Paxil is not a recommended Antidepressant, Especially for Adolescents

The same study that was used by the maker of Paxil to assert that it was safe and effective for teenagers was reanalyzed and found to show a lack of effectiveness.  The study is reported in yesterday’s New York Times online and the same arguments that come up around every retracted study came up in the newspaper piece, here.

The only argument that didn’t come up was the issue of the number of lives lost or destroyed because of the commercial interest by a large drug company in a me-too antidepressant that was designed to compete with Prozac.  In fact, as anyone who has taken Paxil can attest, it reliably causes abnormal hostile thoughts and sometimes can cause violent or suicidal actions, much in the same way as Prozac but worse.

The fact that multiple research projects needed to be undertaken to clarify the magnitude of this effect is a testament to the amount of money that the drug maker had already spent on developing Paxil when Phase III studies began to show adverse effects.