Side Effects

There’s an interesting February 11, 2014, article on Peter Breggin’s website: $1.5 Million Award in Child Tardive Dyskinesia Malpractice. Thanks to Mad in America for the link. Here’s the opening paragraph: "On February 11, 2014 a Chicago jury awarded $1.5 million to an autistic child who developed a severe case of tardive dyskinesia and tardive akathisia while being treated by psychiatrists with Risperdal and then Zyprexa between 2002 and 2007. The drug-induced disorder was diagnosed when he was fifteen years old and by then had become disabling and irreversible." ...

There’s a new study in the January 2014 issue of the BMJ: Grigoriadis et al, Prenatal exposure to antidepressants and persistent pulmonary hypertension of the newborn: systematic review and meta-analysis. Thanks to Nanu Grewal for the link. PPHN is a relatively rare condition. The authors report that the estimated prevalence is about 1.9 per 1000 live births. The disease is essentially a failure of the newborn’s circulatory system to switch from oxygen supply via the placental blood, to oxygen supply via the baby’s own lungs. The condition is usually diagnosed at birth or shortly thereafter. Symptoms include: rapid and difficult breathing, fast heart rate, and blue skin color. PPHN is a serious condition. A 2010 article by Robin Steinhorn, MD, states: ...

On September 25, PsychCentral ran an article on this topic. The article was a commentary on a 2013 meta-analysis conducted by Katharine Barnard, PhD, et al of the University of Southamptom, UK. The meta-analysis examined three systemic reviews and 22 studies. RESULTS "There was evidence that antidepressant use is associated with type 2 diabetes. Causality is not established, but rather, the picture is confused, with some antidepressants linked to worsening glucose control, particularly with higher doses and longer duration, others linked with improved control, and yet more with mixed results. The more recent, larger studies, however, suggest a modest effect." ...

There’s an interesting article on this topic by Hans Jensen et al, in the February 21, 2013 issue of the British Journal of Psychiatry. You can see an abstract here. The authors conducted a register study on all pregnant women in Denmark from 1996 to 2006, linking data from the Medical Birth Register, the Psychiatric Central Register, and the National Prescription Database. They found that the "… use of SSRIs during pregnancy increases the risk of a low Apgar score independently of maternal depression." ...