Can drugs for physical ailments lead to suicide?

Cody Miller was a high school football player who was allergic to ragweed. Douglas Briggs was a doctor coping with pain from an old back injury.

Both are dead, hanging victims driven to suicide, their families believe, when drugs prescribed to relieve physical symptoms upset their mental and emotional balance.

Federal drug regulators are investigating to see if the families could be right.

Until now, the Food and Drug Administra-tion's attention to the suicide risks of medications has focused on psychiatric drugs, such as antidepressants prescribed to youngsters. But this year, officials unexpectedly broadened their...