9/17/2003 • Study Links Older Bipolar Drug to Fewer Suicides

Journal of the American Medical Association

The new study, published today in The Journal of the American Medical Association, found that patients taking Depakote were 2.7 times as likely to kill themselves as those taking lithium. Earlier studies by others had also found that lithium could prevent suicide, but today’s report is the first to compare suicide and attempted suicide rates in lithium and Depakote users. The study was based on medical records of 20,638 patients aged 14 and older in Washington State and California who were treated from 1994 to 2001.

9/1/2003 • A Systematic Chart Review of the Nature of Psychiatric Adverse Events in Children and Adolescents Treated with Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors

Journal of Child and Adolescent Psychopharmacology Volume: 13 Number: 2 Page: 143 — 152

Conclusion: Based on the retrospective review of medical charts, youth receiving SSRI appear to be at risk for treatment emergent PAE and recurrence with re-exposure to an SSRI. Prospective longer term studies evaluating the course and prognosis of youths manifesting PAE to SSRI are necessary.

8/21/2003 • Research challenges role of antidepressants

Drug and Therapeutics Bulletin (DTB)

The DTB said that most patients with mild depression fell below the threshold of severity used in clinical trials for antidepressants.

11/11/2002 • Genes play a part, but violence may be viral

Harvard Medical School

This interesting article states: "Those genes are found in nerve cells (or neurons) that produce the brain chemicals dopamine and serotonin. When active, the genes tell the neurons to pump more of the chemicals into the fly's nervous system. When the genes are turned off, dopamine and serotonin production falls off".

"Some flies are genetically engineered with a "gene switch" that depends on temperature. Turn up the heat, and you turn off the genes. In this case, Harvard researcher Selby Chen and collaborators engineered flies who fight away when the temperature is a pleasant 77 degrees Fahrenheit. But when the scientists heat up the lab to a toasty 86, the flies equipped with a genetic switch in the dopamine and serotonin neurons throw in the towel. (Ordinary flies are happy to keep on fighting in the heat.) The apparent implication is that dopamine and serotonin genes play an important role in aggressive violence".

11/5/2002 • Adolescent Drug Use Creates Long-Term Imbalance
Even commonly prescribed amphetamines may lead to addictive behavior.

Thomas Jefferson University
Philadelphia

Here is more evidence that there is significant brain alteration within brain cells in response to synthetic chemicals that change brain function in many unknown ways. Could these abnormal proteins that form in response to foreign chemicals that cross the blood brain barrier, be part of the mysterious amyloid deposits that are markers for Alzheimers Disease? An educated guess, from some observers who have noted a relationship between Alzheimer’s and people who have taken a lot of brain-altering drugs during their lifetimes, says yes. Has anybody else noticed such a connection? Until we have a long term study on that very question, the drug companies have to be up front and say that they don’t know if their particular synthetic chemical can cause Alzheimers or not. In the meantime, we should avoid taking their drugs until they can prove that they don’t have such long term adverse effects.

10/31/2002 • Ethyl-Eicosapentaenoate Could Be Effective In Persistent Depression

Archives of General Psychiatry, 2002; 59: 913-919

Ethyl-eicosapentaenoate at a dose of 1 gram per day could be effective in treating depression in patients with persistent illness after standard antidepressant therapy.

5/1/2002 • Timing of New Black Box Warnings and Withdrawals for Prescription Medications

Journal of the American Medical Association
JAMA. 2002;287:2215-2220

Serious ADRs commonly emerge after Food and Drug Administration approval. The safety of new agents cannot be known with certainty until a drug has been on the market for many years.

4/10/2002 • Effect of Hypericum perforatum (St John's Wort) in Major Depressive Disorder

JAMA Vol. 287 No. 14

This study fails to support the efficacy of H perforatum in moderately severe major depression. The result may be due to low assay sensitivity of the trial, but the complete absence of trends suggestive of efficacy for H perforatum is noteworthy.

4/9/2002 • Sugar pills offer more relief than St. John’s wort, Zoloft

NBC News

Even in severely depressed patients, the antidepressant drug, Zoloft, was no better than placebo.

3/26/2002 • Scientists find Prozac ‘link’ to brain tumours

Independent

Scientists have discovered that Prozac, the antidepressant taken by millions of people around the world, may stimulate the growth of brain tumours by blocking the body’s natural ability to kill cancer cells.

3/15/2002 • Rare Neurologic Syndrome Linked to Antidepressant

Psychiatric News March 15, 2002 Volume 37 Number 6, p. 31

Neurologists warn other clinicians that SSRIs could contribute to a potential increase in certain patients‚ risk of having a rare form of stroke.

2/28/2002 • Antidepressant drug trials turn away most of the depressed population

Brown University

While antidepressants are among the most frequently prescribed medications, most patients treated for major depression in a typical outpatient psychiatric practice would not qualify to take part in a clinical trial for a new antidepressant drug, according to a new Brown University study.

2/13/2002 • Psychiatrists shift the mood on antidepressants

Society-Guardian

The professional body for psychiatrists has conceded that antidepressant pills such as Prozac may only have a 50% success rate in treating depression.

