Posts Tagged ‘Seroxat’
Tuesday, August 3rd, 2010
The Daily Mail
By Professor Irving Kirsch
August 3, 2010
We spend more than £250 m a year on antidepressants in the UK – and it’s a complete waste of money.
They are not much better than sugar pills, they have nasty side – effects, such as sexual dysfunction, and they increase young people’s risk of suicide.
New research shows they don’t even work on the brain in the way we thought they did.
For years we were told depression was caused by low levels of a brain chemical called serotonin, and that antidepressants worked by boosting it.
But an Australian study published in the Archives of General Psychiatry shows that rather than low levels, depressed people might have double the normal amount in some parts of their brains.
Many people were surprised by these new findings, but I wasn’t.
I’ve been studying antidepressants for more than a decade, and I knew that if they worked at all, it wasn’t by changing brain chemistry.
The major reason you feel better when taking an antidepressant – maybe the only reason – is the placebo effect.
When I first published a paper back in 1998 saying that antidepressant drugs such as Prozac and Seroxat were not much better than a placebo, almost everyone thought it couldn’t be true.
There was so much evidence they worked. Thousands of people claimed the drugs had turned their lives round.
My colleagues said that I must have made a mistake: either I had looked at the wrong data, or I hadn’t analysed it properly.
In fact, what I’d done was to look at the research on antidepressants in a different way from everyone else.
Other researchers were concentrating on how much better the drugs were than a placebo.
What I was interested in was finding out how strong the placebo effect was in treating depression.
I compared the placebo effect to having no treatment at all – no one had done that before.
We already knew that placebos could have a powerful effect in conditions such as pain, angina, ulcers and asthma.
Depression was an obvious next step, because when you are depressed you lose hope, and placebos give you hope.
But I was flabbergasted by just how big the placebo effect was.
Read entire article here: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1299791/Why-antidepressants-simply-confidence-trick-A-leading-psychologist-claims-taking-sugar-pills-work-just-well.html?ito=feeds-newsxml
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Tags: antidepressants, Archives of General Psychiatry, Brain, brain chemistry, depressed, placebo, placebo effect, prozac, psychiatric drugs, serotonin, Seroxat, side effects, sugar pills, Suicide, UK
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Tuesday, June 29th, 2010
Public reports reveal psychiatric drugs linked to 64% of all suicides in Sweden
The One Click Group
By Janne Larsson
June 29, 2010
This unique report presents data about the preceding psychiatric drug treatment for all persons who committed suicide in Sweden 2007. The conclusion is that a large percentage of the persons who committed suicide had received extensive treatment with psychiatric drugs within a year of and close to the suicide.
Public reports reveal psychiatric drugs linked to 64% of all suicides in Sweden.
This is a report about suicides committed in Sweden (with around 9 million citizens) in 2007 and the psychiatric drug treatment that preceded these suicides.
The report has three main parts:
• It gives unique data about all suicides committed in 2007 and the psychiatric drugs that the persons received within a year of the suicide.
• It compares these data with autopsy reports about psychiatric drugs found in the blood (of 98%) of all the persons who committed suicide in 2007.
• It gives extensive information about the psychiatric drug treatment given within a year to the subgroup of persons who committed suicide in 2007 and then were reported to the National Board of Health and Welfare by reason of law 3 – one third of all suicides committed that year.
The data presented on these pages should have been published by the responsible national authorities.
A large percentage of the persons who committed suicide in Sweden in 2007 had received extensive treatment with psychiatric drugs within a year of their suicide.
The idea that persons who are depressed are suffering from “chemical imbalances” and are deficient in the substance serotonin has been marketed by the pharmaceutical companies selling antidepressants (in the class of antidepressant drugs called Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors, SSRIs, such as Prozac, Paxil/Seroxat, Zoloft) for more than a decade. The intensive marketing has led persons to believe that their low mood is a deficiency disease – and that it is vital to supply the substance that corrects this deficiency – the antidepressant drug.
But there is no scientific evidence that a low mood is caused by a ”chemical imbalance” in the brain. The hypothesis has been rejected with the following words by one of the most well known names in the field, Dr. David Healy,“The serotonin theory of depression is comparable to the masturbatory theory of insanity.”
The Swedish medical agencies and their psychiatric consultants have used old data from forensic toxicological screenings to mislead the public and to heavily increase the use of antidepressants and other psychiatric drugs.
The most important information in this area is the patients’ medical history; the treatment history. Antidepressants, neuroleptics and other psychiatric drugs may cause harmful changes in the brain and these brain dysfunctions do not vanish when the drugs are discontinued – in many cases they cause chronic dysfunction to the brain, exemplified by the known neurological harm caused by neuroleptics. Many patients also get serious withdrawal reactions; reactions that can be so severe that they can lead to suicide.
