SSRIs, Suicide and Healy
Selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitors (SSRIs) are used to treat major depression. At one time it was hypothesized that depression was due to low levels of serotonin in the brain and that antidepressants increased this level. But this theory was discredited by Ashcroft who showed that depression is not associated with or caused by a lowering of serotonin. Today, serotonin levels can be measured by 5-HT imaging with Positron emission tomography (PET) imaging as well as measuring tryptophan plasma levels. Prozac is a well known commercial brand of SSRI. In the 1970s Bryan Molloy at Eli Lilly and Company created a phenoxyphenyl-propylamines termed LY-94949 but it could not be easily dissolved so David Wong reformulated it as a chloride salt and it was renamed LY-110140. Then on September 1, 1975 it was first called fluoxetine and then later marketed under the name Prozac. Prozac was launched in the United States and Canada in 1988 and in the United Kingdom in 1989.
Soon after its launch there was a large debate on whether or not Prozac was related to suicide.
Read more about this topic: David Healy (psychiatrist)
Famous quotes containing the word suicide:
“It is suicide to be abroad. But what is it to be at home, Mr. Tyler, what is it to be at home? A lingering dissolution.”
—Samuel Beckett (1906–1989)