1 Boring Old Man

Efficacy of Paroxetine in the Treatment of Adolescent Major Depression: A Randomized, Controlled Trial
^{by MARTIN B. KELLER, M.D., NEAL D. RYAN, M.D., MICHAEL STROBER, PH.D., RACHEL G. KLEIN, PH.D., STAN P. KUTCHER, M.D., BORIS BIRMAHER, M.D., OWEN R. HAGINO, M.D., HAROLD KOPLEWICZ, M.D., GABRIELLE A. CARLSON, M.D., GREGORY N. CLARKE, PH.D., GRAHAM J. EMSLIE, M.D., DAVID FEINBERG, M.D., BARBARA GELLER, M.D., VIVEK KUSUMAKAR, M.D., GEORGE PAPATHEODOROU, M.D., WILLIAM H. SACK, M.D., MICHAEL SWEENEY, PH.D., KAREN DINEEN WAGNER, M.D., PH.D., ELIZABETH B. WELLER, M.D., NANCY C. WINTERS, M.D., ROSEMARY OAKES, M.S., AND JAMES P. MCCAFFERTY, B.S.}
Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 2001, 40(7):762–772.

Abstract

^{Objective: To compare paroxetine with placebo and imipramine with placebo for the treatment of adolescent depression.}

^{Method: After a 7 to 14-day screening period, 275 adolescents with major depression began 8 weeks of double-blind paroxetine [20–40 mg], imipramine [gradual upward titration to 200–300 mg], or placebo. The two primary outcome measures were endpoint response [Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression [HAM-D] score <8 or >50% reduction in baseline HAM-D] and change from baseline HAM-D score. Other depression-related variables were [1] HAM-D depressed mood item; [2] depression item of the Schedule for Affective Disorders and Schizophrenia for Adolescents-Lifetime version [K-SADS-L]; [3] Clinical Global Impression [CGI] improvement scores of 1 or 2; [4] nine-item depression subscale of K-SADS-L; and [5] mean CGI improvement scores.}

^{Results: Paroxetine demonstrated significantly greater improvement compared with placebo in HAM-D total score <8, HAM-D depressed mood item, K-SADS-L depressed mood item, and CGI score of 1 or 2. The response to imipramine was not significantly different from placebo for any measure. Neither paroxetine nor imipramine differed significantly from placebo on parent- or self-rating measures. Withdrawal rates for adverse effects were 9.7% and 6.9% for paroxetine and placebo, respectively. Of 31.5% of subjects stopping imipramine therapy because of adverse effects, nearly one third did so because of adverse cardiovascular effects.}

^{Conclusions: Paroxetine is generally well tolerated and effective for major depression in adolescents.}

Ruth Simmons became President of Brown University in 2001, the same year Study 329 was published by Martin Keller, Chairman of Psychiatry at Brown’s Medical School. Simmons was Brown’s first female president and the first black president of an Ivy League School. When petitioned by Healthy Skepticism last year to retract Study 329, she passed the decision to  Dr. Edward Wing, Dean of the Medical School, who rejected the request without comment. This week, the popular Ruth Simmons stepped aside and was replaced by Christina Paxson, Dean of the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton. The blurb from the Princeton web-site says:

^{Christina Paxson is the Hughes Rogers Professor of Economics and Public Affairs and the Dean of the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. In 2000, she founded the Center for Health and Wellbeing [CHW], an interdisciplinary health research center in the Woodrow Wilson School. During her time as director of CHW, the center started undergraduate and graduate certificate programs in health and health policy, and took on the leadership of the University’s Health Grand Challenges program. Paxson is a Senior Editor of The Future of Children; a Research Associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research, where she is a member of the programs on Aging, Health, and Children; and a Research Associate of Princeton’s Office of Population Research. Her research is on health, economic development and public policy, with a current focus on economic status and health outcomes over the life course in both developed and developing countries. She has been the Principal Investigator of several NIH-funded studies, including "Economic Status, Public Policy, and Child Neglect", "Parental Resources and Child Wellbeing" and "College Education and Health", and was the founding director of an NIA Center for the Economics and Demography of Aging at Princeton.}