Pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline has entered into confidential settlements with nearly 200 families who claimed that its antidepressant Paxil caused congenital birth defects. Most of the claims alleged that babies born to mothers taking Paxil suffered heart defects.
The Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), the government agency in the UK responsible for medicines and medical devices, has issued a warning about potential SSRI birth defects related to the use of fluoxetine (Prozac). The MHRA issued the warning in its monthly drug safety update. The agency warns that there is a small risk of congenital cardiac defects in infants of mothers who took fluoxetine during the first trimester of pregnancy.
The United States has become the psychiatric drugging capital of the world for kids with children being medicated at a younger and younger age. Medicaid records in some states show infants less than a year old on drugs for mental disorders.
Gary Greenberg opens his new history of depression with a riveting tale of scientific ingenuity. A young, unknown marine biologist with an interest in mussels happens to discover the neurotransmitter serotonin and helps spur the antidepressant revolution. Lest we get too excited, though, Greenberg deflates our hopes just a few pages in. Great science stories involve chance discoveries that change our everyday lives, he says—but this is not the kind of story he is going to tell.
“Our data should give some pause” to doctors and patients weighing antidepressants, Robert DeRubeis, a psychologist at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, said in a telephone interview. “They should give some consideration to other alternatives.” Exercise has been shown to be helpful to stem depression, as does psychotherapy, and even “self-treatment” with the aid of the plethora of self-help literature, he said.