EU Agency Warns About Antidepressant Use in Children

[_TJ_]

April 25 (Bloomberg) -- GlaxoSmithKline Plc's Paxil, Eli Lilly & Co.'s Prozac and other antidepressants shouldn't be used to treat depression in children because of risk of suicide, European health regulators said.

The European Medicines Agency recommended that antidepressants not be used in children and teenagers except in their approved conditions such as obsessive compulsive disorder and attention deficit disorder, the agency said today in an e- mailed statement.

The EMEA said a year ago that children and adolescents shouldn't get Paxil because of potential for increased suicidal risks, and said in December that all depression medicines raised the same safety risk. The agency's latest recommendation extends the warning against use of all depression medicines in children, which also include Pfizer Inc.'s Zoloft and Celexa from Forest Laboratories Inc.'s and Lundbeck A/S.

``Suicide-related behavior and hostility were more frequently observed in clinical trials among children and adolescents treated with these antidepressants compared to those treated with a placebo,'' the European Medicines Agency said in an e-mailed statement.

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