Correlation is not causation, but it can often be suggestive. That is the best spirit in which to examine the observation that suicide rates in America have fallen by around 15% since the introduction of fluoxetine, or Prozac, as it is trademarked by its inventors, Eli Lilly. Prozac is the best-known and most widely used member of a class of anti-depressive drugs called selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitors (ssris). Serotonin is one of the messenger molecules that carry signals between nerve cells in the brain.
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