Wednesday, February 1, 2012

Experts Want Suicide Risk Warning on ADHD Drug


Like we don’t have enough to be concerned about as we navigate this world of the unknown with our kids….


GAITHERSBURG, Maryland (Reuters) - Children who take a common drug for attention deficit disorder should be warned about the risk of suicidal thoughts, U.S. pediatric health advisers said on Monday.
Several members of an advisory committee to the Food and Drug Administration asked the agency to change the label for Focalin, an attention deficit medicine made by Swiss drugmaker Novartis AG, to reflect this risk. The drug is approved for children aged 6 or older.
The FDA often follows the advice of its committees, although it is not required to.
The FDA said it received eight reports of suicidal thoughts for children or adolescents who took the drug over the past six years, and four of the cases appeared to be linked to the medicine. The link for the remaining cases was less clear.
"The suicidal ideation seems to be pretty serious," said Dr. Sheldon Kaplan, panel member and chief of infectious diseases at Texas Children's Hospital.  Read more:

Experts want suicide risk warning on ADHD drug - Yahoo! News
GAITHERSBURG, Maryland (Reuters) - Children who take a common drug for attention deficit disorder should be warned about the risk of suicidal thoughts... More


2 comments:

  1. This is the drug my son has been on since Mid Nov or Dec.. He started off on a low dose, and it was sort of rough going the first week, but then until a few weeks ago, he was doing pretty great. We felt it was time to adjust his dose, so yesterday he started the next dose up, and I tell you, I have seen a glimpse of the behavior I saw yesterday, but honestly, yesterday was one of the lowest points- the kid sitting there was really unrecognizable. I called the Dr and he has now taken him off of this medication and we're trying something different today. But I'm keeping him home- we thought about possibly the rest of the week, but for today, he's doing his school work here.

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  2. Thank you for sharing and bringing this really critical info to me :)

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