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NEWS ROUNDUP: Jeanne Lenzer Antidepressants double suicidality in children, says FDA BMJ 2006; 332: 626-c [Full text]

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Checking Ms. Lenzer's Claims Against the Relevant Literature: " Oops!"

James C. Coyne   (26 August 2006)

Checking Ms. Lenzer's Claims Against the Relevant Literature: " Oops!" 26 August 2006
James C. Coyne, Professor Department of Psychiatry, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA USA 19104 Send response to journal: Re: Checking Ms. Lenzer's Claims Against the Relevant Literature: " Oops!"	SD asked AF, 4.4.06 As is frequently the case, Ms. Lenzer’s claims about the scientific literature warrant comparisons with original sources. Her dramatic headline declares “Antidepressants double suicidality in children, says FDA”. Yet, the FDA has not contraindicated any antidepressant drug for pediatric use. How could that be? The original source for Ms. Lenzer’s headline, an article in the Archives of General Psychiatry states “Use of antidepressant drugs in pediatric patients is associated with a modestly increased risk of suicidality.” The article notes there was never a completed suicides among the approximately 4600 patients in the 24 trials evaluated in this study. It further states, “there are other pertinent data that seem inconsistent with a role for antidepressant drugs in inducing suicidality in pediatric patients” Ms. Lenzer goes on to state that “Irving Kirsch is one of only two researchers to have published reviews of antidepressants based on the FDA database” and invokes his claim that 80% of the response to antidepressants is shared with placebos. Irving Kirsh’s claims appear in a defunct internet source that is not indexed in Science Citations or Medline. In contrast, the other researcher who analyzed these data, A. Khan is not mentioned by name by Ms. Lenzer, but comes to a different conclusion in a Archives of General Psychiatry article that has been cited over 100 times. Why ignore this seemingly credible more source? What gives here? Competing interests: none