Youth Suicide Rates Study Deemed Dubious

A statistician is casting doubt on last week's claims that an increase in youth suicides in 2004 over 2003 could be tied to a decrease in prescriptions for anti-depressants due to a black box warning placed on the drugs by the FDA in the final quarter of 2004. According to a report in today's New York Times:

"[S]uicide rates for Americans ages 19 and under rose 14 percent in 2004, the number of prescriptions for antidepressants in that group was basically unchanged and did not drop substantially, according to data from the study. Prescription rates for minors did fall sharply a year later, but the suicide rates for 2005 are not yet available from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

"'There doesn’t seem to be any evidence of a statistically significant association between suicide rates and prescription rates provided in the paper' for the years after the F.D.A. warnings, said Thomas R. Ten Have, a professor of biostatistics at the University of Pennsylvania."

Actually, as I noted yesterday, preliminary 2005 suicide data just became available--it shows a decrease of about 3 percent that year--but, since it's preliminary, I can understand the reluctance of some to lean on it too hard. However, I've been following these stats for eight years and don't recall a later upward revision of more than one-tenth of 1 percent. Final 2005 data isn't due until next summer sometime.

All the same, I congratulate the paper's reporters, Alex Berenson and Ben Carey, for continuing to push on this important and controversial issue. And for the millionth time, let me point out that the data on suicides, suicidality and anti-depressant use is mixed.