FDA Warning on Antidepressant use Backfired, Harvard Researchers Say

U.S. Food and Drug Administration's warning on antidepressant-use led to a significant decrease in the number of prescriptions for depression medication among teens and young adults. The decline in antidepressant prescriptions was associated with an increase in suicide attempts, a new study has found.

The new study by researchers at the Harvard University found that exaggerated media coverage of a warning by FDA in 2003 that stated that antidepressants might backfire, giving way to suicidal thoughts, and thereby increasing suicide attempts in young people. The coverage led to a steep decline in antidepressant-use.

Within a year after the warning, prescriptions of antidepressants fell by a fifth. During the same time, there was an increase of 21.7 percent in suicide attempts by psychotropic drug overdose, researchers at the Harvard Medical School's Department of Population Medicine and the Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Institute found.

The 2003 warning was based on an analysis that found that around 1 percent of teens and young adults taking antidepressants have increased risk of thinking about attempting suicide. Media reports of the research, scientists said, concentrated only on one of the risks of taking the medications and said nothing about the dangers of under-treating depression.

"This study is a one of the first to directly measure a health outcome driven by the interaction of public policy and mass media," said Christine Lu, HMS instructor in population medicine at Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Institute and lead author of the study, according to a news release. "The FDA, the media and physicians need to find better ways to work together to ensure that patients get the medication that they need, while still being protected from potential risks."

According to researchers, the FDA warning was well-intended but it raised unnecessary scare amongst parents and clinicians.

For the present study, researchers used data from 7.5 million people aged between 10 and 64 years. Before the FDA warning, two percent teens and 4 percent of adults were using antidepressants, USA Today reported. But, two years after the warning, prescriptions for antidepressants came down by as much as 31 percent in teens, 24 percent young adults and 14.5 percent in adults.

Attempted suicides among young adults - between 18 and 24 years - went up by 33.7 percent, Bloomberg reported.

"We need to do a better job of understanding and communicating the risks of taking-and not taking-medications," Lu said.

The study was supported by the U.S. National Institute of Mental Health and is published in the journal BMJ.