stabbing a friend Alex Montes in the arm approximately a year and one-half
before when they were drunk and playing around. Rothwell explained she was not
mad at Montes, but he had said  ‘you won’t [stab me],’  so she did.
Rothwell agreed there were similarities about the two incidents with Rivas and
Montes because each man had dared her to stab him.”

SSRI Stories
Note:  The Physicians Desk Reference states that
antidepressants can cause a craving for alcohol and can cause

alcohol abuse. Also, the liver cannot metabolize the antidepressant and
the alcohol simultaneously, thus leading to higher levels of both alcohol and
the antidepressant in the human body.

http://www.leagle.com/unsecure/page.htm?shortname=incaco20100422068

PEOPLE v. ROTHWELL

THE PEOPLE, Plaintiff and
Respondent,
v.
SAMANTHA ELIZABETH ROTHWELL, Defendant and
Appellant.

No. G040557.

Court of Appeals of California, Fourth
District, Division Three.

Filed April 22, 2010.

Christine Vento,
under appointment by the Court of Appeal, for Defendant and
Appellant.

Edmund G. Brown, Jr., Attorney General, Dane R. Gillette,
Chief Assistant Attorney General, Gary W. Schons, Assistant Attorney General,
Jeffrey J. Koch and Pamela Ratner Sobeck, Deputy Attorneys General, for
Plaintiff and Respondent.

O’LEARY, Acting P.
J.

Samantha Elizabeth Rothwell appeals from a judgment after a jury
convicted her of second degree murder and found true she personally used a
deadly or dangerous weapon, a knife, in the commission of the crime. Rothwell
argues her federal constitutional rights were violated when the trial court
refused to instruct the jury to consider evidence of her intoxication in
determining whether she acted with conscious disregard for human life. We
disagree and affirm the judgment.

One afternoon, a group of 10 to 15
friends rented a room at the Hotel Huntington Beach to celebrate Nicole Alcala’s
birthday. Rothwell, one of the invitees, and her friend, Kristina Torres,
arrived around 8:30 p.m. Marc Bellatiere and his girlfriend, Jennifer Mulcahy,
were at the party when Rothwell and Torres arrived. Mulcahy also invited her
brother Ryan Soto. Eighteen-year-old Walter Rivas was also at the
party.

Sometime in the evening, the group went to the beach to meet with
friends. Rothwell chose to stay at the hotel. When the group returned sometime
after midnight, Soto recalled that Rothwell “didn’t seem like herself.” While
some people started getting ready for bed, Bellatiere went outside to the fifth
floor stairwell landing to smoke a cigarette. Mulcahy, Torres, Rothwell, and
Rivas joined him. For the first five to 10 minutes, the mood was fine. However,
the atmosphere changed when Rivas began talking about seeing God the last time
he was in Huntington Beach. Rothwell became upset and ordered Rivas to not “talk
about God. I don’t like hearing about that stuff.” Rivas was taken aback by
Rothwell’s response and asked her why. She replied, “It’s because I’m the
devil,” and demanded Rivas “stop talking about it.” Rivas responded, “I’ll talk
about whatever I want.” Rothwell threatened, “If you don’t stop talking, shut
up, I’ll stab you.” No one in the group took Rothwell’s threat seriously. Rivas
said jokingly, “If you are going to do it, do it,” and continued to talk about
God. Rivas was not threatening, did not make any aggressive moves toward
Rothwell, and made no physical contact with her.

Rothwell walked to the
hotel room and flung the door open. Mulcahy followed and tried to calm her down.
Rivas stayed on the landing talking with Torres. When Rothwell and Mulcahy
entered the hotel room, it was dark and everyone was sleeping. Rothwell went to

the side of the bed where her belongings were located and began digging through
her purse while saying, “@#$% this guy . . . he can’t be talking to me like
this.” Mulcahy tried to grab Rothwell and calm her down, but Rothwell pulled
away and left the room.

Rothwell returned to the stairwell and headed
straight for Rivas. Rothwell swung her closed fist toward Rivas’s neck. Rivas
was substantially taller than Rothwell and struggled against her, but she
stabbed him in the jugular vein and in the back. When Rothwell took her arm
away, Rivas was bleeding profusely and said, “That @#$% fucking stabbed me.
That @#$% fucking stabbed me.” Bellatiere and Torres walked Rivas back to the
hotel room where they had him lay on the bathroom floor.

Rothwell
returned to the room and quickly gathered her things to leave. Soto asked, “Why
did you do it? What happened?” and Rothwell responded, “It wasn’t a big fucking
deal, get over it,” or “Get the @#$% over it. @#$% you,” and left the room
passing a bloody Rivas. Rothwell left bloody fingerprints on the stairwell
railing as she left. Someone called 911.

Bellatiere, Mulcahy, and Soto
left the hotel scared and panicked while Alcala and Torres tended to Rivas. The
group drove down the street and parked. Bellatiere left because he was the only
one in the group who was over 21 years old and had brought alcohol for the
party, which included underage party guests. Bellatiere, Mulcahy, and Soto
called Mulchay’s mother and asked what they should do. As a result of that
conversation, about one hour later, Bellatiere, Mulcahy, and Soto returned to

the hotel. Bellatiere and Mulcahy spoke to police who were at the
hotel.

Rivas died at the hospital. An autopsy determined he bled to death
as a result of an L-shaped stab wound in the left jugular vein of the neck.
Rivas had a blood alcohol level of .09% before his death. He would have needed
four and one-half to five drinks to reach that level.

Police officers
arrested Rothwell the next day at her apartment in Valencia. Officer Michael
Reilly executed a search warrant and found her purse and backpack. In a small
pocket of her backpack, he found a folding knife with dried blood on it. Dried
blood was also found on her backpack, tennis shoes, and pants. Inside Rothwell’s
purse, Reilly found a McDonald’s receipt from earlier that morning at 2:39 a.m.
for a double cheeseburger and chicken nuggets.

Later that day, officers
interviewed Rothwell at the Huntington Beach Police Department. After waiving
her Miranda^{[ 2 ]} rights, Rothwell told police she consumed
three beers and two or three shots of alcohol and vomited while the others were
at the beach. Rothwell explained that while having a cigarette on the fire
escape, she had a conversation with Mulcahy about how she used to cut herself,
which sparked an argument with Rivas. She recalled Rivas said he “found God in
Huntington Beach,” but said it did not make her upset and she was joking when
she said the devil visited her. She explained Rivas had been drinking and yelled
at her to stab him. In response, she walked back to the hotel room and got her
knife. She denied saying she was going to stab Rivas. When she went back to the
stairwell, Rothwell alleged Rivas was taunting her to “stab me like that.”
Rothwell explained the two were wrestling and she was trying to get away when
she swung three times at his stomach and back and inadvertently stabbed him in
the neck. Rothwell explained Torres was screaming at her to stop, but she was
“drunk” and “pissed off” because Rivas had yelled at her and was grabbing her by
the arms. She told police that after she stabbed Rivas, he said, “You got me,”
and “[She] killed him.” Rothwell admitted seeing Rivas laying on the floor
bleeding profusely but gathered her belongings and left the hotel room because
she was terrified and realized he might die. Rothwell recalled saying, “tell
everybody to go to hell” to Mulcahy’s friend Marshall who had followed her down
the stairs. Rothwell explained that when she left the hotel she drove to

McDonald’s and purchased a double cheeseburger and chicken nuggets. Rothwell
explained she then went home and waited for the police to come and arrest
her.

During the interview, Rothwell at times explained she was really
drunk during the incident. However, she also denied feeling “buzzed,” explaining
she could “see straight” and was not falling down drunk. She also admitted she
drinks “a little bit” and takes medical marijuana everyday. Rothwell said she
takes Lexapro for anxiety and depression and that she had taken her medication
the night of the incident. Rothwell told police she has anger problems and when
her father died two years ago it “kinda pushed” her over the edge. She admitted
to stabbing a friend Alex Montes in the arm approximately a year and one-half
before when they were drunk and playing around. Rothwell explained she was not
mad at Montes, but he had said “you won’t [stab me],” so she did. Rothwell
agreed there were similarities about the two incidents with Rivas and Montes
because each man had dared her to stab him.

Rothwell cried while she told
police she did not mean to kill Rivas. When she heard about Rivas’s death she
“felt sick” and felt bad for his family. Rothwell did not know what made her do
it and admitted she is “not right.”

An indictment charged Rothwell with

murder in violation of Penal Code section 187, subdivision (a).^{[ 3 ]}
The indictment alleged she personally used a knife, a dangerous and deadly
weapon, in the commission of the crime, pursuant to section 12022, subdivision
(b)(1).

At trial, the prosecutor offered Montes’s testimony. Montes
testified he was a good friend of Rothwell, had known her for three years, and
would see her everyday. Montes explained a conversation he had with Rothwell in
which she told him that she did not believe in God because her father told her
to say her prayers and when Rothwell woke up in the morning, her father was
dead. He testified Rothwell would get upset and very emotional if the topic of
God was discussed. He recalled she would say, “Don’t ever bring God up in my
house again. I don’t believe it.” Despite her anger about any discussion of God,
he never saw Rothwell pick up a weapon or heard her say she would stab someone
for talking about God. Montes recalled a night when he and Rothwell were
“playing around” and Rothwell said, “if you make me mad enough I’ll stab you.”
Not taking Rothwell seriously, Montes explained he said jokingly, “you won’t
stab me” and stuck his arm out. In response, she pushed the knife into his arm,
drawing blood. She apologized the next day, and Montes still considers her a
close friend.

Mulcahy also testified for the prosecution. Mulcahy was a
friend of Rothwell from high school and stayed in touch weekly. Mulcahy
testified Rothwell appeared to be fine when she entered the party. She explained
it was the first time Rivas and Rothwell had met. She believed Rothwell was not
religious but was also not an atheist. She also knew Rothwell carried a knife
for protection and could get very angry. Mulcahy testified everyone drank
throughout the night.

The prosecutor also offered the testimony of a
forensic scientist, Annette McCall. McCall testified blood samples gathered from
the scene compared with known samples of Rivas’s DNA revealed Rivas could “not
be eliminated as a source.” She also testified blood samples gathered from
Rothwell’s backpack and knife compared with known samples of Rivas’s DNA
revealed Rivas could “not be eliminated as a source.”

Rothwell offered
Torres’s testimony. Torres explained she and Rothwell were best friends. Torres
said they “probably smoked marijuana” before going to the hotel and she saw
Rothwell smoking marijuana throughout the night. Torres described Rivas as
always having a smile on his face. According to Torres, Rivas and Rothwell were
talking about religion on the landing and Rivas said he saw God on the beach.
Rothwell said, “I’m the devil.” Torres explained Rivas was calm and Rothwell was
yelling and then left briefly. Torres recalled that when Rothwell returned, it
appeared as though she was dancing with Rivas. She eventually realized it looked
confrontational and Rivas was trying to push Rothwell away. Torres testified she
never saw a knife. She saw the blood pouring from Rivas’s neck but did not think
he would die. Torres helped Rivas until the paramedics arrived. She remembered
Rivas saying, “Tell my mother I love her.” She stated Rothwell gathered her
belongings and left the hotel room. Torres thought she heard Rothwell say upon
her departure, “It’s no big deal, fucking deal with it.” Torres said Rivas had
not been confrontational or argumentative with Rothwell that night or in the
past. However, Torres explained Rothwell becomes confrontational whenever the
subject of God comes up. Torres also explained that if someone tells Rothwell
not to do something, she will do it. Furthermore, if someone dares Rothwell to

do something, she will. Torres testified she witnessed the stabbing of Montes by
Rothwell, which was the result of a dare. Torres also testified “`[Rothwell]
goes from zero to maniac . . . if you push her button.’”

