Healthy Skepticism Library item: 16007

Warning: This library includes all items relevant to health product marketing that we are aware of regardless of quality. Often we do not agree with all or part of the contents.

Publication type: news

SSRI use in children blasted
Pharmacy Daily (Australia) - registration required 2009 Jul 23
http://www.pharmacydaily.com.au

Full text:

A PUBLIC lecture at Charles Sturt Univiersity in Bathurst today is set to reignite the controversy about the use of Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors (SSRIs) such as Paxil (paroxetine) in children.

Visiting academic Dr Paul Duckett, who’s a community critical psychologist at CSU’s School of Social Sciences, will speak on how, in his view, the political system, the medical profession and the university sector in the UK “have colluded with the pharmaceutical industry to promote shareholder profits at the expense of public health.”

He said that efforts in the UK to secure social justice and support for people allegedly harmed by the “psycho-pharmaceutical industry” have implications for many Australian families.

According to Dr Duckett, last year more than 4000 Australian children aged less than 10 were prescribed Paxil and other SSRI medications.

He said the widespread use of SSRIs in children come deapite findings in 2003 that Paxil’s manufacturer, GlaxoSmithKline, “withheld clinical trial data for at least five years that showed the
drug was clinically ineffective and increased the risk of suicide in children and adolescents.”