Washington: Prozac OK’d for children

Prozac is now formally available for depressed children.

Psychiatrists have prescribed the world’s best-known antidepressant, and similar competitors, to their youngest patients for years, despite a shortage of studies proving they work in children.

But the Food and Drug Administration declared Friday that there’s finally proof that Prozac alleviates depression in children 8 years and older, the first drug among the newer antidepressants, which boost the mood regulator serotonin, to win such approval.

Maker Eli Lilly & Co. said it didn’t intend to market Prozac for children. Still, putting child-specific information on Prozac’s FDA-mandated label means more doctors, not just depression specialists, may prescribe it.

The FDA also approved Prozac’s use in children with obsessive-compulsive disorder, the third serotonin-enhancing drug to win that designation.

Florida: Rollover victim declared brain dead

A young woman involved in a deadly rollover crash where Sen. Bill Frist stopped to treat the victims is brain dead but being kept alive so her organs can be transplanted, a hospital spokeswoman said Friday.

Doctors were awaiting a family member’s decision on whether to remove life support from Shadia Rene, 20, the half sister of two children who died from injuries suffered in the rollover, spokeswoman Jenny Pudwell said.

Felicienne Kali, 11, and her brother, Felix Kali, 14, were killed in the crash, police said.

Their mother, Stella Kali, 41, whom Frist treated, was in critical condition Friday morning. Their father, Jocelyn Kali, 40, and family friend Meme Chery, 33, were in fair condition. All are from Tampa.

Frist, a Republican from Tennessee and the incoming Senate majority leader, was a leading transplant surgeon before retiring to pursue a political career. He was traveling to a family vacation home Wednesday when he saw the crash scene and stopped to help. Frist’s medical expertise was invaluable in the rescue effort, officials said.

Wisconsin: Newspaper ad finds kidney donor for child

A 5-year-old received a kidney Friday from a donor who answered a newspaper ad placed by the girl’s mother.

Angela Rushford and the donor were in stable condition Friday at the University of Wisconsin Hospital in Madison, a hospital spokeswoman said. Doctors expect the two to remain hospitalized for a week to 10 days.

“I owe David Harper a lot,” Angela’s father, Tony Rushford, said shortly after the surgery. “When I was a kid, my hero was Spider-Man. Now it’s David Harper.”

Angela has polycystic renal failure, a condition doctors say is usually seen in older people. Harper, 38, of Mount Morris, Ill., responded to an ad her mother placed in the Rock River Times. The ad offered money, but Harper declined.

Washington: Anti-gun program’s success disputed

A popular anti-gun crime program in Richmond, Va., that has been copied by other cities, states and the Bush administration is not responsible for the dramatic decrease in that city’s gun-related homicides in the late 1990s, a new study says.

The more than 30 percent drop in killings often attributed to Project Exile, a 6-year-old program that imposes automatic five-year sentences on felons caught carrying guns, probably would have occurred anyway as crime fell nationwide, according to an analysis by two scholars to be published in a book this month by the Brookings Institution.