Torres admitted
lying to the police to protect Rothwell. She tried to protect Rothwell because
she knew what Rothwell did was wrong and it was no accident. Torres explained
she called Christian Robinson, Rothwell’s boyfriend, and told him that Rothwell
had stabbed someone. Two days later, Torres felt she could no longer protect
Rothwell and typed a statement to police that she both faxed and hand delivered.
In the statement, she explained Rothwell had stabbed Rivas. She also reported
Rothwell said to Rivas, “Oh yeah, oh, you don’t think I won’t. You think I
won’t.”

The trial court instructed the jury on first degree murder and
second degree murder­both on the implied malice and no premeditation
theories­and involuntary manslaughter. Rothwell’s counsel requested CALCRIM
No. 3426, the voluntary intoxication instruction. The prosecutor objected based
on Rothwell’s statement she was not buzzed. The trial court expressed a
preference for CALCRIM No. 625, a voluntary intoxication instruction that
pertains directly to homicide. Defense counsel requested CALCRIM No. 625 be
modified to add malice aforethought, which includes implied malice. The
requested instruction (the Special Instruction) provided: “You may consider
evidence, if any, of the defendant’s voluntary intoxication only in a limited
way. You may consider that evidence only in deciding whether the defendant acted
with an intent to kill, or the defendant acted with deliberation and
premeditation, or acted with malice aforethought. [¶] A person is

voluntarily intoxicated if he or she becomes intoxicated by willingly
using any intoxicating drug, drink, or other substance knowing that it could
produce an intoxicating effect, or willingly assuming the risk of that effect.
[¶] You may not consider evidence of voluntary intoxication for any other
purpose.” The court declined to instruct the jury with the Special Instruction.
Instead, the court instructed the jury with CALCRIM No. 625 without the “or
acted with malice aforethought” language.

The jury convicted Rothwell of
second degree murder and found true the allegations she personally used a deadly
or dangerous weapon, a knife. The trial court sentenced her to prison for a
total term of 16 years to life.

Rothwell contends her federal constitutional rights to due process and a
fair trial were violated when the trial court, relying on section 22, refused to
instruct the jury it may consider her voluntary intoxication to negate implied
malice. Specifically, she argues section 22, subdivision (b), is
unconstitutional because it was designed to keep out relevant, exculpatory
evidence and is not a redefinition of the mental state element of the offense.
We disagree.

Section 22, most recently amended in 1995, provides: “(a) No
act committed by a person while in a state of voluntary intoxication is less
criminal by reason of his or her having been in that condition. Evidence of
voluntary intoxication shall not be admitted to negate the capacity to form any
mental states for the crimes charged, including, but not limited to, purpose,
intent, knowledge, premeditation, deliberation, or malice aforethought, with
which the accused committed the act. [¶] (b) Evidence of voluntary intoxication
is admissible solely on the issue of whether or not the defendant actually
formed a required specific intent, or, when charged with murder, whether the
defendant premeditated, deliberated, or harbored express malice
aforethought. [¶] (c) Voluntary intoxication includes the voluntary ingestion,
injection, or taking by any other means of any intoxicating liquor, drug, or
other substance.” (Italics added.)

The Legislature’s 1995 amendment to

section 22 inserted the word “express” before the word “malice” in subdivision
(b). The 1995 amendment was in direct response to People v. Whitfield
(1994) 7 Cal.4th 437 (Whitfield). In Whitfield, the California
Supreme Court held evidence of a defendant’s voluntary intoxication was
admissible to negate implied as well as express malice. (Id. at
451.)

The history of the 1995 amendment to section 22 was most recently
addressed in People v. Turk (2008) 164 Cal.App.4th 1361 (Turk). In

Turk, the court concluded, “The legislative history of the amendment
unequivocally indicates that the Legislature intended to legislatively supersede
Whitfield, and make voluntary intoxication inadmissible to negate implied
malice in cases in which a defendant is charged with murder.” (Turk,
supra, 164 Cal.App.4th at pp. 1374-1375.)

Rothwell argues section 22
is unconstitutional after the 1995 amendment because “it created a rule that
keeps out relevant exculpatory evidence by in effect precluding the jury from
considering evidence that could disprove the `conscious disregard for human
life’ element of implied malice second degree murder.” Rothwell relies on

Montana v. Egelhoff (1996) 518 U.S. 37 (Egelhoff), and Justice
Ginsburg’s concurring opinion, to support her contention.

In
Egelhoff, a plurality of the court upheld the constitutionality of a
Montana statute providing voluntary intoxication “`may not be taken into
consideration in determining the existence of a mental state which is an element
of [the] offense.’” (Egelhoff, supra, 518 U.S. at p. 57.) The plurality
found no due process violation because the right to have a jury consider
intoxication evidence was not a “fundamental principle of justice.” In
concurrence, Justice Ginsberg drew a distinction between rules designed to keep
out relevant, exculpatory evidence that might negate an essential element of a
crime and violate due process, and rules that redefine the mental state element
of the offense. (Ibid.) Justice Ginsburg viewed the Montana statute as a
redefinition of the offense’s required mental state and therefore excluding
evidence of voluntary intoxication was constitutional. (Id. at pp.
57-59.)

“When a fragmented Court decides a case and no single rationale
explaining the result enjoys the assent of five Justices, `the holding of the
Court may be viewed as that position taken by those Members who concurred in the
judgments on the narrowest grounds . . . .’” (Marks v. United States

(1977) 430 U.S. 188, 193.) Assuming Justice Ginsburg’s concurrence controls, as
Rothwell urges this court to do, we nonetheless conclude section 22 does not
violate due process.

In People v. Timms (2007) 151 Cal.App.4th
1292, 1300-1301 (Timms ), the court addressed the identical issue we have
here. The court explained section 22 did not violate a defendant’s due process
rights because section 22, subdivision (b), did not belong to the “prohibited
category of evidentiary rules designed to exclude relevant exculpatory
evidence.” (Timms, supra, 151 Cal.App.4th at p. 1300.) The court
reasoned, “The absence of implied malice from the exceptions listed in
subdivision (b) is itself a policy statement that murder under an implied malice
theory comes within the general rule of subdivision (a) such that voluntary
intoxication can serve no defensive purpose. In other words, section 22,
subdivision (b)[,] is not `merely an evidentiary prescription’; rather, it
`embodies a legislative judgment regarding the circumstances under which
individuals may be held criminally responsible for their actions.’ [Citation.]
In short, voluntary intoxication is irrelevant to proof of the mental state of
implied malice or conscious disregard. Therefore, it does not lessen the
prosecution’s burden of proof or prevent a defendant from presenting all
relevant defensive evidence.” (Id. at pp. 1300-1301)

The

Timms court found illuminating the fact section 22 does not appear in the
Evidence Code, it appears in the Penal Code. (Timms, supra, 151
Cal.App.4th at p. 1300.) Additionally, the court acknowledged the California
Supreme Court’s holding in People v. Atkins (2001) 25 Cal.4th 76, which
rejected a due process challenge to section 22 in the context of the general
intent crime of arson. (Timms, supra, 151 Cal.App.4th at p.
1300.)

With respect to Justice Ginsburg’s concurrence, the court stated
that assuming the concurrence controls, “Justice Ginsberg also stated: `Defining

mens rea to eliminate the exculpatory value of voluntary intoxication
does not offend a “fundamental principle of justice,” given the lengthy
common-law tradition, and the adherence of a significant minority of the States
to that position today. [Citations.]‘ [Citation.] Under this rational, the 1995
amendment permissibly could preclude consideration of voluntary intoxication to
negate implied malice and the notion of conscious disregard. Like the Montana
statute, the California Legislature could also exclude evidence of voluntary
intoxication in determination of the requisite mental state.” (Timms,
supra, 151 Cal.App.4th p. 1300.) Therefore, the court concluded section 22
did not infringe defendant’s constitutional rights.

Rothwell also argues
the trial court’s application of section 22 violated her constitutional right to

due process and a fair trial because, “[t]he level of a defendant’s intoxication
is undeniably relevant evidence on the issue of whether he or she consciously
disregarded a risk to human life.” We find People v. Martin (2000) 78
Cal.App.4th 1107 (Martin), instructive.

In Martin, supra,
78 Cal.App.4th at page 1113, the court rejected this constitutional challenge to
section 22. The court explained, “Section 22 states the basic principle of law
recognized in California that a criminal act is not rendered less criminal
because it is committed by a person in a state of voluntary intoxication.” The
court stated section 22 “is closely analogous to [the Legislature's] abrogation
of the defense of diminished capacity . . . . The 1995 amendment to section 22
results from a legislative determination that, for reasons of public policy,
evidence of voluntary intoxication to negate culpability shall be strictly
limited. We find nothing in the enactment that deprives a defendant of the
ability to present a defense or relieves the People of their burden to prove
every element of the crime charged beyond a reasonable doubt.” (Martin,
supra, 78 Cal.App.4th at p. 1117.)

We find the courts’ reasoning in

Timms, supra, 151 Cal.App.4th 1292, and Martin, supra, 78
Cal.App.4th 1107, persuasive. Thus, we conclude the trial court’s refusal to
instruct the jury with Rothwell’s Special Instruction did not violate her
constitutional rights. The trial court properly instructed the jury with CALCRIM
No. 625.

In its respondent’s brief,
the Attorney General suggests Rothwell may be asserting an equal protection
claim. In her reply brief, Rothwell raises the equal protection argument for the
first time. We need not consider this argument, because it was made for the
first time in reply without any showing of good cause for failing to raise it in
the opening brief. (Shade Foods, Inc. v. Innovative Products Sales &

Marketing, Inc. (2000) 78 Cal.App.4th 847, 894-895, fn. 10.) Additionally,
to the extent Rothwell attempts to raise an equal protection claim, her failure
to properly raise the issue and support it with adequate argument and citation
to authority waived the issues on appeal. (See, e.g., California Dept. of
Corrections v. State Personnel Bd. (2004) 121 Cal.App.4th 1601, 1619.) In
any event, her claim fails on the merits. (Timms, supra, 151 Cal.App.4th
at pp. 1302-1303.)

The judgment is
affirmed.

WE CONCUR.

MOORE, J.

IKOLA, J.
1. `In accord
with the usual rules of appellate review, we state the facts in the light most
favorable to the judgment. (People v. Ochoa (1993) 6 Cal.4th 1199,
1206.)
2. Miranda v. Arizona (1966) 384 U.S. 436.
3. All further
statutory references are to the Penal Code

Booze and pills alert after Bertie tragedy

ANTIDEPRESSANTS CAUSE CRAVINGS FOR ALCOHOL!!!! [AM I SHOUTING? YES I AM SHOUTING!!! AND I HAVE BEEN SHOUTING THAT ANTIDEPRESSANTS CAUSE CRAVINGS FOR ALCOHOL FOR TWO DECADES!] LET ME REPEAT THAT: ANTIDEPRESSANTS CAUSE CRAVINGS FOR ALCOHOL!!!!!

