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Rapid responses are electronic letters to the editor. They enable our users to debate issues raised in articles published on thebmj.com. Although a selection of rapid responses will be included online and in print as readers' letters, their first appearance online means that they are published articles. If you need the url (web address) of an individual response, perhaps for citation purposes, simply click on the response headline and copy the url from the browser window. Letters are indexed in PubMed.
This honorable judge should be informed that antidepressants are ineffective in teenagers, and might double the risk of suicide and aggression.
All depressed patients are at risk of suicide, but there exist no valid methods to predict when it will occur.
Does this judge propose to hospitalize ALL severely depressed teenagers?
And if so, which pharmacological therapies should be used, during that forced hospitalization?
References http://www.bmj.com/content/353/bmj.i3234 http://www.bmj.com/content/352/bmj.i545 http://www.bmj.com/content/332/7542/626.4
Re: Family court judge “ashamed” that NHS cannot find bed for suicidal teenager
This honorable judge should be informed that antidepressants are ineffective in teenagers, and might double the risk of suicide and aggression.
All depressed patients are at risk of suicide, but there exist no valid methods to predict when it will occur.
Does this judge propose to hospitalize ALL severely depressed teenagers?
And if so, which pharmacological therapies should be used, during that forced hospitalization?
References
http://www.bmj.com/content/353/bmj.i3234
http://www.bmj.com/content/352/bmj.i545
http://www.bmj.com/content/332/7542/626.4
Competing interests: No competing interests