Kids and Adolescents

It is important that parents/carers understand that Antidepressants are not approved nor recommended for use in Children or adolescents under the age of 18yrs for the treatment of depression or anxiety.  Furthermore new guidelines issued by the FDA and adopted by the TGA advised they do not recommend their use in persons under 24yrs.  This was in response to the overwhelming amount of suicides and worsening depression in this age group whilst being treated with these drugs.

WARNING

Currently, there are no Antidepressants approved in Australia to treat children or adolescents with depressive symptoms, hence they are unlicensed drugs for these indications, as they is no scientific evidence to support their safety or efficacy in this age group.

These drugs are not approved or recommended for use in children or adolescents to treat depression or anxiety.  The numerous clinical trials that have been conducted for this age group have all resulted in evidence that assessed the risks outweighed the benefits.  These assessments are based on the risk v benefit scale used and adopted to assess common side effects by drug regulators.  

The most serious risk associated with these drugs are that they can provoke depression and suicidal behaviour as well as psychotic episodes.

Scenario...

A teenager experiencing depressive symptoms is treated with a drug that is neither approved nor recommended for this age group because the clinical trial data resulted in evidence that this type of treatment can result in worsening depression and/or provoking suicidal ideation and behaviour.

The scientific evidence confirmed that patients receiving this medication were 50% more likely to devleop these symptoms/reactions than those children receiving the placebo.

There are over 280,000 prescriptions written to Australian children every year including 4000 children under the age of ten, against our drug regulators recommendations.  But is seems this breach of practice is not considered important by our government who claim they are not in control of doctors prescribing standards. 

Currently the prescribing standards of doctors is governed and monitored by their own body, their own industry colleagues, this is unacceptable and needs to be addressed.  Doctors are simply people, not Gods, they need to be regulated just like any other profession, they are not immune to error and when this industry makes a mistake it can result in the death or serious injury to ourselves or our loved ones.