Antidepressants cause this alcohol craving in several ways:

- by dropping the blood sugar
- by producing mania, one type of mania is known as “dipsomania” which is described as an “uncontrollable urge to drink alcohol”
- by increasing serotonin which has been shown in medical research to cause cravings for alcohol (see SSRIs & Alcoho at www.drugawareness.org)
________________________________

Paragraph four reads: “But an inquest heard he had secretly been battling depression after splitting with the mother of his daughter – and in the early hours of New Year’s Day he was found dead in his home in Mold, North Wales.”

Paragraph thirteen reads: “When their relationship broke down, he moved back into his family home where he began a course of anti-depressant drugs.”

Paragraph twenty reads: “Toxicology results showed he was more than three times the drink-drive limit. . . ”

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1267219/Robert-Gallagher-UK-Olympic-judo-hopeful-hangs-black-belt.html

Monday, Apr 19 2010 3PM

British judo star tipped for Olympic glory hangs himself with own black belt after breaking up with girlfriend
By Daily Mail Reporter

Last updated at 1:39 PM on 19th April 2010

A British judo star tipped for success at the 2012 Olympics hanged himself with his own black belt after struggling to get over splitting from his girlfriend, an inquest heard.

Firefighter Robert ‘Robbie’ Gallagher, 23, was so talented in martial arts he was listed as one of the amateur sportsmen expected to shine during the London Olympics.

He was known across the Judo world for fighting in the 66kg weight category and was one of Britain’s top judo players in 2005, when he was in the British junior squad.

But an inquest heard he had secretly been battling depression after splitting with the mother of his daughter – and in the early hours of New Year’s Day he was found dead in his home in Mold, North Wales.

His father Robert Gallagher Snr, said: ‘We as a family are so saddened by Robbie’s untimely death and we miss him greatly.

‘He was into his judo and was a contender for the 2012 Olympic games and was a retained firefighter, hoping to have a future full-time in firefighting.

‘He had been a mischievous happy person and enjoyed his life. He wanted to achieve the very best.’

Mr Gallagher started judo when he was five before later taking up the sport at the highest level.

He was British judo champion three times and represented North Wales Fire and Rescue Service at the 2008 World Firefighting Games at the Echo Arena, Liverpool.

A British Judo Association spokeswoman said after his death: ‘British judo is extremely saddened by the loss of Robbie Gallagher.

‘A talented judo player, Robbie will be missed by players and coaches alike.’

An inquest heard last Friday how Robbie had been with girlfriend Sophie Bell-Halfpenny for four years, and together they shared a home and daughter Evie.

When their relationship broke down, he moved back into his family home where he began a course of anti-depressant drugs.

Miss Bell-Halfpenny told the hearing her former partner had threatened suicide on several occasions, explaining: ‘He once phoned me at 4am to say he had taken an overdose of sleeping tablets.

‘Then he came up to my house and and was waving his judo belts at me saying he was going to take his own life.’

The inquest in Mold heard how the judo ace had gone to a pub on New Year’s Eve to see in 2010 with some friends but had then gone back home to hang himself.

His father said he did not realise his son had returned home early until he went to have a cigarette outside shortly after midnight, and heard a noise from their garage.

He stepped inside and made the horrific discovery of his son hanging by his own judo belt.

A post-mortem examination revealed the father-of-one had died from asphyxia caused by hanging.

Toxicology results showed he was more than three times the drink-drive limit. He did not leave a note.

Recording a verdict of suicide, North East Wales coroner John Hughes, told the family: ‘I want to tell you how desperately sad I was to hear of your misfortune, especially as it was someone as young as your boy.’

After hearing of his death last January, a spokesman for his former school, Alun School, said: ‘We are very sad to hear this news.

‘He was a very outgoing character who was well liked by all the staff. He always had a big smile on his face.

‘We remember him fondly as a very fit lad, he could turn his hand to anything, but judo was his sport.

‘Robbie was one of the most gifted athletes we had at the school. He excelled at judo and represented Wales and the UK.

‘He was an excellent judo player and at one time he was in the top group for his age.’

“Defence solicitor Brian Bell said:  ‘Graham had difficult family circumstances at that time which had put a lot of pressure on him’.”

“ ‘He is a hard-working family man in employment and it is completely unlike him’.”

“ ‘He was on anti-depressants and the combination of those withalcohol would provide an explanation’.”

SSRI Stories Note:  The Physicians Desk Reference states thatantidepressants can cause a craving for alcohol and can causealcohol abuse. Also, the liver cannot metabolize the antidepressant and the alcohol simultaneously, thus leading to higher levels of both alcoholand the antidepressant in the human body.

http://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/Article.aspx/1692897?UserKey=

Children saw attack on mother

Man avoids jail and is fined £250 for assault on woman

Published: 16/04/2010

AN ANGUS man who attacked a woman in front of her three childrenavoided jail yesterday.

William Graham, of 45 Knowehead, Kirriemuir, had been ejected from a pub after drinking heavily before the attack in Kirriemuir High Street on January 9.

About 9.15pm, a woman saw the 50-year-old staring intensely across the street at her and her children, Forfar Sheriff Court heard yesterday.

Fiscal depute Hannah Kennedy said the woman noticed Graham at some nearby wheelie bins and felt that his mood was changing.

She said the woman felt he was staring at them in an aggressive manner and she approached him to ask him to stop looking at her and herchildren.

Mrs Kennedy went on: “Graham then lunged forward and butted her, forcing her to the ground.

“She retaliated by kicking him on the leg and he responded by punchingher in the face.”

Mrs Kennedy added that the mother threw her mobile phone at Graham, hitting him in the face, before he kicked her in the leg.

A group in a passing vehicle stopped and tried to help the woman, before calling the police.

She was left with a cut to her upper lip and bruising to her face and leg.

When arrested, Graham told police that he did not know what had happened: “All I can remember is her walking towards me and then the police came and took me away.”

Defence solicitor Brian Bell said: “Graham had difficult family circumstances at that time which had put a lot of pressure on him.

“He is a hard-working family man in employment and it is completely unlike him.

“He was on anti-depressants and the combination of those with alcoholwould provide an explanation.”

Graham had previously pleaded guilty to assault.

Sentencing, Sheriff Kevin Veal said: “This was an unnecessary assault on the victim in front of her children.”

Graham was fined £250 and ordered to pay £150 compensation.

Read more: http://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/Article.aspx/1692897?UserKey=#ixzz0lI4E1Vlf

“She became hysterical when the detectives told her Bianca died.”

“ ‘I want her back,’ she cried.”

“The tape shows that Starr calmed down within minutes. Eventually she said, ‘Safe to say to say I killed her. Safe to say I’m going to go to jail. Safe to say I’m never going to be sane again’.”

“Starr also told investigators she had skipped a dose of an anti-depressant.”

http://www.wsiltv.com/p/news_details.php?newsID=9900&type=top

Prosecution Rests in Starr Case

MARION

After an emotional week in court, the Herrin woman on trial for killing her three-year-old daughter has decided not to testify, according to court documents.

Prosecutors began presenting their case against Karrae Starr, 20, by playing the tape of the 911 call she made in late September 2008.

They wrapped it up Friday morning by showing the jury a recording of her interview with investigators, which was conducted hours later.

In the video Starr wore a t-shirt with blood stains on it. She acknowledged the blood belonged to her daughter, Bianca.

During the interview, Starr told investigators Jill Blus of the Williamson County Sheriff’s Department and Bruce Graul of the Herrin Police Department she got angry when Bianca went to the playground with her boyfriend without telling her.

In the recording, Starr tells the investigators Bianca threw a fit when she dragged her home.
Once in Bianca’s bedroom, “I held my hand over her mouth” to make her stop screaming, Starr said.

“I was extremely [expletive] pissed off and drunk,” she continued. She told detectives she had five shots of vodka that night.

Starr said Bianca eventually calmed down, so she removed her hand, and asked Bianca if she was okay. Bianca said yes.

According to Starr, as she was leaving the room she heard Bianca get out of bed, so she turned around. When she did, she saw blood and foam coming from Bianca’s nose.

Thursday a forensic pathologist testified that the blood and foam, combined with swollen organs which were discovered during an autopsy, indicate Bianca was smothered.

“All indications are she didn’t stand up out of bed herself,” Blus told Starr.

Starr, who was a nursing student at the time, did CPR on her daughter. Eventually, she told investigators, “I picked her up and held her and told her to come back….I was giving up because she wasn’t responding.”

Starr said her boyfriend was in the other room on the computer as she gave Bianca CPR.

Throughout the interview Starr said she was in school because Bianca was the only “remotely good” thing in her life.

She became hysterical when the detectives told her Bianca died.

“I want her back,” she cried.

The tape shows that Starr calmed down within minutes. Eventually she said, “Safe to say to say I killed her. Safe to say I’m going to go to jail. Safe to say I’m never going to be sane again.”

Starr also told investigators she had skipped a dose of an anti-depressant.

As the recording played for the jury, Starr became visibly upset several times.

The trial continues Monday. It’s expected to wrap up by Tuesday.

U.S. Attorney Danny Kay and State’s Attorney Chuck Garnati are prosecuting the case. Public Defender Larry Broeking represents Starr.

By Dana Jay
djay@wsiltv.com

Paragraph 13 reads:  “She said the incident had a huge impact on
her client’s marriage, his wife was left shaken and Todd had consumed alcohol while on medication and with an
empty stomach that night.

SSRI Stories Note:  The Physicians
Desk Reference states that antidepressants can
cause a craving for alcohol and alcohol abuse.

Also, the liver cannot metabolize the antidepressant and the alcohol
simultaneously,  thus leading to higher levels of both alcohol and the
antidepressant in the human body

http://www.standard.net.au/news/local/news/general/pilot-strikes-below-the-belt/1801972.aspx

Pilot strikes below the belt

ANDREW THOMSON
14
Apr, 2010 04:00 AM

A LONG-TIME RAAF officer has piloted his way into
trouble after grabbing another man’s testicles at the Port Fairy Folk Festival.

Jeff Todd, 51, of Ramsey Court, Lowood, pleaded guilty in the
Warrnambool Magistrates Court this week to unlawful assault.

He was not
convicted and fined $1000.

The court was told that on March 7 this year
Todd was at the festival between 6.30pm and 7.30pm when he became involved in a
verbal incident in a bar with a man not known to him.
Todd bumped into the
man several times in a bar and was asked to move away before the victim
requested security personnel to assist.

Todd moved away a few paces,
made some derogatory comments, then came up behind the victim and grabbed his
testicles with significant force.

“You’ve got no balls, mate,” Todd told
the victim and there was a short struggle before he released the victim’s
testicles.

Todd was kicked out of the venue and told not to come back.

He told police during an interview he had drunk a bottle of wine and had
little recollection of the incident.

At the time Todd was suffering
anxiety and depression and could have suffered a blackout.

