Zoloft has fallen into short supply as prescriptions soar during the pandemic | Hacker News Reader

Zoloft has fallen into short supply as prescriptions soar during the pandemic

bloomberg.com

13 pointsxoxoy3 comments

I had to take a defensive driving course few years back, the instructor was a middle aged lady, she asked the question:

"What is the #1 impairing substance discovered by police officers investigating traffic accidents with serious injuries or deaths ? . . And which sex leads the statistics ?"

(Blood draws are taken where serious injuries result).

  Lot's of students answered up: marijuana, alcohol, cocaine, you name it, but nobody got the correct answer.

She said women on prescription antidepressants. The labels clearly state do not drive or operate machinery, and because of that fact, now these women had criminal cases put on them for manslaughter or worse.

Antidepressants? Not benzodiazepines? Which antidepressants have a warning label that states not to drive or operate machinery?

I'd be surprised if a significant number of antidepressants had those kinds of warnings, too.

However, I guess some of them might. For example mirtazapine (Remeron) can apparently cause sleepiness in some cases, and in low doses it's even used for insomnia. AFAIK in the higher doses used for depression it shouldn't cause sleepiness as easily, though, and I don't know if it comes with a warnings label.

Considering the number of people on various kinds of antidepressants, the total number of people using some kind of a rarely used antidepressant that might have different side effects than the more common ones is probably also non-negligible.

Although a confusion between antidepressants and benzodiazepines or other anxiolytics may be more likely.

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