Youth suicides rise as antidepressant use diminishes

A disturbing, new study... shows a sharp jump in the number of young Americans committing suicide. Almost 2,000 young people age 19 and under killed themselves in 2004. That's an increase of more than 18 percent in the rate of teen suicide from the year before. . . The alarming, new suicide figures have some child psychiatrists worried that these black box warning labels on antidepressants may be keeping them from getting to the children that need them the most. After a decade of steady decline, teen suicides spiked sharply in 2004 -- the very same year that the FDA man mandated that the antidepressants come with warning labels, about a possible link to suicidal thoughts in adolescents and children. The warnings led to a 20-percent drop in antidepressant prescriptions for those under 18.

It's only one point of data with circumstantial association but it does seem to make sense and a lot of psychiatrists have been worried about this exact scenario. The question now becomes, will wacky parents swing the other way and demand antidepressants for their slightly mopey kids? If only the public could understand a message slightly more complicated than "pill = bad" or "pill = good".