FDA panel promotes misinformation about antidepressants during pregnancy, psychiatrists say

A Food and Drug Administration panel discussing the use of antidepressants during pregnancy Monday largely amounted to misinformation or facts taken out of context, according to several psychiatrists who tuned in to the meeting.

A Food and Drug Administration panel discussing the use of antidepressants during pregnancy Monday largely amounted to misinformation or facts taken out of context, according to several psychiatrists who tuned in to the meeting.

The panel had promised to feature diverse viewpoints about antidepressants and pregnancy. But nearly all of the 10 panelists bucked medical consensus on the drugs’ safety and emphasized what they said were risks of taking the drugs while pregnant — such as causing autism, miscarriages or birth defects. In some cases, they claimed that antidepressants don’t work at all and that depression goes away on its own.

Three of the 10 panelists were from outside the United States. Another runs a clinic to help people taper off of psychiatric drugs.

“They were really rousing concerns about safety that are not evidence-based or established and not at all balanced with concerns about the risks of untreated depression,” said Dr. Joseph Goldberg, a clinical professor of psychiatry at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City.

Dr. Jennifer Payne, director of the Reproductive Psychiatry Research Program at the University of Virginia, said, “I’m disappointed that the FDA brought people in from outside of the United States when there’s so many experts here in the United States who truly know this [medical] literature inside and out.”