The victim
suffered pain for about 12 hours and Todd wrote a letter of apology which was
passed on through police.

Defence counsel Danielle Svede said Todd had
no prior convictions, glowing references and had not drunk alcohol since the
incident.

She said the incident had a huge impact on her client’s
marriage, his wife was left shaken and Todd had consumed alcohol while on
medication and with an empty stomach that night.

Ms Svede said her client
was on 12 months leave from the air force, had undertaken anger management and
knew his behaviour was inappropriate.

Magistrate Jonathan Klestadt said
there should be no doubt in anyone’s mind that the defendant’s actions were
appalling.

He said the folk festival was not a place to be confronted by
drunken, boorish behaviour and assaulted.

http://www.statesman.com/news/local/georgetown-man-pleads-guilty-in-fatal-2009-wreck-248382.html

Georgetown man pleads guilty in fatal 2009 wreck

Luke Anthony Looschen faces up to 100 years in prison for wrong-way crash
on Texas 29.

By Miguel
Liscano

AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF

Updated: 12:49 a.m.
Thursday, Feb. 18, 2010

Published: 8:54 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 17,
2010

A Georgetown man pleaded guilty Wednesday morning to four counts of
intoxication manslaughter and two counts of intoxication assault, admitting
guilt in causing a three-vehicle collision last summer that killed four people
and injured two others.

Luke Anthony Looschen, 48, entered his plea
before District Judge Burt Carnes in a Williamson County courtroom. A sentencing
hearing has been set for March 12 . He faces up to 100 years in
prison.

The guilty plea was not part of a plea agreement, Looschen’s
attorney Mike Davis and Williamson County Assistant District Attorney Robert
McCabe said in court.

“Mr. Looschen has acknowledged his guilt from the
get-go on this, and he felt the proper thing to do was to plead guilty,” Davis
said later.

Family members of those killed in the wreck wept in the
courtroom as Looschen entered his plea.

Looschen, who has been in the
Williamson County Jail with bail set at $600,000 since his arrest, showed no
visible emotion during the hearing.

“Did you use your truck as a deadly
weapon in this case?” McCabe asked.

“Yes, sir, I did,” Looschen
replied.

Because of that admission, Looschen must serve at least half of
the sentence he receives, and Carnes cannot sentence him to probation,
Williamson County District Attorney John Bradley said.

Looschen was
arrested Aug. 10 after troopers said he was driving a pickup east in a westbound
lane of Texas 29 near Jonah and collided head-on with a Jeep and a van carrying
seven people. The van slid down an embankment and struck a tree, according to a
Department of Public Safety crash report.

The driver of the Jeep was not
seriously injured, officials said.

In the van, Pete Mendez, 44, and Paula
Martinez, 38 , were pronounced dead at the scene, officials said. Two passengers
died later at University Medical Center Brackenridge: Crystal Martinez , the
16-year-old daughter of Paula Martinez and Clemente Martinez, the driver; and
Stephanie Valadez, 24, who was dating the couple’s son.

Valadez’s
daughter Tristan and son Jacob, who were 3 and 1, respectively, at the time of
the wreck, were treated at Scott & White Memorial Hospital in Temple and
released.

Clemente Martinez was not seriously injured, officials
said.

After the wreck, DPS trooper Otto Cabrera wrote in an arrest
affidavit that he “could smell the strong odor of metabolized alcohol from
Looschen.” Looschen told Cabrera that he’d been drinking and had taken
antidepressants as well as hydrocodone, according to the affidavit. Hydrocodone

can be used as a cough suppressant or a pain reliever.

Blood test results
later revealed that Looschen’s blood alcohol content level was 0.16 , or twice
the legal limit of 0.08 , according to the DPS crash report. Looschen had been
in a previous one-vehicle accident on July 16 in Williamson County, which he
later discussed on his Facebook page. He said on the Web site that he had
totaled his truck and “sustained some scrapes, bruises and lacerations.” On Aug.
3, a few days before the fatal crash, he wrote on Facebook that he was getting a
replacement truck that day.

In 2006, Looschen was in a motorcycle
accident with his ex-wife, 43-year-old Shanan Looschen, in Georgetown, police
said.

Shanan Looschen was thrown from the motorcycle and died a day later
at Brackenridge, police said. Neither was wearing a helmet, police
said.

No charges were filed in either of the two earlier
wrecks.

mliscano@statesman.com;
246-1150

Paragraphs
seven and eight read:  Stevens failed two sobriety tests, court documents
allege, and appeared increasingly intoxicated as police questioned him. He
reportedly said he had taken Lexapro, an anti-anxiety and
anti-depressant drug, and was taking Prozac, an antidepressant. A
bottle of Baclofen, a muscle relaxant, was allegedly found in the rental
truck.

“However, tests done on blood taken from Stevens after his arrest
came back negative for intoxicants [alcohol], according to court
documents. Stevens was not charged in any of the other alleged crashes that
day.”

http://www.magicvalley.com/news/local/article_82226ad0-3e75-5e78-95fe-27073b884547.html

Stevens pleads guilty to vehicular manslaughter

By
Ariel Hansen – Times-News writer | Posted: Thursday, January 21, 2010 1:00 am |
(0)
Comments

HAILEY ­ Nearly a year after Bert Redfern died in a
March 10 car crash on Idaho Highway 75 in Hailey, a Twin Falls man has pleaded
guilty to misdemeanor vehicular manslaughter for the fatal crash.

Cody
Stevens, 29, of Twin Falls, had been charged with felony vehicular manslaughter.
On Tuesday, just weeks before his district court trial was set to begin, he
pleaded guilty to the misdemeanor, which carries a penalty of up to a year in
prison and a $2,000 fine.

The prosecutor’s office previously alleged
Stevens was either under the influence of drugs or alcohol, or was grossly
negligent in causing Redfern’s death. They alleged he had been involved in four
crashes on that day, two prior to the fatal crash and one immediately
afterward.

According to court documents, Stevens allegedly left his job
in Jerome after a 12-hour shift at 6 a.m. March 10, and drove north. In Lincoln
County, he was allegedly reported as a reckless driver after he got close enough
to “rub mirrors” with the reporting party at about 7:20 a.m. At about 9:45, he
allegedly hit a tree south of Bellevue, telling police he swerved to avoid a
deer.

After leaving his totaled truck in Bellevue and renting a truck in
Hailey, Stevens returned to a Bellevue body shop. He then headed toward Ketchum
when he allegedly caused the noon-time collision that resulted in Redfern’s
death. He then allegedly flipped his rental truck onto a curb in downtown
Hailey, where police took him into custody.

Stevens failed two sobriety
tests, court documents allege, and appeared increasingly intoxicated as police
questioned him. He reportedly said he had taken Lexapro, an anti-anxiety and
anti-depressant drug, and was taking Prozac, an antidepressant. A bottle of
Baclofen, a muscle relaxant, was allegedly found in the rental
truck.

Stevens was taken for blood testing at St. Luke’s Wood River
Regional Medical Center, and he was later taken back to the hospital after
becoming increasingly unresponsive and incoherent during police questioning,
according to court documents.

However, tests done on blood taken from
Stevens after his arrest came back negative for intoxicants, according to court
documents. Stevens was not charged in any of the other alleged crashes that
day.

A civil case for wrongful death is pending against Stevens, filed by
Redfern’s widower, and Stevens’ plea to misdemeanor vehicular manslaughter can
be used against him in that case.

The county case has been sent back to
the magistrate court, and a sentencing hearing has not yet been
scheduled.

Ariel Hansen may be reached at ahansen@magicvalley.com or
208-788-3475.

Posted in Local, Crime-and-courts

on Thursday, January 21, 2010 1:00 am Updated: 10:57 pm.
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Asda shoplifter was in ‘severe financial straits’

“It was a jovial affair, a party. His tolerance
levels for alcohol were greatly diminished. It explains, in part, he has
very little recollection of events. Police on arrival found him incoherent and
unsteady on his feet, and he was taken to hospital because of the condition he
was in.”

SSRI Stories Note:  The Physicians Desk Reference states
that antidepressants can cause a craving for

alcohol and alcohol abuse. Also, the liver
cannot metabolize the antidepressant and the alcohol simultaneously,  thus
leading to higher levels of both alcohol and the antidepressant in the
human body.

http://www.thisisnottingham.co.uk/homenews/Clifton-house-guest-strangled-threatened/article-1334903-detail/article.html

Clifton house guest strangled and threatened

Monday,
September 14, 2009, 07:00

A WOMAN was told she would be disfigured and
killed by a knife-wielding friend who got drunk at a family party.

Marcus
Musson held a blade to Karen Savage and strangled her until she lost
consciousness.

When he fell asleep, she escaped to the safety of her
mum’s home and called police.

After Musson was arrested, he said he could
not remember what happened.

At Nottingham Crown Court, he pleaded guilty
to assault causing actual bodily harm, and received two years and three months
in prison.

Three months of the sentence was because he breached a 180-day
sentence, suspended for 12 months, for battery on another woman previously
sharing his home.

Judge Dudley Bennett said: “For a decade now you have
been using violence in one away or another on anyone who stands in your
way.

“You grabbed hold of this woman by her hair and pulled her through
from one room to another by her hair. If that stood alone, it is a pretty
horrible thing to do. Then you got a knife and held it to her chin and
threatened to disfigure her.

“Knives kill, I keep saying this.
Mercifully, she did not suffer any injuries as a result of that. You then cut
her hair off in great clumps. That is a disfigurement. It’s dreadful. There you
are using that knife on her. Then you strangle her to the point she loses
consciousness. Then you head-butt her and cut her skin.”

Miss Savage had
known 37-year-old Musson for years and stayed on and off with him in the weeks
leading up to the attack because of problems with her
accommodation.

After a family party in Clifton on Valentine’s Day, Musson
accused her of trying to make advances towards one of her guests.

Miss
Savage, who was not in a relationship with Musson, told him it had nothing to do
with him.

“He reached over, grabbed her hair and twisted it around his
hand and pulled her by her hair into the kitchen and pushed her into a corner,”
said Jon Fountain, prosecuting.

“He got a knife, put it to her chin, then
against her cheek and said, ‘I’m going to kill you. No-one will look at you when
I have finished’.”

Closing her eyes and fearing the worst, Musson hacked
at her hair and threw large clumps to the floor.

He tried to choke her
and said “it’s because I love you” before head-butting her.

Musson, now
of HMP Nottingham, threw down the knife and went to sleep on the
sofa.

Miss Savage fled barefoot from the house to her mother’s home. She
had cuts to her scalp and pain to her ribs.

Musson’s previous convictions
include assaulting police, using threatening words and behaviour, affray and
common assault.

Mitigating, Adrian Langdale told the court Musson had
been drinking 10 to 15 cans of alcohol a day, but had stopped before this
assault.

He said: “He was prescribed anti-depressants following the
break-up of his relationship. All of these matters came to a head on the night
of this offence. For the first time in six to eight months, he started drinking
again.

