FDA warns Lilly about Cymbalta ads.

If you're researching antidepressants because of the high-frequency TV commercial campaign under way for Cymbalta, you should know that just last week, November 9th, 2005, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) sent a warning letter to Eli Lilly & Co., makers of Cymbalta. Lilly ran medical journal ads for Cymbalta that FDA says left warnings of the drug's potential side effects out of the main part of the ads. You'd have to read those pages of fine print to find it.

There are very serious side effects that Cymbalta may cause, and the Cymbalta TV spots don't emphasize them either. Your doctor should pay attention to these warnings, and you should, too.

You can read or download the FDA warning letter here.
(Note: These are Acrobat files (PDF), and they'll open Acrobat within your browser if you click on them. If you right-click on them, you can download them without opening them immediately.)

You can download the FDA Acrobat file containing the Cymbalta ads in question here.

Or, see the FDA's most recent bulletins on Cymbalta on this search page.

For more on antidepressants, here's a link to the antidepressants page of Consumer Union's Consumer Reports Best Buy Drugs site, which provides non-commercial information on alternatives to high-priced prescription drugs.

Just because a drug is newly approved, or heavily advertised, doesn't necessarily mean it is better than existing treatments.