Black box

The New York Times reports today that the FDA will require drugmakers to add warnings to antidepressants that the drugs increase the risk of suicidal thoughts and behaviors in some young adults. Previously, the FDA ordered pharmaceutical companies to add a so-called black box warning to antidepressants saying that they increase the risk of "suicidality" in adolescents.

This is a subject of great interest to Carnegie Mellon Statistics Professor Joel Greenhouse, who has received a federal grant to investigate the link between antidepressants and suicidal thoughts and behaviors in adolescents. He has co-authored a study that suggests the FDA may have overstated the risk that antidepressants pose to adolescents.

You can read more here and here. Members of the media who wish to speak to Greenhouse should email me at jpotts@andrew.cmu.edu. 

Jonathan Potts