Better sources of information are the unpublished clinical trials of psychiatric drugs done by pharmaceutical companies, and the important studies done by independent researchers. A number of these studies show that antidepressants and neuroleptics increase the risk of suicidal behaviour and directly cause effects that lead to suicide.
Download and read the full report here; http://www.theoneclickgroup.co.uk/documents/ME-CFS_docs/Psychiatric%20Drugs%20&%20Suicide,%20Sweden%202007.pdf
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Tags: antidepressants, chemical imbalances, deaths, depressed, drug treatment, forensic toxicological screenings, Janne Larsson, Marketing, national authorities, National Board of Health and Welfare, Paxil, pharmaceutical companies, prozac, psychiatric consultants, psychiatric drugs, serotonin, Seroxat, ssri, Suicide, Sweden, Swedish medical agencies, Zoloft
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Thursday, June 24th, 2010
Before It’s News
June 23, 2010
This study comes on the heels of ones showing these drugs cause birth defects. But even now, regulatory agencies aren’t taking action.
Medical powers-that-be are pressing to identify women “at risk” of depression during pregnancy—likely to push them into taking anti-depressants. Now, a study has shown that SSRI and SNRI antidepressants can increase miscarriages by 68 percent. These drugs have also been associated with birth defects. Now, that is truly depressing.
A study published in the online edition of the Canadian Medical Association Journal reported a 68% increase in miscarriages in women who take modern antidepressants. Paroxetine, the SSRI sold as Paxil or Seroxat, and venlafaxine, the SNRI sold as Effexor, were especially risky, and taking more than one antidepressant was also particularly dangerous.
As previously documented in Babies of Women Taking Antidepressants Born With Deformities, Dr. Anick Bérard, PhD, one of the study’s authors, has also noted that antidepressants have been associated with birth defects. It shouldn’t, of course, come as any surprise that an agent guilty of causing birth defects would also result in miscarriages.
Overall, antidepressant use was found to increase the risk of miscarriage by 68%. Paroxetine increased the risk by 75% and venlafaxine more than doubled the risk to a 110% greater chance of spontaneous abortion.
In comparison, the increased risk of miscarriage due to untreated depression is 19 percent.
It’s obvious that increased miscarriage risks of 68 percent, 75 percent, and 110% with SSRI and SNRI treatment make a 19 percent increase in untreated pregnancy depression pale by comparison.
Read entire article: http://beforeitsnews.com/news/84/868/Antidepressants_Cause_Major_Increase_in_Miscarriages.html
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Tags: antidepressants, at risk, birth defects, Canadian Medical Association Journal, Deformities, depression, Dr. Anick Berard, effexor, increase the risk of miscarriage, miscarriages, paroxetine, Paxil, Pregnancy, pregnant, regulatory agencies, Seroxat, snri, ssri, venlafaxine
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Thursday, June 3rd, 2010
Lawyers & Settlements
By LucyC
June 2, 2010
A new study out yesterday—June 1, 2010—has revealed a higher rate of miscarriages in women who were taking antidepressants during pregnancy. How much higher? Sixty-eight percent—yes —that’s 68%—higher. Frankly, that is nothing short of shocking.
Published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal, the study was done in Canada through the University of Montreal. FYI—This was no small study either—the investigators used data from 5,124 women who are part of a large, population-based study of pregnant women who had clinically verified miscarriages, and a large sample of women from the same registry who did not have a miscarriage. Among the women who miscarried, 284 or 5.5 percent, had taken antidepressants during their pregnancy.
In fact the findings are so robust that the physicians who did the study are suggesting that this is a class effect—in other words the effect could be attributed to all selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors—or SSRIs. Here’s what’s being reported in the press:
“These results, which suggest an overall class effect of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, are highly robust given the large number of users studied,” the study’s senior author, Dr. Anick Berard, said in a statement. (UPI.com)
The antidepressants that showed a particular association with miscarriage in the study were paroxetine (trade names: Seroxat and Paxil) and venlafaxine (trade names: Effexor, Efexor, Alventa, Argofan, Trevilor). The investigators also found that the risk of miscarriage doubled with a combination of different antidepressants.
Just for the record, the antidepressants “investigated” in the University of Montreal study are serotonin reuptake inhibitors (citalopram, fluoxetine, fluvoxa-mine, paroxetine and sertraline); tricyclic antidepressants (ami-triptyline, clomipramine, desipramine, doxepin, imipramine, nortriptyline, trimipramine), serotonin– norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors (venlafaxine) and “other antidepressants” (serotonin modulators, monoamine oxidase inhibitors, tetracyclic piperazino-azepines, and dopamine and norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors).
