Kids' Antidepressant Concerns 'hushed'

[Tom]

Having read the following article I am beginning to wonder if cannabis would really be all that bad as a kids medicine after all. Could it possibly be worse than some of the other "legal" medicines we are shoving down their throats?

 

Kids' antidepressant concerns 'hushed'

April 23, 2004 - 12:51PM

 

 

Drug companies may have deliberately suppressed evidence that many antidepressants are unsuitable or even dangerous for children, it was claimed today.

 

Researchers uncovered data that raises serious doubts about prescribing the pills to children but was never made public.

 

Published studies indicated that benefits outweighed risks for all five drugs studied.

 

But the wider review showed this was true of only one, the leading brand Prozac.

 

The others at best were not proven to help children and at worst associated with an increased risk of suicide or suicidal thoughts.

 

Writing in The Lancet medical journal, the six psychiatrists and child health experts who carried out the research suggested that negative study data may have been deliberately withheld.

 

The researchers obtained information about unpublished trials from the Government's Committee for the Safety of Medicines, which has access to confidential data.

 

But every request for unpublished data from the pharmaceutical companies involved, met with a refusal.

 

More at source.