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To gain knowledge about the scope of a serious threat to public health—i.e., severe adverse drug effects of antidepressant drugs— physicians and consumers must turn to the popular and alternative press, rather than “peer reviewed” reports from the scientific literature. That’s because the scientific literature is controlled by the drug industry which maintains an iron grip on information about adverse drug effects—including violence and addiction, euphemistically called withdrawal syndrome. Neither prescribing physicians nor the public are informed about the risks.
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http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/abstract/347/17/1335
1. The Indianapolis Star reports that Eli Lilly chose to “resolve” rather than defend Prozac in court in a suicide case that has dragged on for nine years. The decision came after Lilly lost its motion to prevent Dr. David Healy from testifying on behalf of the Berman family. Dr. Healy is a world expert about the adverse side effects that manufacturers of the so-called SSRI antidepressant drugs don’t want the public to know. [See: One of longest-pending Prozac suits is resolved: Lilly comes to terms with family of Chicago man who jumped from office tower in 1991. By Jeff Swiatek
October 14, 2002. http://www.indystar.com
2. An in-depth report in an alternative news weekly, CITYPAGES (Minneapolis, Minn., excerpt below), presents compelling evidence linking Paxil (Seroxat), to addiction. Citypages reports:
“In 1993, five months after Paxil went on the market in the United States, a study presented at the American Psychiatric Association’s annual meeting found that up to 42 percent of individuals suffered withdrawal symptoms when they stopped taking the drug.”
“Since 1994 some 16 studies found “withdrawal syndrome” in up to half of individuals attempting to quit taking SSRIs; all the studies noted that the problem was the worst with Paxil. In an Australian study, Paxil caused withdrawal three times as often as Zoloft and four times as often as Prozac. (The second-highest rate of withdrawal is reported with another SSRI with a short half-life, Luvox.”)
[See: Citypages. Paxil is Forever: doctor please, some more of these. By Beth Hawkins www.citypages.com/databank/23/1141/article10788.asp
3. The NY Post reports that two months after the 9/11 disaster, the FDA approved Paxil for Posttraumatic Distress Disorder. “As sales of antidepressants soar— about $1.8 billion of Paxil was sold in the U.S.last year— criticism of Paxil and GlaxoSmithKline has heightened.”
The Post reports that grieving 9/11 widows who had been prescribed Paxil experienced severe withdrawal symptoms and uncharacteristic suicidal urges when they attempted to stop taking the drug:
„GlaxoSmithKline insists Paxil is non-habit forming, but some former Paxil users say they went through hell when they quit popping the pills.
“When I stopped taking it, I got so sick I couldn’t function. It was like temporary insanity,” said Ann Cantera, of Sayville, L.I., who began taking Paxil for pre-menstrual depression.
“I was crying and crying and crying, and consumed with suicidal thoughts.”
See: NY Post DARKER SIDE TO THE 9/11 ‘WONDER’ PILL By SUSAN EDELMAN October 20, 2002.
http://www.nypost.com/news/regionalnews/60050.htm
4. On Oct. 13, BBC’s Panorama, broadcast a highly critical investigative program— The Secrets of Seroxat—about the claim that people can get hooked on it, suffering serious withdrawal symptoms when they try to come off it, and that for some people the drug can lead to self-harm and suicide.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/panorama/2310197.stm
In Britain, GlaxoSmithKline‚s Paxil advertisements were ruled to be in violation of the drug industry’s marketing code. Similarly, a federal judge in California ordered the misleading ads stopped—until the U.S. Justice Department intervened, claiming drug ads were the responsibility of the FDA.
In sharp contrast to the British, the Irish and the Dutch drug oversight agencies which have taken action to protect the public from misleading advertising, FDA officials deny the addiction problem and thereby become accessories to misrepresentation. Whose interests were served when the U.S. Justice Department went to court to shield the drug manufacturer from complying with truth in advertising laws?
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