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Injured by Celexa?

On December 13, 2006, the FDA announced antidepressants prescribed to young adults are risky. The agency proposed expanding the labels of all antidepressants to include an expanded warning of suicidal thoughts in patients ranging from 18-24 years of age. The newly presented change would expand a warning now on the labels that pertain only to children and adolescents treated with antidepressant drugs. The new label changes would also contain a suggestion that patients of all ages be carefully monitored, particularly when starting antidepressant treatment.

The FDA recently completed a bulk evaluation of 372 studies involving approximately 100,000 patients and 11 antidepressants, including Lexapro, Zoloft, Prozac and Paxil. When the results are analyzed by age, it becomes clear there is an elevated risk for suicidal thoughts and behavior among adults 18 to 25 that approaches that seen in children, the FDA said in documents released before their scheduled December 13, 2006 meeting of its psychopharmacologic drugs advisory committee.

In May 2006, GlaxoSmithKline and the FDA cautioned Paxil may raise the risk of suicidal behavior in young adults too and changed the drug’s label to reflect that risk.

Celexa, manufactured by Forest Pharmaceuticals, hit the U.S. market on July 17, 1998. Celexa is a SSRIs (Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors) a newer and more commonly prescribed antidepressant. Because the Food & Drug Administration (FDA) has not approved the use of Celexa for pediatric depression, Forest has been legally barred from promoting them for such uses. But doctors are allowed to prescribe drugs off-label where they see fit, and Celexa is the fourth most prescribed medication for pediatric depression.

On January 7, 2004, Forest Laboratories received a wide-ranging request from the New York Attorney General, Eliot Spitzer, asking for information about how the company tested and promoted drugs like its antidepressant Celexa for so-called off-label, or as yet unapproved, uses. Mr. Spitzer's action follows an article in The New York Times which disclosed that Forest did not tell a medical journal about a failed, unpublicized trial of Celexa in children and adolescents when it published an article this month about a positive trial of the same drug in the same types of patients. Some of the article's authors were Forest employees.

In addition to the aforementioned side effects associated with antidepressants, a new study has linked these drugs to an increased risk of death amongst patients with coronary artery disease. This study, which was conducted at Duke University, analyzed the survival rate of heart disease patients using antidepressants compared with those not using these drugs. 

During an average of three years of follow-up, 21.4% of the patients taking antidepressants died compared with 12.5% of those not on antidepressants. After adjusting for demographic factors, cardiac risk factors, scores on the Beck Depression Inventory test, and the presence of other illness, antidepressant use was an independent risk factor for mortality, increasing the risk by 62%.

Researchers do not fully understand why antidepressants increase the risk of mortality in these patients. However their findings are statistically significant and show that these drugs do increase the risk of death in heart disease patients. Current and former heart disease patients should weigh the risks and benefits of antidepressants before using these medications.

If you or a loved one took Celexa and suffered side effects, please fill out the form at the right for a free case evaluation by a qualified drug side effects attorney.