2/7/2002 • Scandal of scientists who take money for papers ghostwritten by drug companies

Guardian

Scientists are accepting large sums of money from drug companies to put their names to articles endorsing new medicines that they have not written - a growing practice that some fear is putting scientific integrity in jeopardy.

2/6/2002 • Scientists Find Little, If Any, Proof Ritalin Is Effective

National Post - Canada 2-6-2

After a painstaking analysis of 62 studies of Ritalin treatment for attention deficit disorder, a team of Canadian researchers says it has found little scientific evidence the drug lives up to its reputation.

12/3/2001 • STUDIES ON RITALIN ARE CHILD ABUSE

NEW YORK POST

"They want to see how much these children can tolerate," said Vera Hassner Sharav, who heads the New York-based Alliance for Human Research Protection. "The research is absolutely child abuse."

11/12/2001 • Prozac triggers increase in aggression in mice

New Scientist

The anti-depressant Prozac causes a dramatic increase in aggressive behavior in mice the day after the drug is administered, US researchers have found.

6/10/2001 • SSRI treatment suppresses dream recall frequency but increases subjective dream intensity in normal subjects.

Laboratory of Neurophysiology, Department of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115, USA. edward_scott@hms.harvard.edu

The decrease in dream frequency during SSRI treatment may reflect serotonergic REM suppression while the augmented report length and bizarreness during acute SSRI discontinuation may reflect cholinergic rebound from serotonergic suppression.

9/1/1999 • Persistently increased density of serotonin transporters in the frontal cortex of rats treated with fluoxetine during early juvenile life.

J Child Adolesc Psychopharmacol 1999; 9(1); 13-24; discussion 25-6

This is the first empirical demonstration of long-lasting effects of the administration of a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor during juvenile life on the maturation of the central serotonergic system.

8/8/1999 • Antidepressant discontinuation-related mania: critical prospective observation and theoretical implications in bipolar disorder.

J Clin Psychiatry 1999 Aug 60(8); 563-7 quiz 568-9

These 6 cases suggest a paradoxical effect whereby antidepressant discontinuation actually induces mania in spite of adequate concomitant mood-stabilizing treatment. These preliminary observations, if replicated in larger and controlled prospective studies, suggest the need for further consideration of the potential biochemical mechanisms involved so that new preventive treatment approaches can be assessed.

6/1/1999 • Fluoxetine treatment of depression. Clinical effects, drug concentrations and monoamine metabolites and N-terminally extended substance P in cerebrospinal fluid.

Acta Psychiatr Scand 1989 Jun; 79(6); 586-96

During treatment the 5-HIAA concentration decreased by 46%.

9/1/1998 • Prenatal Exposure to Fluoxetine (Prozac) Produces Site-Specific and Age-Dependent Alterations in Brain Serotonin Transporters in Rat Progeny: Evidence from Autoradiographic Studies

Pharmacology; Vol. 286 Issue 3, 1474-1481, September 1998

The age-dependent and site-specific alterations in the density of 5-HT transporters suggests that either 5-HT innervation and/or 5-HT neuron function in various forebrain regions may be altered by prenatal exposure to fluoxetine.

2/17/1997 • Correlated reductions in cerebrospinal fluid 5-HIAA and MHPG concentrations after treatment with selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors.

J Clin Psychopharmacol 1997 Feb 17 1 11-4

Drug treatment, overall, was associated with significant decreases in 5-HIAA and MHPG and a trend toward a reduction in HVA levels. Levels of 5-HIAA, MHPG, and HVA were reduced by 57%, 48%, and 17%, respectively.

08/11/1996 • Mutant Mice May Hold Key To Human Violence--An ExcessOf Serotonin, A Chemical That Helps Regulate Mood And Mental Health, Causes Mayhem

Portland Press Herald

A Tg8 is born with its brain awash in an excess of serotonin, a neurotransmitter chemical that helps regulate mood and mental health, and [Jean Chen] Shih and her co-workers believe that that excess greatly contributes to the mouse's fierce temper.

7/23/1996 • Effect of acute and chronic fluoxetine on extracellular dopamine levels in the caudate-putamen and nucleus accumbens of rat.

Synapse 1996; Jul; 23 (3); 125-31

Extracellular levels of the 5-HT metabolite 5HIAA were consistently decreased at all doses of fluoxetine in both structures.

4/15/1993 • Cerebrospinal fluid monoamine metabolites in fluoxetine-treated patients with major depression and in healthy volunteers.

Biol Psychiatry 1993 Apr 15-May 1; 33 (8-9); 636-41

CSF 5-HIAA and MHPG decreased significantly... following fluoxetine treatment.

5/17/1975 • Fenfluramine in man: hypophagia associated with diminished serotonin turnover.

Clin Pharmacol Ther 1975 May 17(5) 616-21

The results support the contention that the effect of fenfluramine on human dietary intake may be mediated by alterations in serotonergic rather than dopaminergic mechanisms.