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Parents and doctors need more explicit warnings that some widely used antidepressants are suspected of sometimes causing suicidal behavior in children and teenagers, scientific advisers told the government.

That doesn't mean the drugs shouldn't ever be used in children, nor is there actual proof yet that the suicide risk is real, advisers to the Food and Drug Administration cautioned Monday as the agency opened public hearings on a controversy sparked when Britain last year declared most newer antidepressants unsuitable for use by depressed minors.

But use of drugs such as Paxil, Zoloft and Effexor by children and teenagers is skyrocketing despite lack of evidence that most antidepressants truly alleviate pediatric depression or the myriad other conditions for which they're prescribed, the advisers worried.

And until the questions are settled, parents and doctors need to know to look out for symptoms of agitation, anxiety and hostility that might signal trouble in a subset of young patients who may be unusually vulnerable to the drugs, they concluded.

"We want to put a speed bump in the road," said panel chair Dr. Matthew Rudorfer of the National Institute of Mental Health. "The concern that many of us felt today was that the way the SSRIs and other newer antidepressants are being used now is such that the warnings as they exist in the current labeling are not adequate or are not being taken seriously."

SSRIs and other antidepressants have long been used successfully by adults, but medicines can work differently in children. The FDA has approved only one, Prozac, to alleviate pediatric depression.

But the FDA recently ordered other manufacturers to submit to the government research on how their drugs affected children, studies dating to the late 1990s but most of which were never published because the medicines didn't prove themselves better than dummy pills.

Among 25 studies involving 4,000 children and teens, there were no actual suicides. But Britain noticed a slightly increased risk of suicidal behavior and attempts — in roughly 3.2% of treated youths compared with 1.5% given placebo — that sparked its stern warning.

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