Tube4vids logo

Your daily adult tube feed all in one place!

These anti-depressants have been prescribed to millions - but have a hidden side effect that is worse than death

PUBLISHED
UPDATED
VIEWS

The FDA is being sued for allegedly ignoring evidence that anti-depressants leave patients' sex lives permanently ruined - even years after stopping the meds.

Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRI) drugs like Prozac and Zoloft began carrying a label warning telling users they may cause erectile dysfunction, low libido, vaginal dryness and trouble orgasming only after patients began complaining of sexual side effects to their doctors in the 80s and 90s. 

But thousands of former patients say they have been left completely asexual, numb below the waist, and unable to enjoy sex or sustain romantic relationships. Some patients have even experienced shrinkage of their genitals.  

The FDA is now being sued by a team of scientists who say the agency has ignored their petition asking for a warning about permanent sexual side effects since 2018 and is asking the agency to warn doctors and patients about the long-term risks.

The condition mentioned in the lawsuit is Post-SSRI Sexual Dysfunction (PSSD), which can cause genital numbness, a complete loss of libido, erectile dysfunction, and other sexual function issues for years after going off the medications

The condition mentioned in the lawsuit is Post-SSRI Sexual Dysfunction (PSSD), which can cause genital numbness, a complete loss of libido, erectile dysfunction, and other sexual function issues for years after going off the medications

As the fertility rate in the US gradually diminishes, more and more Americans are being prescribed SSRIs, the most common type of antidepressant. These drugs can lead to lower sperm quality in men

As the fertility rate in the US gradually diminishes, more and more Americans are being prescribed SSRIs, the most common type of antidepressant. These drugs can lead to lower sperm quality in men

An estimated one in 10 Americans aged 12 and up takes an antidepressant. 

The lawsuit was filed by Dr Antonei B. Csoka, a molecular biologist at Howard University.

The specific condition that Dr Csoka references in his complaint is Post-SSRI Sexual Dysfunction (PSSD), which can also cause genital numbness, premature ejaculation, and emotional blunting.

The agency said in 2018 that it would further review the science and get back to him, but it never did. 

The FDA’s alleged lack of follow-up contradicted its own protocol, which says that citizens' petitions require a response within 180 days.

While the FDA has neglected to add the proposed warning label, regulatory agencies in Europe and Canada already have.

Scientists do not know for sure how many people are affected by PSSD, though more than half of all antidepressant users have reported some degree of sexual dysfunction while taking them.

A 2018 review of the scientific literature on PSSD found that around five to 15 percent of people on antidepressants developed sexual side effects such as erectile dysfunction and lack of sex drive after taking SSRIs and SNRIs.

Dr Csoka is an advisor to the PSSD Network, an advocacy organization that encourages patients to tell their stories to raise awareness and hopefully find a cure for long-term sexual dysfunction.

Commonly prescribed antidepressants include SSRIs, which increase levels of mood-regulating serotonin in the brain, and SNRIs, which increase levels of both serotonin and another neurotransmitter, norepinephrine, currently include package labels that warn of sexual side effects.

Drug manufacturers are required to warn patients and prescribers that their drugs could cause low libido and decreased ability to have an orgasm, but they’re not required to disclose that these effects could be permanent.

Dr Csoka said: ‘Without adequate warnings about the risk of potentially permanent damage to sexual function, patients and health care professionals cannot weigh the benefits of the drugs’ use against the potential harms.’

Patients sharing their stories through the PSSD Network have described a range of disturbances from erectile dysfunction, genital shrinkage, and numbness to a lack of any sense of attraction to others and an inability to feel pleasure.

One male patient had been prescribed various antidepressants at different points when he was 16 to deal with the death of his father and was able to stop taking them at 20. 

Now, at 25 and off the meds, he has ‘extreme genital shrinkage and discomfort, I have neurological dysfunction of the smooth muscle in my penis causing hypercontraction or persistent arousal disorder.

‘I have constant overactive bladder, urination, I have severe erectile dysfunction and premature ejaculation… I never had any of this before the meds.'

He added: ‘I have seen a urologist that specializes in sexual health acknowledges the existence of PSSD; he conducted an ultrasound on my privates and told me that I have fibrosis in it, and he said it’s very common to see that in men who are on antidepressants for a while.’

A female patient, meanwhile, stopped taking her antidepressant three years ago, but said now her sexuality is gone.

She said: ‘My clitoris feels like a dead lump.’

And a third patient who had been taking Lexapro for about three months said he is ‘asexual now from the medicine.’

He said: ‘I used to be able to look at people that I was attracted to and you feel something but now I feel nothing, it’s just like looking at the wall. Basically taking away almost all positive emotions, they went from 100 to maybe less than one, that’s how strong it is.’

He added that the hardest part of the general emotional blunting caused by the medicines: ‘When you hug the people you love, your mother, your father, your nephew, you don’t feel anything… You cannot get any emotional bond at all.’

Dr Csoka has been researching sexual dysfunction linked to antidepressants since the early 2000s and was one of the first to posit that the medicines, as a side effect of driving up serotonin levels in the brain, caused DNA modifications that affect the activity of genes that regulate sexual function.

GOT A HEALTH-RELATED STORY? 

He told the Guardian: ‘Various scientists, including myself, have published studies showing that an SSRI can change epigenetics and human cells.

‘If that’s happening, then those cells or tissues may not immediately revert back to how they were once treatment stops. It’s as though an imprint has been left there. However, it’s still not known precisely what these epigenetic changes are. So what we need to do is narrow it down – what is happening?’

His lawsuit filed in the US District Court for the District of Columbia seeks to force the FDA to issue a decision on the petition.

America has seen fertility rates plummet to historic lows in recent years, attributable to a large population of women who want to focus on their careers before starting a family as well as sedentary lifestyles that decrease fertility. 

But an explosion in antidepressant prescriptions over the past two decades has also been blamed for the country's baby bust. 

A 2022 meta-analysis in Frontiers in Pharmacology found that SSRIs have 'a statistically significant impairment on semen quality, such as sperm concentration, sperm morphology, sperm motility,' the researchers wrote. However, semen volume was not impacted.

Since becoming widespread in the 1980s, scripts for the mood-boosting drugs have skyrocketed, with a record nearly one in five adults taking them in 2020 compared to around one in 50 at the turn of the century. 

This could contribute to the overall fertility rate in the US, which has been steadily falling for decades.

In the US, women had an average of just 1.7 children, according to the United Nations' World Population Prospects, in 2020. In 1970, that rate was 2.3.

The global fertility rate- the average number of children born to each woman- was 2.3 in 2020, compared to 4.7 in 1970. This is a staggering 51 percent drop.

Comments