“It was a jovial affair, a party. His tolerance levels for alcohol

were greatly diminished. It explains, in part, he has very little recollection
of events. Police on arrival found him incoherent and unsteady on his feet, and
he was taken to hospital because of the condition he was
in.”

rebecca.sherdley@nottinghameveningpost.co.uk

house‘.”

http://www.nwherald.com/articles/2009/09/16/02803329/index.xml

By SARAH
SUTSCHEK – ssutschek@nwherald.com

FOX LAKE – A teacher at Grant
Community High School in Fox Lake is free on bond Wednesday after police said
she provided students with alcohol, marijuana and an antidepressant in exchange
for household chores.

Kym A. Krocza, 41, of 36300 N. Wilson Road in
Ingleside, was charged with two counts of contributing to the criminal
delinquency of a juvenile, a Class 4 felony punishable by up to six years in
prison.

She taught algebra and calculus.

The Lake County Sheriff’s
Office began its investigation after a concerned parent reported that her child
had been to Krocza’s home and was given alcohol and marijuana. Another student
also had been given alcohol, marijuana and Zoloft, according to a news release.
Both students were 14-year-old female freshmen, Sheriff Mark Curran
said.

“She befriended them before they were even students of hers,”
Curran said. “She enticed them with Zoloft, marijuana and alcohol, and they
would come over and do favors in terms of cleaning up her house.”

The
incidents are believed to have taken place between January and August.
Additional charges are possible. Curran said Krocza had no previous criminal
record.

“Everybody was victimized by a person with an immoral worldview
that shouldn’t be educating our youth,” he said.

The Sheriff’s Office
encourages parents to talk with their children about the incident, and the
office continues to investigate whether there were other children
involved.

According to the school’s Web site, Krocza was arrested Tuesday
morning at her home. She has been suspended and is not allowed on school
grounds, nor is she authorized to contact students.

Superintendent John
Benedetti said that whether Krocza’s suspension will be with pay has not been
decided. He declined to comment further, other than to say she was hired in
2000.

Raedel Munster, whose son is a senior at the school, said she was
notified of the arrest Tuesday via e-mail. Her son did not know about the
accusations and did not have Krocza as a teacher, but two of her older children
did, Munster said.

“They never had anything bad to say about her,” she
said.

Munster said that she was pleased with how administrators were
handling the situation.

“I think the superintendent contacted the parents
by the best means possible to let them know that something was going on,” she
said. “I commend them for it; many school districts would try to cover these
things up.”

Had the situation arisen when her firstborn was in school,
she probably would have been upset, Munster said.

“But you realize that
there are all kinds of people in this world, and some of them become teachers,”
she said. “There are some circumstances a school district can’t
control.”

Krocza’s bond was set at $50,000. Her next court date is
Friday.

Lisa & Lori

Lorraine

1956-1981

Lori’s Story

“I always knew my sister’s sudden death that was labeled suicide was

suspicious” Nothing made sense until NOW!

After almost 3 decades of being kept in the dark, I have the answer I

searched for my entire life since that tragic morning I found her in

her 1977 Buick with our father’s handgun in her lap. I promised her

that morning I would not give up until I found t

he “truth” about what

really happened to her. My sister loved her family and knew we loved

her. She would not of taken her life. So why did she?

Summary of my story:

My sister moved home to file for divorce in 1980.

I am her younger sister Lisa, and we spent the most time together when

she moved back home. I was thrilled to have the time with her. We were

very close.

She was a strong, smart woman and was determined to make it on her own.

She worked for the county that we lived in and was very well liked.

They were shocked as everyone was to hear about her sudden death. So

out of character.

The time she lived with us she was fine. Going to work taking one day

at a time to rebuild her life. Until Suddenly the last month to weeks

she  changed.

I listened, and I watched her suddenly turn into someone I did not

know. I could not figure it out. Why was she acting like this? Saying

these things to me? Finding it funny to scare me?

She started to talk about death and dying, and included me in her ideas

on how I could help her end her life. (ways we could try)

Some examples: She would loop a belt around her neck and ask me to pull

as hard as I could until she stopped breathing, She would ask me to

come in the middle of the night and put a pillow over her face to

suffocate her in her sleep, she would lay still in her bed and when she

heard me coming she would pretend to be dead when I shook her to wake

her up… she would not move until she started to laugh hysterically, and

would say “I’m just joking Lisa..I just wanted to see what you would do

if I were really dead? and what it would really feel like to be dead? I

wouldn’t really do it …I’m too chicken!”

Soon another sudden change came about she started to say things like

“HE” is in your closet and going to get you. Will you sleep with me in

my room?! Never made sense. She also would go from laughing and joking

about something then it turned into anger and agitation and confusion

at times.

Something else happened shortly before she took her life. She was

very sick with the flu.  She lost a lot of weight, she could not eat,

drink, or get up out of bed she was very pale and fragile looking. I

felt so bad I could not help her feel better.

She often fell asleep with her bible on her face she looked like she

was searching for a answer to something that was happening inside her

she did not understand.

I had to take the bible of her face when she finally was able to sit

still and take a short nap. Her sleeping pattern was all off as well.

The night before she took her life I remember so clear all the details.

I remember everything.. from how she kept rocking in our rocking chair

we had in the living room. She would n

ot stop. She also was talking

much faster than usual and walking much faster as well. When I asked

her to stop rocking so fast she just looked at me like she couldn’t

stop, or didn’t want to. It was like someone was pushing her to rock. I

thought it very odd at the time but soon overlooked it because her

behavior had been so altered lately that I almost was getting use to it.

Lori came into my bedroom late that night and stood in my doorway. She

was talking to me.

The last thing she said was “Well I’ll see you in the morning!” and off

she went down the hallway and I heard the door slam as it always did

behind her. I did not know it then but that was the last time I would

see her alive.

On September 22 1981 I was getting ready for school. I went into her

room to borrow a shirt of hers and I quietly asked her if I could

borrow it.

She did not answer. So I took it and got ready to catch the bus.

As I walked out the front door down our driveway I had to pass her car.

From a distance all I could see was RED. My first thought was “here she

goes again,  She is trying to fool me again, and this time she used

Ketchup!

Well as I got closer..I saw my sister through the car window as she lay

on her side with her head on the headrest of the passenger side door. I

could see her face clearly. There was blood dripping from her bottom

lip onto the seat and still I was in disbelief.

Our father came out of the house broke the driver side window unlocked

the door got in the car reached across her body to unlock the passenger

side door ran around the car as fast as he could to then find out my

sister was not moving. She was not alive. She was gone.

My sister’s body lay across my fathers lap and he just kept repeating

Why?

My father’s spirit died at that moment he realized his daughter was

dead.

We had no answers, there was no evidence that somebody could of helped

her there was no clues left behind. So It appeared at the time

“suspicious”

Decades later the truth has surfaced. Finally I was able to put it all

together.   I was going through my sister’s box of things I packed almost 28 years

ago.  I came across many things I remembered from the time… Including a

medicine bottle. We knew my sister was put on a medicine to help her

with stress from the divorce so it was not a surprise that I packed the

bottle off her dresser.

However..the shock came to me when I typed the name of the drug into

the computer just months ago.

Slowly…it all came together..and I mean all of it. From the things she

said to the things she did. To the rocking in the chair to the things

she was seeing that were not there ..and finally to the flu like

symptoms that come with the Sudden withdrawal of the

medication!

The Black Box Warnings that today are on ALL antidepressant drugs says

it all.

My sister was put on this drug Aug. 18 1981.

She stopped taking it as many people did due to the side effects.

She was in bed with the flu which turned out to be not the flu at all

but the withdrawal from this prescription drug that in the end killed my

sister!

I WAS 13 YEARS OLD

LORI WAS 25

PEOPLE ASK ME WHY NOW DOES THIS MATTER?

MY ANSWER IS…BECAUSE NUMBER ONE MY SISTER IS DEAD.

NUMBER TWO I AT 13 HAD TO LIVE MY ENTIRE LIFE WITH SUSPICIAN ABOUT WHAT

HAD HAPPENED TO HER!

I HAD TO LIVE WITH THE NIGHTMARES, I COULD NOT WALK BY A PARKED CAR FOR

YEARS DUE TO THE FEAR OF SEEING HER INSIDE AGAIN,

I WOULD GO TO THE CEMETARY FOR THE FIRST FEW YEARS RIGHT FROM SCHOOL

AND JUST SIT AND ASK..WHY..HOW..SOMETHING IS MISSING. I KNOW YOU DID

NOT DO THIS. YOU WOULD NOT DO THIS.

I WAS TORMENTED BY HER BECAUSE OF A MIND ALTERING DRUG..THAT WAS AND

STILL IS LEGAL IN THIS COUNTRY.

I COULD NOT SAY GOODBYE TO HER WHEN SHE DIED BECAUSE I WAS AFRAID TO GO

UP TO THE COFFIN DUE TO THE FACT I THOUGHT SHE WOULD JUMP UP AT ME AND

LAUGH LIKE SHE DID BEFORE.

I HAVE BEEN THROUGH HELL BECAUSE OF THE DAMAGE THIS DRUG DID TO MY

SISTER..AND TO MY FAMILY.

AND I KNOW THERE ARE OTHER FAMILIES OUT THERE STILL IN THE DARK!!

I HOPE TO FIND THEM AND LET THEM KNOW WHAT REALLY HAPPENED TO THEIR

LOVED ONE IF OUR STORIES ARE SIMILAR..AND THIS RX DRUG WAS INVOLVED!

——————————————

THE DRUG WAS CALLED IMIPRAMINE. GENERIC FOR TOFRANIL

ALSO PRIOR TO THE SSRI THE CLASS OF DRUG LORI WAS ON WAS CALLED A TCA. TRICYCLIC 3 RING MAKE UP..THIS DRUG WAS THE FIRST ANTIDEPRESSANT INVENTED IN THE LATE 1950′S.

** MANY DID NOT LIKE THE DRUG DUE TO ALL THE SIDE EFFECTS/ADVERSE REACTIONS THAT CAME ALONG WITH IT.

MOST PEOPLE WHO TOOK THIS IN CLINICAL TRIALS OR STUDIES SHOWED THEY DROPPED OUT DUE TO THESE SIDE EFFECTS. NEVER GOT TO THE POINT WHERE IT WAS SUPPOSE TO TAKE EFFECT!

THAT IS WHAT MY RESEARCH SHOWED.. BUT YOU ASK ANN TRACY.

YOU MAY WANT TO ADD THIS TO LORI’S STORY SOMEWHERE IF YOU CAN:

WHEN WE TOLD HER DOCTOR SHE WAS ACTING LIKE SHE WAS ABOUT DEATH AND DYING..WE WERE TOLD NOT TO WORRY ABOUT IT THAT SHE WOULD NOT DO ANYTHING BECAUSE IT WAS NOT IN HER. SHE WOULD NOT REALLY HARM HERSELF OF ANYONE ELSE.

WELL…THAT WAS ANOTHER PIECE THAT DID NOT FIT.

THIS WAS TRUE.

**** THE DOCTOR BACK IN 1981 WHO GAVE HER THIS DRUG FOR MERE STRESS OF A DIVORCE…DID NOT KNOW..THE DRUG THEY GAVE HER WAS INDUCING HER BEHAVIOR.

THEY HAD NO IDEA..THEY WERE IN THE DARK JUST AS LORI WAS..AND US HER FAMILY WERE.

IT JUST SIMPLY LOOKED LIKE SHE WAS GOING CRAZY AND LOSING HER MIND!!

