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  1. David Gunnell, professor of epidemiology (D.J.Gunnell@bristol.ac.uk),
  2. Deborah Ashby, professor of medical statistics
  1. Department of Social Medicine, University of Bristol, Bristol BS8 2PR
  2. Wolfson Institute of Preventive Medicine, Barts and London, Queen Mary School of Medicine and Dentistry, University of London, London EC1M 6BQ

    EDITOR—We agree with Aldred and Healy's suggestion that part of the recent rise in antidepressant prescribing may be due to there being a growing number of long term users of these drugs—we acknowledged this as a limitation of our model. If any adverse effects of antidepressants on suicide risk occur mainly in the first few weeks of treatment then our model will overestimate these.

    Mitchell correctly identifies that one of …

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