A new study has found that suicide rates among young people have increased as the use of antidepressants has decreased, according to a report in the Washington Post.
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From 2003 to 2004, the suicide rate among Americans younger than 19 rose 14 percent, the most dramatic one-year change since the government started collecting suicide statistics in 1979, the study found.
The rise followed a sharp decrease in the prescribing of antidepressants such as Prozac, Zoloft and Paxil after parents and physicians were confronted by a barrage of warnings from the Food and Drug Administration and international agencies, the Post reports.
"We may have inadvertently created a problem by putting a 'black box' warning on medications that were useful," said Thomas Insel, director of the National Institute of Mental Health.
"If the drugs were doing more harm than good, then the reduction in prescription rates should mean the risk of suicide should go way down, and it hasn't gone down at all — it has gone up,” said Insel.
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