According to Forbes, controversy over the link between antidepressants and suicide was among the top ten health-related news stories in 2006. On December 13th the FDA pharmacological committee voted to extend the black box suicide warning on antidepressants for children and teenagers up to 18 years old, to include young adults up to 25 years of age. The extended warning garnered major national media and public concern over the growing debate of antidepressants being prescribed to millions.

Financial ties between FDA members and pharmaceutical companies added fuel to the fire. Forbes reported that another top health news issue in 2006 was the controversy over the financial ties between researchers and regulators and the drug companies whose products they review. Forbes reported, "Over at the FDA, critics hit regulators with charges of bias and industry interference after debacles such as the withdrawal of painkillers Vioxx and Bextra and continuing controversies over the emergency contraceptive Plan B and SSRI [Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitor] antidepressants. The agency's critics gained ammunition from research published in April in the Journal of the American Medical Association. The study found that three-quarters of the FDA's advisory panels included members who had conflicts of interest due to financial ties to industry."

The concern over compromising financial ties between psychiatric researchers, drug regulators and the pharmaceutical industry was reinforced by a February study on antidepressant use during pregnancy, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, which revealed that most of the 13 authors of the study had significant, and previously undisclosed, financial ties to the makers of antidepressants.

In spite of these vested interests, the side effects of psychiatric drugs are increasingly coming to light as the public and watchdog groups insist regulators publicize the dangers of psychiatric drugs, now acknowledged by the FDA to cause suicide, homicidal ideation, mania, psychosis, heart attack, stroke and sudden death. For more information, read the Report on the Escalating Warnings on Psychiatric Drugs published by the Citizens Commission on Human Rights or visit www.cchr.org.