DEPRESSION

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By Gailon Totheroh
CBN News Science & Medical Reporter

April 20, 2004

The FDA estimates that sales of anti-depressant drugs in the United States
increased from 14 million prescriptions in 1992 to 157 million in 2002.
 

CBN.com - (CBN News) - Five years ago, two boys plotted and carried out what
would become the nation's deadliest school shooting. Today, questions still
remain as to why Columbine happened.

Some experts say prescription drugs are a main factor. Anti-depressants that
are supposed to help people cope with depression may have played a role in
triggering a Columbine killer.
April 20, 1999, is a day Mark Taylor will never forget. That was the day
Mark was hit by more than a dozen rounds fired by gunman Eric Harris at
Columbine High School. Taylor just barely survived the rampage in which
Harris and fellow student Dylan Klebold carried out the nation's deadliest
school shooting, killing 12 students and a teacher, before shooting
themselves.

Taylor said, "I think of it every single day."

Five years later, questions remain as to why they did it. Taylor's convinced
it has to do with anti-depressants called SSRI's, short for the scientific
name, Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors.

Harris was on one of them. Autopsy reports show he had the anti-depressant
Luvox in his system at the time of the Columbine shootings. Harris had been
taking the drug since early 1998. And just three months before the Columbine
killings, his dose was doubled.

Taylor thinks Luvox triggered Harris' attack on Columbine, and is now on a
crusade to ban it and others like it.

SSRI anti-depressants hit the headlines in March, when the Food and Drug
Administration issued a health advisory on 10 popular types. With more than
150 million prescriptions written in the U.S. alone, the names are quite
familiar: Prozac, Paxil, Zoloft, Effexor, Celexa, Remeron, Lexapro, Luvox,
Serzone and Wellbutrin.

But the FDA is now concerned about clinical trials, where some patients
taking the drugs demonstrated increased hostility and more suicidal
thoughts.

Dr. Ann Tracey, the director of the International Coalition for Drug
Awareness, says, "I think these drugs are far too deadly to remain on the
market." She says the way SSRI's work makes them deadly: they regulate a
chemical in the brain called Serotonin, a neurotransmitter that plays a role
in mood and behavior.

Infamous crimes have been committed by people on SSRI's. Andrea Yates,
convicted of killing her children in Texas, was on Effexor.
Nineteen-year-old Corey Baadsgaard had just increased his dose of the SSRI
Zoloft when he walked into his high school carrying a loaded rifle.

Baadsgaard said, "I was getting pretty low, like rock bottom. You know?
Suicide was the constant thought I was having."

In early February, FDA advisors discussed concerns about the unknown effects
of the drugs on children and the fear that some antidepressants may increase
suicidal tendencies. Advisors told the FDA that the use of antidepressants
by children and teenagers is skyrocketing, despite lack of evidence that
they alleviate depression and for some, may even make it worse. FDA
officials responded by asking manufacturers to place bolder warning labels
on the drugs.

Dr. Aradhana Sood is a leading researcher on the effects of SSRI's and other
mood-altering medications on children. She is the chairman of Child and
Adolescent Psychiatry at Virginia Commonwealth University, and Medical
Director for the Virginia Treatment Center for Children in Richmond,
Virginia.

Dr. Sood said, "I feel that we have known for at least a decade that SSRI's
do cause what is called a hypo-manic disenhibition, meaning in certain
children they will produce a heightened sense of impulsiveness."

But unlike Taylor, Dr. Sood says the problem is not the medication, but the
physicians prescribing them.

"There is a wide variety of people who are, and I don't want to be
patronizing, but who are not trained adequately in child psychiatry," said
Dr. Sood, "who are now prescribing anti-depressants a great deal and who do
not realize the risk that that carries. They might think that because the
child is getting more irritable, the depression is increasing, so they
increase the medication, which makes it even worse."

In 2002, the FDA estimates that doctors wrote a record number of
anti-depressant prescriptions for children under 18, about 11 million.
Nearly three million of those prescriptions were for children 11 and under.
Overall, the FDA estimates that sales of anti-depressant drugs in the United
States increased from 14 million prescriptions in 1992 to 157 million in
2002.

Dr. Tracey said, "I find more that doctors are actually encouraging and
pushing, putting lots of pressure on parents to medicate their children."

The government has been reviewing the safety of antidepressants since last
summer. The FDA's counterpart in Britain first sounded the alarm last year,
when it banned all SSRI's except Prozac for patients under 18.

Taylor says he hopes the U.S. will eventually do the same. But until then,
he will be working toward that goal. "This is a mission that I can't stop,"
he said. "I want to stop it. I mean, I want to get on with my own life, but
it's just too important."

And while Dr. Sood believes the drugs work in helping children overcome
major depressive disorders, she does take the decision to place a child on
antidepressants seriously.

Sood said, "The decision to be put on medication is a very important one.
It's what's going to effect their life for a long period of time, because
this isn't an antibiotic."

Until the questions about SSRI's are settled, FDA officials say parents with
kids who are taking them need to watch for symptoms of agitation, anxiety
and hostility, signs that their children may be heading for trouble.

Maranatha,
David
www.soundanalarm.net