"Teenagers, Medication, and Suicide" in the NY Times

In the NY Times article "Teenagers, Medication, and Suicide" Richard Friedman discusses the importance of antidepressant medication use for the treatment of depression and suicide. He provides a fair amount of data to support the use of medication to treat depression. He suggests that an appeal of the black box label (a warning that indicates sometimes this medication may cause suicidal ideation) on antidepressant medication will further increase medication use. Given the low incidence of suicide from the medication use, it makes sense to suggest such an approach. However, it is even more important to inform the reader that medication with psychotherapy is  more effective than medication alone and it has the added advantage of weekly monitoring of medication user so that suicidal ideation can be addressed.