- Deaths involving overdoses of antidepressants such as
Prozac and Seroxat have more than doubled in five years.
-
- Doctors and mental health campaigners warned that
over-prescribing,
coupled with a lack of accurate research into their risks, was fuelling
the rise in the number of people who have committed suicide as a result
of taking pills which are supposed to alleviate depression.
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- More than 3.5 million people in Britain received 20
million
prescriptions for selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) last
year. But concerns about the safety of the drugs have increased after
reports
that some patients who only suffered from mild depression had committed
suicide within days or weeks of being prescribed the pills.
-
- In 1999, 38 people died as a result of SSRI overdoses,
according to Health Statistics Quarterly, published yesterday by the Office
for National Statistics (ONS). By 2003, this had more than doubled to
81.
-
- Because one of the advantages of SSRIs is their low
toxicity
level, most of these deaths are considered to be deliberate overdoses.
Still more people - at least eight in the UK in the past two years - have
killed themselves by other means, such as hanging, after being prescribed
the SSRIs.
-
- The government-run Medicines and Healthcare products
Regulatory Agency (MHRA), ruled last December that, for adults, the
benefits
of SSRIs outweighed the risks. But the controversy has highlighted how
doctors, patients and regulators such as the MHRA are reliant on
information
supplied by the drugs companies making the drugs.
-
- GlaxoSmithKline, which makes Seroxat, is under
investigation
for withholding safety data on the drug and only publishing favourable
results from clinical trials.
-
- Richard Brook, chief executive of the mental health
charity
Mind, said: "I think these figures are very worrying ... the way in
which SSRIs contribute to suicides has yet to be understood. We haven't
got all the data because we haven't had proper follow-up studies,
post-licensing
procedures are poor and, most of all, we still have to rely on the drugs
companies to supply the data, whose record on this issue is
deplorable."
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- ©2005 Independent News & Media (UK) Ltd.
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- http://news.independent.co.uk
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