WHEN IN ACTUALITY SHE WASN’T..THE DRUG WAS INDUCING THIS REACTION!

but the one thing I wanted to make clear on the taking this drug Imipramine is that FROM START TO FINISH IT WAS ABOUT A MONTH. AUG 18 1981 SHE STARTED IT.

THEN STOPPED she told a friend I don’t like how this medicine is making me feel I’m not taking it anymore.

SEPT. 22 1981 SHE SHOT HERSELF IN THE HEAD AT 1AM.

FOUND AT 7AM PRONOUNCED DEAD AT 8:32AM

AND HER SUSPICIOUS SUICIDE WAS JUST RECENTLY SOLVED AS OF A FEW MONTHS AGO!

I AM OUTRAGED!

The Note she left behind said:  It’s Nobody’s fault I Just Flipped!!!

then drew a smiley face.”

She often drew smiley faces when she wrote things in general. but even the smiley face did not match her normal happy ones.

Lptpkp@aol.com

PLEASE SIGN Lori’s Petition to help me find others: :http://tinyurl.com/mt63tp

Part of the Warning on this drug today:

patients should be carefully supervised during the early phase of treatment with imipramine, and may require hospitalization. Prescriptions should be written for the smallest amount feasible.

Hypomanic or manic episodes may occur,  Such reactions may necessitate discontinuation of the drug. If needed, imipramine may be resumed in lower dosage when these episodes are relieved.

All patients being treated with antidepressants for any indication should be monitored appropriately and observed closely for clinical worsening, suicidality, and unusual changes in behavior, especially during the initial few months of a course of drug therapy, or at times of dose changes, either increases or decreases.

The following symptoms, anxiety, agitation, panic attacks, insomnia, irritability, hostility, aggressiveness, impulsivity, akathisia (psychomotor restlessness), hypomania, and mania, have been reported in adult and pediatric patients being treated with antidepressants for major depressive disorder as well as for other indications, both psychiatric and non-psychiatric. Although a causal link between the emergence of such symptoms and either the worsening of depression and/or the emergence of suicidal impulses has not been established, there is concern that such symptoms may represent precursors to emerging suicidality.

Consideration should be given to changing the therapeutic regimen, including possibly discontinuing the medication, in patients whose depression is persistently worse, OR who are experiencing emergent suicidality or symptoms that might be precursors to worsening depression or suicidally, especially if these symptoms are severe, abrupt in onset, or were not part of the patient’s presenting symptoms.

Families and caregivers of patients being treated with antidepressants for major depressive disorder or other indications, both psychiatric and non-psychiatric, should be alerted about the need to monitor patients for the emergence of agitation, irritability, unusual changes in behavior, and the other symptoms described above, as well as the emergence of suicidally, and to report such symptoms immediately to health care providers. Such monitoring should include daily observation by families and caregivers.

patients should be carefully supervised during the early phase of treatment with imipramine, and may require hospitalization. Prescriptions should be written for the smallest amount feasible.

Hypomanic or manic episodes may occur,  Such reactions may necessitate discontinuation of the drug. If needed, imipramine may be resumed in lower dosage when these episodes are relieved.

Comments are coming in since my story posted:

I’m 48 years old and my introduction to Zoloft began when I was 34. I’ve since learned that the symptoms of fatigue and difficulty sleeping and concentrating that I was having at that time were due to over-work and adrenal exhaustion. That doctor had me fill out a questionnaire and then spent maybe 10 minutes with me before giving me free samples of Zoloft.   Had I known then, what I know now?… And I must forgive the past and not dwell on it in order to heal.

In June of 2008, my nutritionist who was treating me with amino acid therapy took me off Zoloft abruptly.  This caused me to go into a manic state, which I had never experienced before.  It also brought up a lot of anger.  After about a ten days, my wife and I figured out it was the discontinuation of Zoloft that was causing all these problems, so I went back on it.

Because of all my weird behavior, I had left the house and was staying at a hotel.  My wife got my sister involved and she stayed with me for a couple of days but didn’t bring along her bi-polar medications.  I remember distinctly the night of July 13th:  I slept from about 9pm to 5am, went for a work out and did my meditation.  I was definitely stabilizing.

Then my sister took me into town, my wife and I had another fight and, in my anger and frustration, I broke the rear view mirror off my sister’s car.  This caused her to freak out.  We had picked up her meds and agreed to go back to the hotel and take a nap.  I later learned that she had already called the police.

When we arrived at the hotel, the cops came to my door (hands on their holstered guns) and ordered me out of the car.  They hand cuffed me, searched me and put me in the squad car.  Then, as I later learned, my sister and wife had a discussion about “wether or not to tell the police that I had threatened her.”  My sister told the police a lie, that I had threatened her with a gun and I was hauled off to the ER where I was doped up with an injection.

Later I was taken to the psychiatric hospital where I was asked to sign a bunch of forms and “releases.”  How absurd!  I was only semi-consicouss at the time.

At the hospital I was taken off the Zoloft and diagnosed as bi-polar.  Of course, this through me into another withdrawal episode and made me manic and aggressive again.

I want to point out that I have no history of violence, have never been in any sort of brawl, have never been arrested, have never before been put in handcuffs, no DUI tickets and even a clean driving record.

The hospital changed my drugs every few days.  Zyprexa, Lithium, Depakote, Abilify, etc.  After 20 days, I was discharged. The insurance and family money was expended, so I was well, right?

Far from it:  My wife filed for divorce.  I lost access to my home, which was also my office.  She cleaned out the company bank account, etc.

Eventually, I lost pretty much everything and got saddled with all our debt and received none of the assets due to a waiver of “appearance” I signed 3 days out of the hospital.  We had agreed on a negotiated, one lawyer divorce, but I ended up getting totally screwed.

Over the past 12 months, I’ve lived in 5 states.  I’ve had a couple of “room and board” jobs and stayed with friends.  Fortunately, my mother has been able to give me some financial support, so I haven’t been without the basic necessities of life.  Through a friend, I found Dr. Tracy and she helped me understand what happened to me and gave me phone support while I finished the detox from the Zoloft these past few months.

Now, I’m well enough that I’m looking for  a job again so I can restart my life.

I’m certainly not bipolar.  What a bunch of total bullshit.  All I’m taking right now is 0.5 mg of Klonopin (Clonazepam) twice a day to help with anxiety and sleep.

I used to have a pretty normal life.  I made a six figure income.  My wife (18 years of marriage) didn’t have to work. We had a nice house and the swimming pool I had wanted since I was a child.  Now, all that’s gone.  All because of a stupid little pill and all the people that don’t know what the hell their doing with all these powerful drugs.

During the 13 years I was on SSRI Antidepressants, I saw several different psychiatrists and doctors.  They experimented on me with many different drugs: Effexor, Celexa, Abilify, Alprazolam, Clonazepam (Klonopin), Depakote, Lunesta, Trazodone, Xanax, Zyprexa and of course Zoloft (Sertraline).

Of all the drugs, Lamictal was the worst.  Once the doctor increased the dose from 50 mg a day to 200 mg a day (I’ve since found out that is NOT an increase in accordance with the manufacturers instructions) I had horrible, disgusting nightmares every single night and became highly suicidal.  This happened in October of 2008, and freaked me out so much that I went back on Zoloft and some other drugs so that I could get my sleep.

During all these crazy times, I have survived because of my spiritual faith, the generosity of my mother and some good friends and Divine Grace.  Also, because of the various nutritionists I’ve had over the years, I’ve learned how to eat well and take the right supplements.  Cenitol by metagenics is magnesium supplement that has been especially helpful with relaxing me and helping me sleep.  I order that online at:  http://www.janethumphrey.meta-ehealth.com.

Lastly, I would like to mention that none of these doctors I saw gave me any sort of what I would call informed consent.  I was never informed about all the adverse reactions and side-effects that I’ve now learned were well known back then.  None of the doctors explained that, according to their view of brain chemical imbalance, I would need to stay on these SSRI Antidepressants for the rest of my life.  None of the doctors EVER explained discontinuation syndrome etc, etc, etc.

These drugs manufactures and the doctors that push these drugs are all involved in a horrible scam, the tragic consequences of which yet to become fully manifest.

My intense gratitude to Dr. Tracy and the good work she is doing!

B
Beneficat, Bimaran, Bioperidolo, Biston, Brotopon, Bespar, Bupropion, Buspar, Buspimen, Buspinol, Buspirone, Buspisal

C
Calepsin, Calcium carbonate, Calcium carbimide, Calmax, Carbamazepine, Carbatrol, Carbolith, Celexa, Chlordiazepoxide, Chlorpromazine, Cibalith-S, Cipralex, Citalopram, Clomipramine, Clonazepam, Clozapine, Clozaril, Concerta, Constan, Convulex, Cylert

D
Dalmane, Dapotum, Defanyl, Demolox, Depakene, Depakote, Deprax, Deprilept, Deroxat, Desipramine, Desirel, Desoxyn, Desyrel, Dexedrine, Dextroamphetamine, Dextrostat, Diapam, Diazepam, Dilantin, Disulfiram, Divalproex, Dogmatil, Doxepin, Dozic, Duralith

E
Edronax, Efectin, Effexor (Efexor), Eglonyl, Einalon S, Elavil, Endep, Epanutin, Epitol, Equetro, Escitalopram, Eskalith, Eskazinyl, Eskazine, Etrafon, Eukystol

F
Faverin, Fazaclo, Fevarin, Finlepsin, Fludecate, Flunanthate, Fluoxetine, Fluphenazine, Flurazepam, Fluvoxamine, Focalin

G
Geodon, Gladem

H
Halcion, Halomonth, Haldol, Haloperidol, Halosten

I
Imipramine, Imovane

J
Janimine, Jatroneural

K
Kalma, Keselan, Klonopin

L
Lamotrigine, Largactil, Levomepromazine, Levoprome, Leponex, Lexapro, Libritabs, Librium, Linton, Liskantin, Lithane, Lithium, Lithizine, Lithobid, Lithonate, Lithotabs, Lorazepam, Loxapac, Loxapine, Loxitane, Ludiomil, Lunesta, Lustral, Luvox, Lyogen, Lecital

M
Manegan, Manerix, Maprotiline, Mellaril, Melleretten, Melleril, Meresa, Mesoridazine, Metadate, Methamphetamine, Methotrimeprazine, Methylin, Methylphenidate, Minitran, Moclobemide, Modafinil, Modalina, Modecate, Moditen, Molipaxin, Moxadil, Murelax, Myidone, Mylepsinum, Mysoline

N
Nardil, Narol, Navane, Nefazodone, Neoperidol, Norebox, Normison, Norpramine, Nortriptyline, Novodorm

O
Olanzapine, Omca, Orap, Oxazepam

P
Pamelor, Parnate, Paroxetine, Paxil, Peluces, Pemoline, Permitil, Perphenazine, Pertofrane, Phenelzine, Phenytoin, Pimozide, Piportil, Pipotiazine, Pragmarel, Primidone, Prolift, Prolixin, Protriptyline, Provigil, Prozac, Prysoline, Psymion

Q
Quetiapine

R
Ralozam, Reboxetine, Resimatil, Restoril, Restyl, Rhotrimine, Risperdal, Risperidone, Rispolept, Ritalin, Rivotril, Rubifen, Rozerem

S
Sediten, Seduxen, Selecten, Serax, Serenace, Serepax, Serenase, Serentil, Seresta, Serlain, Serlift, Seroquel, Seroxat, Sertan, Sertraline, Serzone, Sevinol, Sideril, Sigaperidol, Sinequan, Sinqualone, Sinquan, Sirtal, Solanax, Solian, Solvex, Songar, Stazepin, Stelazine, Stilnox, Stimuloton, Strattera, Sulpiride, Sulpiride Ratiopharm, Sulpiride Neurazpharm, Surmontil, Symbyax, Symmetrel

T
Tafil, Tavor, Taxagon, Tegretol, Telesmin, Temazepam, Temesta, Temposil, Terfluzine, Thioridazine, Thiothixene, Thombran, Thorazine, Timonil, Tofranil, Trancin, Tranax, Trankimazin, Tranquinal, Tranylcypromine, Trazalon, Trazodone, Trazonil, Trialodine, Triazolam, Trifluoperazine, Trihexane, Trihexyphenidyl, Trilafon, Trimipramine, Triptil, Trittico, Tryptanol

U
V
Valium, Valproate, Valproic acid, Valrelease, Venlafaxine, Vestra, Vigicer, Vivactil

W
Wellbutrin

X
Xanax, Xanor, Xydep

Z
Zamhexal, Zeldox, Zimovane, Zispin, Ziprasidone, Zolarem, Zoldac, Zoloft, Zolpidem, Zonalon, Zopiclone, Zydis, Zyprexa

Learn the truth about these drugs in “Prozac: Panacea or Pandora?”