This study is just the latest to show an association between, well, for lack of a better term let’s say “serious adverse events” and SSRIs and SNRIs in particular.
Read entire article: http://www.lawyersandsettlements.com/blog/mom-alert-would-you-want-a-68-higher-risk-of-miscarriage-03819.html
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Tags: Alventa, ami-triptyline, antidepressants, Argofan, Canadian Medical Association Journal, citalopram, clomipramine, depression, desipramine, dopamine, doxepin, effexor, expectant mothers, Fetus, fluoxetine, fluvoxa-mine, imipramine, increased risk, miscarriage, monoamine oxidase inhibitors, mothers, norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors, nortriptyline, paroxetine, Paxil, Pregnancy, pregnant women, prescriptions, psychiatric drugs, risks, Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors, serious adverse events, serotonin modulators, Seroxat, sertraline, SSRIs, tetracyclic piperazino-azepines, Trevilor, tricyclic antidepressants, trimipramine, University of Montreal, venlafaxine
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Monday, May 17th, 2010
The Daily Mail
By Jo MacFarlane
May 16, 2010
Women who use antidepressants while pregnant are being warned by health chiefs about the risks to their unborn child.
The Government’s medicines watchdog advised doctors there is an increased risk that babies will be born with a rare lung condition if expectant mothers take drugs such as Prozac and Seroxat.
The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) is recommending they are monitored more carefully because of the risk of developing persistent pulmonary hypertension after birth.
The condition normally affects up to two in 1,000 births – but the latest research suggests the risk is more than doubled in women taking antidepressants, affecting five in 1,000 births. The life-threatening condition means infants do not adapt to breathing outside of the womb.
The risk is greater if the medicines known as SSRIs – a new generation of depression wonder drugs – are taken later in the pregnancy.
The warning comes five years after studies first showed there may be a link between the drugs and birth defects. The MHRA advised doctors not to prescribe the drugs to pregnant women unless necessary.
However, it was revealed last year that GPs were still prescribing them to women considering becoming pregnant.
Read entire article: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1278675/Pregnant-women-warned-antidepressants-danger-unborn-child.html?ito=feeds-newsxml
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Tags: antidepressants, babies, birth defects, depression, expectant mothers, infants, lung defects, Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency, MHRA, persistent pulmonary hypertension, PPHN, pregnant women, prozac, psychiatric drugs, risks, Seroxat, SSRIs, unborn child
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Thursday, April 29th, 2010
Lawyers & Settlements
By Heidi Turner
April 28, 2010
London, England: 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. According to the safety update, the risk is similar to that posed by paroxetine (Paxil/Seroxat).
The MHRA notes that an analysis of data from seven cohort studies found a slightly increased risk of congenital cardiac defects when fluoxetine was taken early in pregnancy. Those cardiac defects reportedly varied and ranged in severity from reversible ventricular septal defects to transposition of the great vessels. The safety update notes that the increased absolute risk is less than two per 100 pregnancies.
Prozac is an antidepressant classed as a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI). The MHRA says that there is not enough data to conclude that other SSRIs carry the same risk, but it is unwilling to rule out the possibility of a “class effect,” meaning other drugs in the same class may carry the same risks.
The agency also says that the risk of giving birth to an infant with congenital cardiac defects should be weighed against the risks of having untreated depression during pregnancy, which carries its own risks, including low birth weight, preterm delivery and lower Apgar scores.
Read entire article: http://www.lawyersandsettlements.com/articles/14025/interview-ssri-birth-defects-side-effects-pphn.html
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Tags: Antidepressant, birth defects, congenital cardiac defects, first trimester, fluoxetine, low birth weight, lower Apgar scores, Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency, MHRA, mothers, paroxetine, Paxil, Pregnancy, preterm delivery, prozac, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor, Seroxat, side effects, ssri, ventricular septal defects
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Tuesday, January 12th, 2010
Jane Feinmann
The Daily Mail
January 12, 2010
Just a few years ago, Yasmin Miller would have been horrified by the suggestion she might take antidepressants for the rest of her life. But today, the 37-year-old can barely imagine a future without this daily chemical boost.
Yasmin’s ‘perfect’ life as a corporate tax adviser was shattered when, in 2003, she developed severe depression. Although incapacitated by the illness, she needed convincing that a pill could make a difference.
‘I was gobsmacked when my GP suggested antidepressants, because I thought they were addictive,’ she recalls. ‘But now I’ve changed my mind: depression is just like epilepsy or diabetes or any other illness where you need to take a daily pill for life in order to stay healthy.’
