UK phasing out antidepressants for youth

Greetings,
I don't know how many of you if any have visited the site http://www.drugawareness.org/home.html founded by Dr. Ann Blake Tracy, but it is an awesome one dedicated to the mission of antidepressant awareness. This just came through as an update email they send out periodically. Also, check out the site to see a great parody on a recent Zoloft ad campaign and photos of an awareness rally held in Washington at the end of Aug. plus many more educational articles and info. What are your thoughts on this article? I think it is such a step in the right direction! I caught the Dr. Phil show on Wed. that was talking about the overmedicating of society. He really did give both sides of the story in my opinion...something I haven't seen in mainstream media before! The time is coming that we all will be heard and at least both sides of the story will come to light equally.
Julie

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The officials in the UK have taken appropriate steps to phase out antidepressants given to the youth. How much longer will it be before the US does the same? Clearly all countries have taken far too long to issue such bans. These are drugs that have been prescribed to children for years for conditions as simple as bed wetting. As a mother I would far rather deal with a wet bed than a child suffering LSD effects from his "medication" that is supposedly helping him not to wet his bed!

Dr. Ann Blake Tracy, Executive Director,
International Coalition For Drug Awareness
www.drugawareness.org & author of Prozac: Panacea
or Pandora? - Our Serotonin Nightmare (800-280-0730)




http://www.politics.co.uk/domestic-poli ... 053641.htm
Updated, Wednesday, 28 Sep 2005 14:00 GMT+1 Political News - Domestic Policy
Call for ban on antidepressants for the young
Wednesday, 28 Sep 2005 09:40
A new report claims that antidepressants should not be prescribed to children and young people.


Guidance published by the NHS drug watchdog suggests that medication should only be prescribed to young people when other forms of treatment have proved ineffective, and then only in moderate or severe cases.

The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (Nice) also found that about half of the estimated 40,000 children and adolescents in the UK on antidepressants do not receive adequate counselling.

Nice is urging doctors to offer counselling, lasting at least three months, as well as advice on diet, exercise and sleep, before prescribing antidepressants to children. The organisation also warns that many young people with depression are not being diagnosed with the disease, placing them at risk.

Andrew Dillon, Nice chief executive, said: "It is important that children and young people taking antidepressants do not stop taking them abruptly, but we would advise people to talk to their GP at their next regular review about whether a psychological treatment may be a more effective treatment option."

However, charities claim that there is a shortage of counsellors and therapists in the UK. A study by mental health charity Sane found that 80 per cent of young people with depression receive medication and just six per cent receive therapy.

Some forms of anti-depressants have been linked to an increased risk of suicide and several have been banned from being prescribed to young people.

Sophie Corlett, director of policy at mental health charity Mind, added: "Mind welcomes these guidelines, while urging the government to recognise that they must now give the NHS the support and resources to ensure children and young people have access to these key psychological treatments.

"This is the sixth guideline recommending such treatments as vital for a mental health condition. All research on antidepressants has shown most to be totally unsuitable for young people - they must be provided with effective alternatives."



http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story ... 75,00.html

GPs to stop prescribing antidepressants blamed for suicidal feelings in under-18s

· Pills to be phased out for up to 40,000 children
· New treatments to include exercise and counselling

