Zoloft and suicide, One way of ending your anxiety! Options

[The Joy]

I was looking at Sertraline (T-H-L-K-D) (a Featured Article, by the way) on Wikipedia. According to Wikipedia, antidepressants like Zoloft tend to lead to suicide. At least, that's what I got from reading the first paragraph.

Specifically:

Similarly to other antidepressants, the use of sertraline [Zoloft] for depression may be associated with a higher rate of suicidality.

I guess suicide is a way of ending depression and anxiety?

Gulp.

Edit: Changed "Zoloft" to its scientific name "Setraline" in post. History, logs, etc. tags were going to the wrong article.

[Zoloft]

It is all too sadly true. Indeed, I wouldn't read this post of mine too many times.

[The Joy]

It is all too sadly true. Indeed, I wouldn't read this post of mine too many times.

Imagine someone with anxiety looking on the Internet for anti-anxiety/anti-depressant medication, Googling "Zoloft," finding the Wikipedia article on it, and seeing for all intents and purposes "may increase chances of suicide" in the first paragraph. Wikipedia "may increase chances of higher anxiety" should be a disclaimer on the doggone main page! Anti-depressants make people more suicidal than less!?! The cure is worse than the problem, if what Wikipedia says is true!

[Krimpet]

Anti-depressants make people more suicidal than less!?! The cure is worse than the problem, if what Wikipedia says is true!

Well, you'd get the same impression looking at a box of Zoloft, which carries a big honking warning saying more or less the same thing.

Antidepressants are tricky, because different medications and doses can have wildly different effects on different people. (Confusing things more, the pharmaceutical companies continue to create and market newer antidepressants, presumably because they can't reap record profits on stalwarts like Zoloft and Prozac for which the patents have expired.) Finding the right drug can be tricky, and the period when you're being weaned onto the drug may increase depression for a period before kicking in properly. So it's hard to tell whether the drugs themselves are increasing a patient's suicidal thoughts, or if the drug just isn't effective enough for them and they're having the same suicidal thoughts they'd be having with no medication.

So, presumably these vague blanket warnings are there to cover the companies' tuckuses. For example, in 1999 the family of Phil Hartman's wife tried to sue the makers of Zoloft and the psychiatrist who prescribed it to her shortly before her murder-suicide. Never mind that she was soused and high on cocaine at the time of the act; some people are just sue-happy.