WASHINGTON — Seven years ago, Mark Miller's 13-year-old son, Matt, who loved to ride bikes and play video games and excelled at making origami animals, hanged himself in his bedroom closet. His parents were devastated -- and mystified.
"He had never threatened suicide," Miller recalled. "The only thing that had changed that week in his life was the medication."
Seven days before his death, Matt had begun taking Zoloft, a popular antidepressant prescribed by his doctor.
His father, struggling to understand what had happened, dived into the Internet, where he found books on the risks of antidepressants. He was soon convinced that the drug had caused Matt's death.
Miller helped start a website about the risks of the antidepressants. He wrote to the Food and Drug Administration and his congressman to enlist the government's help.
At first, no one took him seriously.
"I always felt people looked at me and said, 'That poor man, he's a bereaved father and he wants to blame it on the medication,' " Miller recalled.
But he gradually found other parents with stories like his. What began as a lonely mission grew into a crusade of about a dozen enraged parents motivated by the belief that their children were ripped from them by the drugs that were supposed to help them.
Finally, the government listened.
Last week, two FDA advisory panels recommended that the agency require companies to place prominent warnings -- the kind boxed in dark lines -- that there is a risk that antidepressants can cause suicidal behavior in children.
Doctors wrote an estimated 15 million prescriptions for nine antidepressants for children and teenagers last year.
Congressional committees are investigating whether the drugs are safe and whether the drug companies or the FDA improperly disguised or underestimated the drugs' risks to children. The FDA will also explore whether the drugs promote suicidal tendencies in adults and violent behavior in patients of all ages.
The FDA recently found that in clinical trials involving nine antidepressants taken by more than 4,000 children ages 6 to 18, hundreds experienced suicidal behavior or thoughts, although none killed themselves.
Miller said he and other parents like him had finally received "vindication and validation of what we've been saying for so long."