What you need to know about serotonin-enhancing medications

Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors do exactly that: Inhibit the reuptake of serotonin, thus leaving excess serotonin which allows this stimulation to continue. It has long been known that inhibiting the reuptake of serotonin will produce depression, suicide, violence, psychosis, mania, cravings for alcohol and other drugs, reckless driving, etc. [See full list of reactions below]

The most popular drugs that produce this reuptake of serotonin are:

SSRI Antidepressants: Prozac, Serafem, Zoloft, Paxil, Luvox, Celexa, Lexapro

SNRI Antidepressants: Effexor, Remeron, Serzone, Cymbalta

Atypical Antipsychotics: Zyprexa, Geodon, Abilify, Seroquel, Risperdal

Weight Loss Medications: Fen-Phen, Redux, Meridia

Pain Killers: (Any opium or heroin derivative) Morphine, OxyContin, Ultram, Tramadol, Percocet, Percodan, Lortab, Demerol, Darvon or Darvocet, Codeine, Buprenex, Dilaudid, Talwin, Stadol, Vicodin, Duragesic Patches, Fentanyl Transdermal, Methadone, Dextromethorphan (commonly used in cough syrups), etc.

WARNING: Anesthetics can also fall into this group as well as drugs used for other purposes. Always check to see what the mechanism of action is in a drug before combining it with another serotonergic agent or using it soon after the use of a serotonergic agent because the combination of two can cause the potentially fatal reaction known as Serotonin Syndrome. As the main function of serotonin is constriction of smooth muscle tissue, Serotonin Syndrome produces death via multiple organ failure.

“Psychedelic agents mimic the effects of serotonin.”

The brain chemical these drugs increase, serotonin, is the same brain chemical that LSD, PCP and other psychedelic drugs mimic in order to produce their hallucinogenic effects. And remember that psychedelic agents are “a class of compounds with no demonstrated therapeutic use, a history of extensive abuse, and the ability to provoke psychosis. Yet many brain researchers value the psychedelic agents above any of the other psychoactive drugs” because “the research into psychedelic drugs has already enriched our understanding of how the brain regulates behavior.” (Dr. Solomon Snyder, DRUGS AND THE BRAIN). Just how much will these brain researchers learn from our experience with these drugs designed to specifically increase serotonin, the same brain chemical the psychedelic agents mimic to produce their effects?

We know that these drugs interfere with serotonin metabolism (demonstrated by levels of the serotonin metabolite 5HIAA). It is not serotonin that is low in these disorders, it is this by-product 5HIAA, which indicates the level of serotonin metabolism, that is low in depression, suicide, etc. Yet as serotonin (5HT) goes up serotonin metabolism (5HIAA) generally comes down. We already have studies demonstrating at what percentage each of these drugs increase 5HT and decrease 5HIAA. Here are the results of elevated levels of serotonin (5HT) and decreased levels of serotonin metabolism (5HIAA):

Elevated 5HT (serotonin) levels:

1. schizophrenia, psychosis, mania, etc.
2. mood disorders (depression, anxiety, etc.)
3. organic brain disease – especially mental retardation at a greater incident rate in children
4. autism (a self-centered or self-focused mental state with no basis in reality)
5. Alzheimer’s disease
6. old age
7. anorexia
8. constriction of the blood vessels
9. blood clotting
10. constriction of bronchials and other physical effects

Lower 5HIAA (serotonin metabolism) levels:

1. suicide (especially violent suicide)
2. arson
3. violent crime
4. insomnia
5. depression
6. alcohol abuse
7. impulsive acts with no concern for punishment
8. reckless driving
9. dependence upon various substances
10. bulimia
11. multiple suicide attempts
12. hostility and more contact with police
13. exhibitionism
14. arguments with spouses, friends and relatives
15. obsessive compulsive behavior
16. impaired employment due to hostility, etc.

All are exactly what patients and their families have continued to report to be their experience on these drugs since Prozac was introduced! These individuals are frantically searching for answers while this research sits right under our noses. Although this is a totally different picture than pharmaceutical marketing departments would have us believe, marketing claims and reality rarely have much in common.

Researchers tell us that five, ten or twenty years later it is not uncommon to find we have another thalidomide on our hands. Raising 5HT (serotonin) and lowering 5HIAA (serotonin metabolism) in such a high number of people can produce very serious, extensive and long term problems for all of society. Even more frightening for the future of our society is the rapidly rising and widely accepted practice of prescribing these drugs to small children and adolescents. This crucial medical research must be addressed openly, without delay, rather than remain buried in seldom read medical research documents as has been the case in the past with other mind-altering medications, once thought to be safe, which were subsequently prohibited by law.

[SOURCE: PROZAC: PANACEA OR PANDORA?, BY ANN BLAKE TRACY, PH.D.]

• Adverse SSRI Reactions
• Prozac Package Insert
• Hyperserotonemia
• Serotonin Syndrome

Learn More

http://www.latimes.com/news/nation/reports/fda/lat_fda001220.htm

By DAVID WILLMAN

WASHINGTON–For most of its history, the United States Food and Drug Administration approved new prescription medicines at a grudging pace, paying daily homage to the physician’s creed, “First, do no harm.”

Then in the early 1990s, the demand for AIDS drugs changed the political climate. Congress told the FDA to work closely with pharmaceutical firms in getting new medicines to market more swiftly. President Clinton urged FDA leaders to trust industry as “partners, not adversaries.”

The FDA achieved its new goals, but now the human cost is becoming clear.

Seven drugs approved since 1993 have been withdrawn after reports of deaths and severe side effects. A two-year Los Angeles Times investigation has found that the FDA approved each of those drugs while disregarding danger signs or blunt warnings from its own specialists. Then, after receiving reports of significant harm to patients, the agency was slow to seek withdrawals.

According to “adverse-event” reports filed with the FDA, the seven drugs were cited as suspects in 1,002 deaths. Because the deaths are reported by doctors, hospitals and others on a voluntary basis, the true number of fatalities could be far higher, according to epidemiologists.

An adverse-event report does not prove that a drug caused a death; other factors, such as preexisting disease, could play a role. But the reports are regarded by public health officials as the most reliable early warnings of danger.

The FDA’s performance was tracked through an examination of thousands of pages of government documents, other data obtained under the Freedom of Information Act and interviews with more than 60 present and former agency officials.

The seven drugs were not needed to save lives. One was for heartburn. Another was a diet pill. A third was a painkiller. All told, six of the medicines were never proved to offer lifesaving benefits, and the seventh, an antibiotic, was ultimately judged unnecessary because other, safer antibiotics were available.

The seven are among hundreds of new drugs approved since 1993, a period during which the FDA has become known more for its speed than its caution. In 1988, only 4% of new drugs introduced into the world market were approved first by the FDA. In 1998, the FDA’s first-in-the-world approvals spiked to 66%.

The drug companies’ batting average in getting new drugs approved also climbed. By the end of the 1990s, the FDA was approving more than 80% of the industry’s applications for new products, compared with about 60% at the beginning of the decade.

And the companies have prospered: The seven unsuccessful drugs alone generated U.S. sales exceeding $5 billion before they were withdrawn.

Once the world’s unrivaled safety leader, the FDA was the last to withdraw several new drugs in the late 1990s that were banned by health authorities in Europe.

“This track record is totally unacceptable,” said Dr. Curt D. Furberg, a professor of public health sciences at Wake Forest University. “The patients are the ones paying the price. They’re the ones developing all the side effects, fatal and non-fatal. Someone has to speak up for them.”

The FDA’s faster and more lenient approach helped supply pharmacy shelves with scores of new remedies. But it has also yielded these fatal missteps, according to the documents and interviews:

1. Only 10 months ago, FDA administrators dismissed one of its medical officer’s emphatic warnings and approved Lotronex, a drug for treating irritable bowel syndrome. Lotronex has been linked to five deaths, the removal of a patient’s colon and other bowel surgeries. It was pulled off the market on Nov. 28.

2. The diet pill Redux, approved in April 1996 despite an advisory committee’s vote against it, was withdrawn in September 1997 after heart-valve damage was detected in patients put on the drug. The FDA later received reports identifying Redux as a suspect in 123 deaths.

3. The antibiotic Raxar was approved in November 1997 in the face of evidence that it may have caused several fatal heart-rhythm disruptions in clinical studies. FDA officials chose to exclude any mention of the deaths from the drug’s label. The maker of the pill withdrew it in October 1999. Raxar was cited as a suspect in the deaths of 13 patients.

4. The blood pressure medication Posicor was approved in June 1997 despite findings by FDA specialists that it might fatally disrupt heart rhythm and interact with certain other drugs, posing potentially severe risk. Posicor was withdrawn one year later; reports cited it as a suspect in 100 deaths.

5. The painkiller Duract was approved in July 1997 after FDA medical officers warned repeatedly of the drug’s liver toxicity. Senior officials sided with the manufacturer in softening the label’s warning of the liver threat. The drug was withdrawn 11 months later. By late 1998, the FDA had received voluntary reports citing Duract as a suspect in 68 deaths, including 17 that involved liver failure.

6. The diabetes drug Rezulin was approved in January 1997 over a medical officer’s detailed opposition and was withdrawn this March after the agency had linked 91 liver failures to the pill. Reports cite Rezulin as a suspect in 391 deaths.

7. The nighttime heartburn drug Propulsid was approved in 1993 despite evidence that it caused heart-rhythm disorders. The officials who approved the drug failed to consult the agency’s own cardiac specialists about the signs of danger. The drug was taken out of pharmacies in July after scores of confirmed heart-rhythm deaths. Overall, Propulsid has been cited as a suspect in 302 deaths.

