Report on the Escalating International Warnings on Psychiatric Drugs

Source: Citizens Commission on Human Rights


In 1990, the Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR) asked American psychiatrists and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), to issue warnings about the latest psychiatric drug causing violence and suicide: the antidepressant Prozac. CCHR filed complaints and provided evidence. In response, on September 20, 1991, the FDA ordered an advisory committee to hold a hearing to investigate the safety and effectiveness of antidepressant drugs. A panel of nine
psychiatrists, many with financial ties to pharmaceutical companies, heard chilling testimony from medical experts as well as the victims of these drugs—and did nothing.

It wasn’t until 13 years later, on October 15, 2004, that the FDA finally ordered pharmaceutical companies to add a “black box” warning to antidepressants, saying the drugs could cause suicidal thoughts and actions in children and teenagers. It took nine months for the FDA to issue another advisory warning doctors to watch for suicidal behavior in adults taking antidepressants.

The FDA advisories vindicated CCHR’s allegations and patient and family testimony in 1991. However millions of men, women and children were needlessly subjected to dangerous drugs for more than a decade. Now, with controversy growing over the previously undisclosed dangers of psychiatric drugs, international warnings are being issued at escalating rates, citing side effects of drug dependence, addiction, mania, hostility, aggression, psychosis, suicide and violence.

Download the report here