Experts to FDA: Don't Change Antidepressant Labels

Dec. 13, 2006 — -- In the debate over labeling for antidepressant drugs, mental health experts are imploring the Food and Drug Administration to refrain from requiring additional package warnings about the risk of suicide in adults.

Federal health officials are planning to add the additional warnings after determining that the use of the drugs may increase the risk of suicidal thoughts and behaviors in young adults.

However, experts said they fear that the additional labeling could scare off patients from the drugs, putting them at an increased risk of taking their own lives.

The American Psychiatric Association estimates that 16 million Americans are on antidepressants at any given time. Currently, all antidepressants bear a so-called "black-box" warning indicating an increased risk of suicidal thinking and behavior in children and adolescents.

Experts said extending this warning to adults could have unintended consequences.

"Patients will be frightened off appropriate treatment," said Dr. Alex Vuckovic, medical director of The Pavilion at McLean Hospital in Belmont, Mass. "It's already happening to child [psychiatrists] and their patients."

"These drugs save lives -- end of story, no ambiguity," he said.

At an FDA hearing today in Silver Spring, Md., the federal agency heard opinions from both mental health experts -- most of whom opposed the new labeling -- and distraught family members of patients who committed suicide who said they believe antidepressant drugs played a key role.

"There are a tremendous amount of unbelievably heart-wrenching, compelling -- but ultimately anecdotal -- stories," said Kelly Posner, an assistant professor of child psychiatry at Columbia University who was commissioned by the FDA to assess the connection between the medications and suicide risk.

"A bunch of people heading mental health and consumer advocacy groups have been getting up and talking desperately, saying, 'please, don't increase this loss of life that we're already beginning to see,'" she said.

"We're unfortunately at the beginning of a suicide epidemic, perhaps."