Just 20 years after the launch of the ‘sunshine drug’ Prozac, Yasmin is one of hundreds of thousands of young women who can’t imagine life without antidepressants.
But some experts are warning of disturbing parallels with the ‘mother’s little helper’ scandal of the Seventies and Eighties, when thousands of women became addicted to widely prescribed tranquillisers, including Valium.
Read entire article: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1242502/Hooked-happy-pills-Internal-bleeding-Strokes-Birth-defects-The-long-term-effects-antidepressants-terrifying.html
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Tags: anti-depressants, antidepressants, birth defects, David Healy, internal bleeding, Paxil, prozac, Seroxat, SSRIs, stroke, Zoloft
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Monday, August 10th, 2009
David Healy
guardian.co.uk
August 8, 2009
Adverse effects of widely-prescribed drugs are often overlooked because there is so little truly independent academic evidence
Since 2005, the SSRI paroxetine, first marketed by GlaxoSmithKline as Seroxat, has carried warnings of risk of birth defects. In the US litigation in which I have been asked to give evidence, the plaintives will argue that, even before they were launched, there was good laboratory evidence that the SSRIs might cause problems, and, following their initial marketing, evidence emerged over a decade ago from clinical use that the drugs actually do cause problems.
Yet these drugs have been actively promoted, de facto primarily to women of child-bearing years. How could this happen?
Part of the problem is that having gone to their GP with a nervous problem, many women become dependent on a prescribed SSRI and find it impossible to stop using it whether they wish to get pregnant or if they find they are pregnant while on treatment. But few, if any, of these women will have been informed of either the risk of birth defects or the risk of becoming addicted. Why not?
What we are seeing here is the astonishing marketing power of pharmaceutical companies, which can now effect huge changes in medical culture within months. In this case, a great part of the scientific literature (the primary marketing tool of companies) on the use of antidepressants in pregnancy and on dependence on antidepressants is ghostwritten – just as virtually all literature on giving antidepressants to children was, at one point, company-written.
Read entire article: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/aug/08/seroxat-pharmaceutical-birth-defect
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Tags: antidepressants, birth defects, FDA MHRA, ghostwritten, Marketing, paroxetine, pharmaceutical companies, Seroxat, ssri
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Saturday, August 8th, 2009
Sophie Borland
Daily Mail
August 8, 2009
GPs are still prescribing an antidepressant known to cause birth defects in unborn children to thousands of women every year, it emerged last night.
Pills such as Seroxat may result in babies being born with malformed hearts if taken in the first few weeks of pregnancy – a time when many women are still unaware they may have conceived.
Several scientific studies have suggested that the class of drugs known as SSRIs, which also includes Prozac, could double the rate of birth defects.
Seroxat is believed to be prescribed to 4 million people in Britain a year and it has been particularly marketed towards women as a drug to relieve anxiety and depression.
But both the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Authority (MHRA) and the National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE) watchdogs have warned of the drug’s potential dangers and urged GPs not to prescribe them to pregnant women unless completely necessary.
Last night leading doctors warned that the pills were still being routinely handed out to mothers-to-be and women of a childbearing age without warning of the risks.
Read entire article: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1205149/GPs-handing-antidepressants-linked-birth-defects.html
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Tags: antidepressants, birth defects, pregnant women, Seroxat, SSRIs
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Friday, August 7th, 2009
Sarah Boseley
The Guardian
August 7, 2009
US courts to hear claims that insufficient attention was paid to dangers to foetus
Since the horror of the Thalidomide scandal in the 1960s, pharmaceutical companies and medicines regulators have been acutely aware of the dangers drugs may pose to the unborn child.
Establishing what the effect of a drug may be on a foetus, however, is no simple task. Companies must rely on animal studies in the early stages of research and hope that the drug will behave in humans in the same way. Trials on pregnant women are rarely carried out, for obvious reasons.
Depression and anxiety became big business for the pharmaceutical industry in the 1990s as doctors became better at diagnosing the problems, exposing a population of over-achieving, highly-stressed, worried-well.
Women, always more willing to see a doctor than men, were a large proportion of those diagnosed and put on SSRIs (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors) such as Prozac and the British drug Seroxat, known as Paxil in the US. For a while, these seemed to be the new miracle drugs. They were safer than older antidepressants because the severely depressed could not overdose on them.
But in court cases about to begin in the US, it will be argued that insufficient attention was paid to the possible dangers for young women who were pregnant or might become pregnant and more particularly, for their babies.
Read entire article: http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2009/aug/07/antidepressants-drugs-health-risk
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Tags: antidepressants, birth defects, foetus, pregnant women, prozac, Seroxat, SSRIs
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We spend more than £250 m a year on antidepressants in the UK – and it’s a complete waste of money.
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