Drugs used to treat teenagers who have been diagnosed with internet addiction and depression are placed on a table at Daxing Internet Addiction Treatment Center in Beijing February 22, 2014.
IN PHOTO: Drugs used to treat teenagers who have been diagnosed with internet addiction and depression are placed on a table at Daxing Internet Addiction Treatment Center in Beijing February 22, 2014. As growing numbers of young people in China immerse themselves in the cyber world, spending hours playing games online, worried parents are increasingly turning to boot camps to crush addiction. Military-style boot camps, designed to wean young people off their addiction to the internet, number as many as 250 in China alone. Picture taken February 22, 2014. REUTERS/Kim Kyung-Hoon

Antidepressant medication, taken by millions of people globally, was found to have links with birth defect when the pills are ingested by pregnant women. A new study about the class of antidepressant drugs also known as SSRIs, or Selective Serotinin Reuptake Inhibitors, linked birth defects with two specific brands - Prosac and Paxil.

Reuters reports, however, that other popular brands such as Celexa, Lexapro and Zoloft were cleared. Zoloft, made by pharmaceutical giant Pfizer, is the subject of a major lawsuit over charges of birth defect.

The questions about the safety of antidepressants led the US Food and Drug Administration to issue in 2005 a safety warming for pregnant women taking these treatments. The new study, published on Wednesday in the British Medical Journal, was conducted by the US Centers for Disaster Control and Prevention, Boston University and University of British Columbia to verify if all or only select antidepressants place fetuses at risk of birth defects.

The research had 28,000 female respondents who were asked if they took the five antidepressant brands from one month before they conceived through the third month of pregnancy and then analysed their children if they had birth defects. Only Prozac and Paxil, with generic names paroxetine and fluoxetine, were linked to birth defects, while the three were cleared.

Birth defects such as misshaped skull, intestines protruding outside the body and missing brain and skull parts were found to occur 2 to 3.5 times more frequently for women who took Prozac and Paxil. But the risks were still small at two and seven cases, respectively, of anencephaly, or the protrusion of intestines, for every 10,000.

The findings are reminders for women to always consult their doctors before taking any medication, especially during pregnancy. Dr Cynthis Gyamfi-Bannerman, associate professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Columbia University Medical College, explains, “Pregnancy itself predisposes women to become depressed … For most women it turns out the risk of taking the medication is much lower than the benefits to both them and the developing baby.”

Prozac maker Eli Lilly points out that its drug undergo strict safety evaluations before it is released and it completed a significant body of research on Prozac. Paxil manufacturer GlaxoSmithKline said the drug carries a warning that doctors must counsel their patients on the risks involved in taking the antidepressant medication.

To contact the writer, email: vittoriohernandez@yahoo.com

RELATED STORIES