SSRI Makers Use Media To Reel In Pregnant Women as Customers

by Evelyn Pringle     

Big Pharma's regular use of the media as paid shills, masquerading as caring doctors while feeding the public misinformation about the risks of prescription drugs, is disturbing, to say the least. However, when the goal is to increase profits through the sale of drugs to pregnant women that are known to be harmful to the fetus, the media's participation is downright despicable.

Since June 27, 2007, nearly every major news outlet in the US has broadcast the story that two new studies published in the New England Journal of Medicine found a low risk of birth defects in babies born to women who took selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor antidepressants (SSRI's) during pregnancy.

SSRI's include Paxil by GlaxoSmithKline; Zoloft marketed by Pfizer; Prozac by Eli Lilly; Celexa and Lexapro from Forest Laboratories; Luvox by Solvay, and generic SSRI makers Barr Pharmaceuticals, Ranbaxy Labs and Genpharm.

On June 27, 2007, the headline that appeared in countless news outlets that run articles from the Associated Press stated: "Antidepressants Not Risky for Defects."

ABC News reported on June 29, 2007, "Antidepressants Safer Than Believed During Pregnancy,"

"Antidepressants not linked to birth defects," stated the internet headline for News-Medical.net, on July 5, 2007.

These headlines outraged experts knowledgeable about the true risks of birth defects, but none drew more outrage than the headline in a press release put out by the US Centers for Disease Control the day before the story broke which stated: "New Study Finds Few Risks of Birth Defects from Antidepressant Use During Pregnancy."

"The reassuring attitude promoted in the CDC's press release flew in the face of evidence linking SSRI exposure during pregnancy to increased birth defects, and the additional evidence of SSRI toxicity in the developing brain," says Dr Peter Breggin, author of The Antidepressant Fact Book and an expert on SSRIs.

"Women and their doctors who only catch the headlines created by these studies are being grossly misled," he advises. "SSRI's should never be used during pregnancy."

Dr Breggin notes that the CDC instructs pregnant women to speak to their doctors about the risks and benefits of taking SSRI's, but says, "doctors will have read the headlines inspired by the CDC and imagine there is little risk."

The paper, "Exposure to SSRI Antidepressants In Utero Causes Birth Defects, Neonatal Withdrawal Symptoms and Brain Damage," by Dr Breggin and Ginger Breggin, will be published in the upcoming issue of the Ethical Human Psychology and Psychiatry journal to refute the findings of the NEJM studies.

CDC Report and Media Coverage Misleading

The CDC claims the use of SSRI's during pregnancy is justified on the basis that depression has its own hazards. "But these hazards," Dr Breggin states, "pale in comparison to the upheaval that will befall new mothers, fathers and the extended families of the children who are born with profound birth defects."

In addition to disputing the claim that birth defects are rare, experts say the headlines are deceptive because: (1) the studies referred to were limited to women taking SSRI's in the first 3 months of pregnancy; (2) some birth defects develop later in pregnancy; (3) stopping the drugs at the end of 3 months, or at any time, can result in a serious withdrawal syndrome; (4) infants experience a withdrawal syndrome after birth, and (5) the headlines do not mention all the other adverse effects associated with SSRI's.

The headlines dilute the findings of the many studies that have shown serious withdrawal symptoms in newborns exposed to SSRI's, including high-pitched or weak crying, tremors, irritability, convulsions, poor muscle tone, abnormal sleep patterns, feeding difficulties, rapid breathing and respiratory distress, and increased admissions to intensive care units.

In discussing a 2004 study published in the Pediatrics journal, lead author Dr Philip Zeskind was quoted in the February 22, 2004, Sunday Telegraph as stating: "What we've found is that SSRI's disrupt the neurological systems of children, and that this is more than just a possibility, and we're talking about hundreds of thousands of babies being exposed to these drugs during pregnancy."

"These babies are bathed in serotonin," he said, "during a key period of their development and we really don't know what it's doing to them or what the long-term effects might be."

Experts say the headlines are also misleading because they infer that no birth defects were found in the studies when, in fact, the CDC study further confirmed associations between SSRI use and the occurrence of craniosynostosis and omphalocele, as well as certain types of heart defects.

The study also found anencephaly, babies born without a forebrain, to be 2.4 times greater in women taking an SSRI in the first trimester. "This is a catastrophic fatal birth defect that is not correctable," Dr Breggin points out. In babies born with anencephaly, much of the brain does not develop, and the babies are either stillborn or die shortly after birth, according to the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.