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Comment & Response
July 2016

Prenatal Antidepressant Use and Risk of Autism Spectrum Disorders in Children

Author Affiliations
  • 1Department of Psychiatry, University of Montreal, Montreal, Québec, Canada
  • 2Institut Universitaire en Santé Mentale de Montréal, Montreal, Québec, Canada
JAMA Pediatr. 2016;170(7):714. doi:10.1001/jamapediatrics.2016.0733

To the Editor We are very familiar with the linked health administrative databases used by Boukhris et al1 in their article investigating the association between prenatal antidepressant use and risk of autism spectrum disorders in the offspring. Therefore, we have 3 suggestions to bring more light to their report. We have been running a Canadian Institutes of Health Research–funded research project to define diagnostic codes for a series of childhood-onset mental disorders together with the Quebec Chronic Disease Surveillance System of the Quebec Public Health Agency.2 We reported our preliminary results both to the Ministry of Health and Social Services and to a continuing medical education symposium on autism spectrum disorder held by Quebec’s Federation of Medical Specialists and attended mainly by public health medical specialists, psychiatrists, and pediatricians.3

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