used on children or teenagers due to the risk of suicide found in clinical trials. Antidepressants are being increasingly prescribed to young people in the UK. 50,000 children and teenagers were taking SSRIs at the end of 2003 and over 170,000 antidepressant prescriptions were for those under 18 in the UK. There is a general belief that antidepressants were being unnecessarily over prescribed. Some research suggests that antidepressants were generally ineffective in children.
URL: http://news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=3867261
Related Disease Topics: Depression, Suicide, Anxiety

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Related Medical News Channels: This medical news summary article refers to the following medical channel categories:

• Medication
• medication and depression
• medication and anxiety
• Research
• research and depression
• research and anxiety
• Side effect
• Side effect and depression
• Side effect and suicide
• Overdiagnosis
• Overdiagnosis of depression
• Overdiagnosis of anxiety
• Statistics

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