Abstract

Regulatory agencies in the United Kingdom and United States have been critically examining the possible link between suicidality and antidepressant use in children and adults, which has resulted in an FDA directive to the manufacturers of all antidepressant medications to add a 'black box' warning that describes the increased risk of suicidal behaviour in children and adolescents who take antidepressants. A crucial issue in this debate, as we discuss here, is the assessment of the capacity of antidepressants to increase suicidality over and above what is caused by the underlying disorder, major depression, which is itself the principal cause of suicide.

Author affiliations

1. Julio Licinio and Ma-Li Wong are at the Center for Pharmacogenomics and Clinical Pharmacology, Neuropsychiatric Institute and David Geffen School of Medicine, University of California, Los Angeles, 3557A Gonda (Goldschmied) Genetics and Neuroscience Research Center, 695 Charles Young Drive South, Los Angeles, California 90095-1761, USA.

Correspondence to: Julio Licinio¹ Email: licinio@ucla.edu

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