Celexa Anxiety: The Case Against Celexa
Caused Anxiety and Other SSRI's

Pharmaceutical companies have, for some time, been heavily promoting a group of prescription anti-depressants medications called SSRIs, for "selective serotonin uptake reinhibitors". These medications, according to the pharmaceutical companies, act to keep the brain's intracellular levels of serotonin elevated. Serotonin is believed to affect appetite, energy levels, mood, sleep, sex drive, and cognitive function.

Too little serotonin, the SSRI makers say, will lead to depression, increased anxiety, impulsiveness, violence, and even suicide.

Celexa, or Citalopram Hydrobromide, is an SSRI introduced by Forest Pharmaceuticals in 1998. Among its listed side effects were mood changes, confusion, and anxiety. That Celexa anxiety was not a concern to the physicians prescribing the drug became apparent when Celexa joined Paxil, Prozac, and Zoloft, as the most popular anti-depressant therapies offered.

But Celexa anxiety should have been more closely monitored. Forest had known, as early as 2002, that Celexa was not only ineffective in relieving depression in children and adolescents; Celexa anxiety, in fact, led many of them to become suicidal. But Forest failed to publish that study, and did not release their data until forced to do so in a 2004 investigation by then-Attorney General Elliot Spitzer of New York.

Forest had been legally prohibited from promoting Celexa as a treatment for depression in children and teenagers, because the FDA had not approved it for those uses. But, even without FDA approval, doctors can prescribe medication "off-label" if they think it appropriate, and Celexa had become the fourth most widely prescribed pediatric anti-depressant. Had the doctors been aware of increased levels of Celexa anxiety in young people, that might never have happened.

But Forest's patent on Celexa expired in 2004, and they were hoping to put their Celexa anxiety issues behind them when they introduced its close chemical relative, Lexapro. The Spitzer investigation, however, forced their hand, and they announced that early results of one of their clinical trials indicated Lexapro was no more effective in relieving pediatric depression than a placebo.

Celexa anxiety, and its possible link to teen suicide, caused Forest to add a "black box" warning against administering it for pediatric depression to its labeling in 2004. But that may have been too little, too late. Since then, Forest has been named as a defendant in multiple lawsuits claiming that Celexa anxiety was a factor in adult suicides as well.

In February 2005 the Ottawa Health Research Institute reported that its analysis of data from 702 studies of over 88,000 individuals showed that SSRI users of all ages were twice as likely to attempt suicide as those who took placebos.

How much of a factor Celexa anxiety was in that elevated suicide rate was not specified. But as of June 2006, according to Forest's SEC filings, the company had been named as a defendant in twenty-five lawsuits alleging that either Celexa anxiety ,or Lexapro, was a contributing factors in a suicide.

The worst case of Celexa anxiety, it appears, will be Forest Pharmaceuticals.

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