Barry Blackwell: The baby and the bath water
Leemon McHenry’s further elaboration on Glen Spielman’s comment on Jay Amsterdam’s comment on Edward Shorter’s comment

And there is more.

The CIT MD 18 trial, misrepresented as positive, was used along with an escitalopram trial, SCT MD 32 (Emslie et al. 2009), to get approval for an escitalopram indication for adolescent depression.

The CIT MD 18 still appears in Prescribing Guidelines in support for citalopram in pediatric depression.

The editor of the American Journal of Psychiatry has refused to retract the Wagner article reporting on CIT MD 18 and KOL and newly installed President of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Karen Wagner, continues to promote citalopram off-label on the basis of CIT MD 18 (Levin 2016).

Just in case, we thought GlaxoSmithKline's study 329 (Keller et al. 2001) was exceptional, a peek behind the Wizard's curtain reveals business as usual in the academic-industry partnership.

Reference:

Emslie GJ, Ventura D, Korotzer A, Tourkodimitris S. Escitalopram in the treatment of adolescent depression: a randomized placebo-controlled multisite trial. J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry. 2009;48: 721-9.

Keller MB, Ryan ND, Strober M, Klein RG, Kutcher SP, Birmaher B, Hagino OR, Koplewicz H, Carlson GA, Clarke GN, Emslie GJ, Feinberg D, Geller B, Kusumakar V, Papatheodorou G, Sack WH, Sweeney M, Wagner KD, Weller EB, Winters NC, Oakes R, McCafferty JP. Efficacy of Paroxetine in the Treatment of Adolescent Major Depression: A Randomized, Controlled Trial. J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry 2001; 40: 762–72.

Levin A. Child Psychiatrists Look at Specialty From Both Macro, Micro Perspectives. Psychiatric News 2016; 51 (12): 23.

November 1, 2018