Sarah Boseley, health editor
Wednesday September 28, 2005
The Guardian


Doctors were yesterday told to stop giving antidepressants to children and people under 18, because of the risks that the pills will make them feel suicidal.
The new NHS guidance marks a watershed in the treatment of children's mental health. It shifts the focus sharply away from the psychiatric drugs that around 40,000 children are thought to be taking for depression, anxiety and other problems. Children with mild depression should be given advice on diet and exercise, the guidance tells GPs. Those with moderate and even severe depression should be offered a three-month course of counselling.
The guidance is likely to cause consternation among GPs who do not have enough counsellors and therapists available to treat all the children who will need help. "The very significant shortage of practitioners able to deliver these therapies is a cause for concern," said Dinah Morley, the deputy director of the charity Young Minds, which applauds the new emphasis on therapy.
The government's National Institute for Clinical Excellence (Nice), which has produced the guidance, says only one drug - Prozac - may help children, and even that carries risks. Only if the "talking therapies" do not work can children be prescribed antidepressants - and even then, only in combination with other forms of counselling and close monitoring for side- effects.
Until recently, most under-18s diagnosed with depression have been treated by their GP and most will have been given a prescription. But in response to growing concern at the potential of the modern antidepressants to make young people feel suicidal - highlighted over several years by the Guardian - Nice has said pills should never again be the treatment of first resort.
In June 2003 the drug licensing body in the UK warned doctors of the risks in prescribing any of the modern antidepressants known as the SSRIs (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors) for anybody under 18, with the exception of Prozac. All of them had a tendency to increase suicidal thinking, but only Prozac showed any benefit in children to counterbalance the dangerous side-effects.
A study in the Lancet in April last year, which looked not only at trial results the drug companies had published but also those they had not, confirmed the risks to children.
From the mid-90s until two years ago, more and more children who were diagnosed with depression were given tablets by their doctors. The SSRIs were much better tolerated than older antidepressants and were thought very safe for GPs to prescribe. The annual number of prescriptions to those under 18 soared from 13,227 in 1995 up to 27,658 in 2003.
But then the few clinical trials carried out in children had shown that the drugs had serious risks. Some children felt suicidal. That was the case with adults too, but significant numbers of adults appeared to recover from their depression. In children, there was not significant evidence, except for Prozac, that the SSRIs had any benefit to set against the risk. This only came to light because GlaxoSmithKline, British manufacturer of the bestselling SSRI, Seroxat, applied for a licence for the drug to be used in depressed children. It submitted the trial evidence it had to the Medicines and Healthcare Regulatory Authority (MHRA), which regulates drugs.
The data showed that 3.4% of children experienced mood changes, tried to harm themselves or thought of suicide, compared with 1.2% who took a dummy pill in the trials. At the time, there were 8,000 children on Seroxat. In June 2003 the MHRA put out a warning to doctors that they should no longer prescribe it to under-18s. In September they issued a similar warning for a second drug, Efexor. On December 11 the MHRA told doctors all the drugs, except for Prozac, were unsuitable for children, although it left it up to doctors to decide whether or not to continue using them, and many are thought to have done so.
Tim Kendall, joint director of the National Collaborating Centre for Mental Health, who was one of the authors of the Lancet study and also led the formulation of the Nice guidelines, said they were even more clear now about the risks. "No child, however severe the depression, should have their firstline treatment with a drug," he said.
He and his colleagues are concerned about the numbers of children with depression, which is sometimes triggered by a sad event like a death, but is often linked to poverty, deprivation, abuse and family breakups. "Our view is that we should be targeting these children as best we can," he said. "Out of 1,200 kids in a comprehensive, at least 40 would be expected to suffer a diagnosis of depressive illness and only 10 are getting any help."
The new guidance for doctors says GPs should advise children with mild to moderate depression on ways they can help themselves through exercise and diet. "But then if there is any significant risk, we should be offering individual cognitive behaviour therapy or family therapy, depending on their needs," he said. "We're really serious that we don't think these drugs should be used lightly."
Even when a young person is severely depressed, the first step should be psychotherapy for around three months. Only if there has been no improvement after four or five sessions should the doctor - and by this stage it would be a psychiatrist - consider prescribing Prozac.
Andrew Dillon, chief executive of Nice, said the guideline "makes it clear that psychological treatments are the most effective way to treat depression in children and young people." Children taking pills should talk to their GP about phasing them out.
At present, there are not enough counsellors and therapists to help all the children who may need it. Yesterday Louis Appleby, the national director for mental health, said: "We know that not everyone who needs treatment is able to access it easily or quickly and expertise and services are not equally distributed around the country." He added that the government was "considering ways of increasing numbers of staff" trained in cognitive behaviour therapy, which is usually the preferred treatment for depression. More than £300m had gone into child and adolescent mental health services.
Mind, the mental health association, urged the government to give the NHS the support and resources it would need to ensure children have proper access to psychological treatments. Research on antidepressants "has shown many to be totally unsuitable for young people. They must be provided with effective alternatives," said a policy officer, Alison Cobb.
"These guidelines are a welcome step in the right direction: the onus is now on the government to provide the means to make them happen," said Liz Nightingale of the mental health charity Rethink.
Danger signs

In 2003, under-18s in England were given 27, 658 prescriptions for antidepressants
40,000 children and young people are thought to be on psychiatric drugs, including antidepressants
Doctors were warned in 2003 of the risks of using Seroxat, Efexor, Lustral, Cipramil, Cipralex and Faverin in children and young people
A survey of GPs in March 2004 found 80% thought they were prescribing SSRIs to too many adults and children

Just a question, did you get the permission of this person to post her phone number etc onto the site?

If not it would probably be best to edit out that personal stuff of her's if she is not aware of it.

I'm going to assume that she is ok w/ this being that if you follow the links in the above post it takes you to a site that has all of that contact information there, including the "800" phone number. There is also a link to her home page and that as well has that "800" number. i doubt the above poster got personal permition to post the info, but it is something available on her own sites and other sites she references out on the net!

stopthemadness,

That is great news!

Thanks for sharing it.

stopthemadness,

Doubts cast on safety and effectiveness of ADHD medications.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/co ... 89,00.html

Thank you. That was a good article. Hate to read at the end someone pushing that the meds are safe, but since I am pushing for both sides to be told I obviously need to accept it as a differing opinion ! There has been a huge debate on drphil.com about meds period, but focusing a lot on meds for children. It is slowing down now, but after the show aired on Sept 28 there was quite the uproar of opinions . I am not a huge Dr. Phil fan, but glad he did a show and did give time to the anti-med view...more than I can say for many other shows and magazine articles. A lot of talk about Tom Cruise and his comments on the msg boards there if anyone is interested .

sadgurl,

It seems like the UK agrees antidepressants are far to risky, thats why there phasing them out.