A 2006 Iran trial of 40 children is said to have skewed the fluoxetine evidence base for childhood depression, with the drug's advantage vanishing once it is excluded
Naudet, Plöderl and colleagues re-ran the 2016 and 2020 meta-analyses of fluoxetine (Prozac) for depression in children and adolescents and found that their disagreement comes down to whether one 2006 trial of 40 children in Iran is included; excluding that trial's data made fluoxetine's outsized benefit over placebo disappear, prompting the researchers to call on guideline committees to review their recommendations.