Date: Tue, 11 Apr 2000 23:47:08 -0700

Prozac Backlash Long-Term Consequences for Taking Antidepressants Are Virtually Unknown

An ABCNEWS survey has found that one out of every eight adults has taken an antidepressant such as Prozac.

(ABCNEWS.com)

By Kevin Newman

April 10

It is a rapidly growing dependency.

Antidepressants have become the most widely used drugs in America today.

ABCNEWS recently completed a major survey of antidepressant use in America. It revealed that one out of every eight adults has taken a antidepressant in the past ten years and a staggering three-and-a-half billion doses of a new-generation of drugs, called SSRIís, were consumed in 1999 -- enough tiny pills to fill a two-story home. It gives new weight to the term Prozac Nation.

Pick any corner in America and you will find someone who says the antidepressants have helped. But no one knows exactly how. All scientists can say is that they boost a chemical in the brain associated with peace of mind. Now these drugs designed treat cases of acute depression seem to help with an ever-widening list of disorders.

"For obsessive-compulsive disorder, for panic disorder, for social phobia, for generalized anxiety, for bulimia," lists Dr. Eric Hollander of Mount Sinai Hospital. "And lately, for party-goers."

America, in short, is becoming very comfortable with seeking medication. So comfortable that our poll found almost half of Americans using antidepressants are staying on them longer than a year, which is a gamble.

"We don't know the exact magnitude or types of adverse long-term affects that could occur if you take these drugs for long periods of time," says Dr. Cynthia Mulrow of Health and Human Services. New Side Effects ObservedThatís because the original clinical trials for these drugs lasted between 6 and 12 weeks. They found relatively mild side effects, such as insomnia and nausea. Since then, doctors have noticed others. Withdrawal from the drugs is more severe than first believed, and in many patients, the pills diminish sex drive.

"I would say in this class of medicines, perhaps 20 percent of individuals may have sexual side effects," says Hollander, "so itís not insignificant."

Yet the drug companyís trials said it was insignificant, occurring in less than 1 percent of people. The trouble is no one can say for sure what is happening because long-term studies are rare and the government doesn't insist on them.

"There is no research conducted in this country on any large scale by people who are skeptical about the drug because they can't get any funding," says Peter Breggin, the author of Your Drug May Be Your Problem.

Drug companies pay for most studies, but only one we asked, Celexa, could point to a long-term safety study ó a small one European done in Europe. The rest provided other studies suggesting people stay on the drugs longer to avoid getting depressed again, even for life, in serious cases.

"We really need some data to look at multiyear effects to have a better way of assessing long term problems," says Allan Tassman, the president of the American Psychiatric Association. Our poll found 72 percent of patients using the drugs believed those long-term studies have been conducted. They are wrong. So in unprecedented numbers, Americans are growing reliant on a medication that seems to help, but whose long-term consequences are not really known.