Antidepressants Lack Efficacy in Children

There was no need to wait for the FDA to conclude that most studies with children fail to display any antidepressant efficacy. The issue had been decided in the scientific literature years earlier, and additional confirmation was unfolding at the same time as the FDA hearings. 

I have observed for more than a decade (Breggin, 1991c, 1997a) that there is no scientific evidence that antidepressants are helpful for depressed children. But as a headline in Clinical Psychiatry News indicated a dozen years ago, Though Data Lacking, Antidepressants Used Widely in Children (Baker, 1995). 

Fisher and Fisher (1996) explored the ethical issues surrounding the use of antidepressants in children. They pointed out how published recommendations for the use of antidepressants fly in the face of data within the same publications. They observed, The prescribing of antidepressants for children clearly illustrates how a significant group of practitioners (child psychiatrists and pediatricians) can persist in using a procedure that is actually contradicted by research data and at the same time muster justifications for doing so (p. 101). 

A meta-analysis study by Whittington et al. (2004) in The Lancet found that the combination of published and unpublished studies led to the conclusion that with the possible exception of Prozac, there was no indication of efficacy for the antidepressant treatment of children. In addition, not noted in the article is the fact that the two key studies in favor of Prozac were supported by Eli Lilly, one directly and the other indirectly through funds funneled through NIMH,1 and that the lead author in both was Graham Emslie (Emslie et al., 2002, 1997). Emslie was task force cochair and second author of the ACNP s infamous defense of antidepressants. Emslie s industry affiliations included Grants/Research Support Eli Lilly, Novartis, 

Organon and Consultant/Speaker s Bureau Bristol-Myers Squibb, Eli Lilly, Forest Laboratories, GlaxoSmithKline, McNeil, Otsuka, Pfizer, Inc., and Wyeth-Ay erst.  

---