American youth are exposed to a bunch of dangerous drugs… But not the kind you think

by Sam Rolley 
If you’ve been reading this website for a while, this isn’t going to come as a shock. But new research out in a leading medical journal confirms that the antidepressant drugs Big Pharma has American doctors pushing on children and teens are ineffective and dangerous.
Last September, I told you how a 14-year-old study that declared the antidepressant Paxil safe and effective for teenagers had been discredited by a major medical journal.
Paxil-maker GlaxoSmithKline stood by the original study’s flawed conclusion and swore its product safe for young Americans.

But, as noted by The New York Times, the company’s confidence left unanswered why: “Over the years, thousands of people taking or withdrawing from Paxil or other psychiatric drugs have committed violent acts, including suicide, experts said, though no firm statistics are available. Because many factors could have contributed to that behavior, it is still far from clear who is at risk — and for whom the drugs are protective.”
Well, new research out from The Lancet provides some answers about antidepressants like Paxil and how safe they are for children and young adults.
The researchers found it difficult to draw firm conclusions about the effectiveness of many of the drugs because the studies they looked at for their meta-analysis were almost always funded by the companies producing the drugs.

From the information they deemed untainted by profit margins, however, they concluded that major antidepressants have minimal effectiveness in treating young people with depression. And some make the problem far worse.
For what it’s worth, Prozac and Sarafem were declared “more effective at relieving symptoms of depression in young people than a placebo pill.” Meanwhile, Effexor was shown to create a marked increase in risk of suicidal thoughts and harmful behaviors.