The FDA’s handling of Propulsid put children at risk.

The agency never warned doctors not to administer the drug to infants or other children even though eight youngsters given Propulsid in clinical studies had died. Pediatricians prescribed it widely for infants afflicted with gastric reflux, a common digestive disorder.

Parents and their doctors had no way of knowing that the FDA, in August 1996, had found Propulsid to be “not approvable” for children.

“We never knew that,” said Jeffrey A. Englebrick, a heavy-equipment welder in Shawnee, Kan., whose 3-month-old son, Scott, died on Oct. 28, 1997, after taking Propulsid. “To me, that means they took my kid as a guinea pig to see if it would work.”

By the time the drug was pulled, the FDA had received reports of 24 deaths of children under age 6 who were given Propulsid. By then the drug had generated U.S. sales of $2.5 billion for Johnson & Johnson Co.

Questions also surround the recent approvals of other compounds that remain on the market, including a new flu drug called Relenza. In February of 1999, an FDA advisory committee concluded that Relenza had not been proved safe and effective. The agency nevertheless approved it. Following the deaths of seven patients, the FDA in January issued a “public health advisory” to doctors.

A ‘Lost Compass’
A total of 10 drugs have been pulled from the market in just the past three years for safety reasons, including three pills that were approved before the shift that took hold in 1993. Never before has the FDA overseen the withdrawals of so many drugs in such a short time. More than 22 million Americans–about 10% of the nation’s adult population–took those drugs.

With many of the drugs, the FDA used tiny-print warnings or recommendations in package labeling as a way to justify approvals or stave off withdrawals. In other instances, the agency has withheld safety information from labels that physicians say would call into question the use of the product.

Present and former FDA specialists said the regulatory decisions of senior officials have clashed with the agency’s central obligation, under law, to “protect the public health by ensuring . . . that drugs are safe and effective.”

“They’ve lost their compass and they forget who it is that they are ultimately serving,” said Dr. Lemuel A. Moye, a University of Texas School of Public Health physician who served from 1995 to 1999 on an FDA advisory committee. “Unfortunately the public pays for this, because the public believes that the FDA is watching the door, that they are the sentry.”

The FDA’s shift is felt directly in the private practice of medicine, said Dr. William L. Isley, a Kansas City, Mo., diabetes specialist. He implored the agency to reassess Rezulin three years ago after a patient he treated suffered liver failure taking the pill.

“FDA used to serve a purpose,” Isley said. “A doctor could feel sure that a drug he was prescribing was as safe as possible. Now you wonder what kind of evaluation has been done, and what’s been swept under the rug.”

FDA officials said that they have tried conscientiously to weigh benefits versus risks in deciding whether to approve new drugs. They noted that many doctors and patients complain when a drug is withdrawn. “All drugs have risks; most of them have serious risks,” said Dr. Janet Woodcock, director of the FDA’s drug review center. She added that some of the withdrawn drugs were “very valuable, even if not lifesaving, and their removal from the market represents a loss, even if a necessary one.” Once a drug is proved effective and safe, Woodcock said, the FDA depends on doctors “to take into account the risks, to read the label. . . . We have to rely on the practitioner community to be the learned intermediary. That’s why drugs are prescription drugs.”

In a May 12, 1999, article co-authored with FDA colleagues and published by the Journal of the American Medical Assn., Woodcock said, “The FDA and the community are willing to take greater safety risks due to the serious nature of the [illnesses] being treated.”

Compared to the volume of new drugs approved, they wrote, the number of recent withdrawals “is particularly reassuring.”

However, agency specialists point out that both approvals and withdrawals are controlled by Woodcock and her administrators. When they consider a withdrawal, they face the unpleasant prospect of repudiating their original decision to approve.

Woodcock, 52, received her medical degree at Northwestern University and is a board-certified internist. She alluded in a recent interview to the difficulty she feels in rejecting a proposed drug that might cost a company $150 million or more to develop. She also acknowledged the commercial pressures in a March 1997 article.

“Consumer protection advocates want to have drugs worked up well and thoroughly evaluated for safety and efficacy before getting on the market,” Woodcock wrote in the Food and Drug Law Journal. “On the other hand, there are economic pressures to get drugs on the market as soon as possible, and these are highly valid.”

But this summer–following the eighth and ninth drug withdrawals–Woodcock said the FDA cannot rely on labeling precautions, alone, to resolve safety concerns.

“As medical practice has changed . . . it’s just much more difficult for [doctors] to manage” the expanded drug supply, Woodcock said in an interview. “They rely upon us much more to make sure the drugs are safe.”

Another FDA administrator, Dr. Florence Houn, voiced similar concern in remarks six months ago to industry officials: “I think the lessons learned from the drug withdrawals make us leery.”

Yet the imperative to move swiftly, cooperatively, remains.

“We are now making decisions more quickly and more predictably while maintaining the same high standards for product safety and efficacy,” FDA Commissioner Jane E. Henney said in a National Press Club speech on Dec. 12.

Motivated by AIDS
The impetus for change at the FDA emerged in 1988, when AIDS activists paralyzed operations for a day at the agency’s 18-story headquarters in Rockville, Md. They demanded immediate approval of experimental drugs that offered at least a ray of hope to those otherwise facing death.

The FDA often was taking more than two years to review new drug applications. The pharmaceutical industry saw a chance to loosen the regulatory brakes and expedite an array of new products to market. The companies and their Capitol Hill lobbyists pressed for advantage: If unshackled, they said, the companies could invent and develop more remedies faster.

The political pressure mounted, and the FDA began to bow. By 1991, agency officials told Congress they were making significant progress in speeding the approval process.

The emboldened companies pushed for more. They proposed that drugs intended for either life-threatening or “serious” disorders receive a quicker review.

“The pharmaceutical companies came back and lobbied the agency and the Hill for that word, ‘serious,’ ” recalled Jeffrey A. Nesbit, who in 1991 was chief of staff to FDA Commissioner David A. Kessler. “Their argument was, ‘Well, OK, there’s AIDS and cancer. But there are drugs [being developed] for Alzheimer’s. And that’s a serious illness.’ They started naming other diseases. They began to push that envelope.”

The wielding of this single, flexible adjective–”serious”–swung wide the regulatory door knocked ajar by the AIDS crisis.

New Order Takes Hold
In 1992, Kessler issued regulations giving the FDA discretion to “accelerate approval of certain new drugs” for serious or life-threatening conditions. That same year a Democrat-controlled Congress approved and President Bush signed the Prescription Drug User Fee Act. It established goals that call for the FDA to review drugs within six months or a year; the pharmaceutical companies pay a user fee to the FDA, now $309,647, with the filing of each new drug application.

The newly elected Clinton administration climbed aboard with its “reinventing government” project. Headed by Vice President Al Gore, the project called for the FDA, by January 2000, to reduce “by an average of one year the time required to bring important new drugs to the American public.” As Clinton put it in a speech on March 16, 1995, the objective was to “get rid of yesterday’s government.”

For the FDA’s medical reviewers–the physicians, pharmacologists, chemists and biostatisticians who scrutinize the safety and effectiveness of emerging drugs–a new order had taken hold.

The reviewers work out of public view in secure office buildings clustered along Maryland’s Route 355. At the jet-black headquarters building, the decor is institutional, the corridors and third-floor cafeteria without windows. The reviewers examine truckloads of scientific documents. They are well-educated; some are highly motivated to do their best for a nation of patients who unknowingly count on their expertise.

One of these reviewers was Michael Elashoff, a biostatistician who arrived at the FDA in 1995 after earning degrees from UC Berkeley and the Harvard School of Public Health.
“From the first drug I reviewed, I really got the sense that I was doing something worthwhile. I saw what a difference a single reviewer can make,” said Elashoff, the son and grandson of statisticians.

Last year he was assigned to review Relenza, the new flu drug developed by Glaxo Wellcome. He recommended against approval.

“The drug has no proven efficacy for the treatment of influenza in the U.S. population, no proven effect on reducing person-to-person transmissibility, and no proven impact on preventing influenza,” Elashoff wrote, adding that many patients would be exposed to risks “while deriving no benefit.”

An agency advisory committee agreed and on Feb. 24 voted 13 to 4 against approving Relenza. After the vote, senior FDA officials upbraided Elashoff. They stripped him of his review of another flu drug. They told him he would no longer make presentations to the advisory committee. And they approved Relenza as a safe and effective flu drug.

Lost Faith in the System
Elashoff and other FDA reviewers discern a powerful message.
“People are aware that turning something down is going to cause problems with [officials] higher up in FDA, maybe more problems than it’s worth,” he said. “Before I came to the FDA I guess I always assumed things were done properly. I’ve lost a lot of faith in taking a prescription medicine.”

Elashoff left the FDA four months ago.

“Either you play games or you’re going to be put off limits . . . a pariah,” said Dr. John L. Gueriguian, a 19-year FDA medical officer who opposed the approval of Rezulin, the ill-fated diabetes drug. “The people in charge don’t say, ‘Should we approve this drug?’ They say, ‘Hey, how can we get this drug approved?’ ”

Said Dr. Rudolph M. Widmark, who retired in 1997 after 11 years as a medical officer: “If you raise concern about a drug, it triggers a whole internal process that is difficult and painful. You have to defend why you are holding up the drug to your bosses. . . . You cannot imagine how much pressure is put on the reviewers.”

The pressure is such that when a union representative negotiated a new employment contract for the reviewers last year, one of his top priorities was to defend what he called the “scientific integrity” of their work.

“People feel swamped. People are pressured to go along with what the agency wants,” said Dr. Robert S.K. Young, an FDA medical officer who in 1998 formed a union chapter to represent the reviewers. “You’re paying for these highly educated, trained people, and they’re not being allowed to do their job.”

Each new drug application is accompanied by voluminous medical data, enough at times to fill 1,000 or more phone books. The reviewers must master this material in less than six months or a year, while juggling other tasks.

“The devil is in the details, and detail is something we no longer have the time to go into,” said Gurston D. Turner, a veteran pharmacologist with the FDA’s scientific investigations division who retired this year. “If you know you must have your report done by a certain date, you get something done. That’s what they [top FDA officials] count, that’s all they count. And that is really, to me, a worrisome thing.”
The FDA did spur reviewers to move at record speed.

In 1994, the FDA’s goal was to finish 55% of its new drug reviews on time; the agency achieved 95%. In 1995, the goal was 70%; the FDA achieved 98%. In 1996, the goal was 80%; the FDA achieved 100%. In both 1997 and 1998, the goal was 90% and the FDA achieved 100%.

From 1993 to 1999 the agency approved 232 drugs regarded as “new molecular entities,” compared with 163 during the previous seven years, a 42% increase.

The time-limit goals quickly were treated as deadlines within the FDA–imposing relentless pressure on reviewers and their bosses to quickly conclude their work and approve the drugs.

“The goals were to be taken seriously. I don’t think anybody expected the agency to make them all,” said William B. Schultz, a deputy FDA commissioner from 1995 to 1999.

Schultz, who helped craft the 1992 user-fee act as a congressional staff lawyer, added: “You can meet the goal by either approving the drug or denying the approval. But there are some who argue that what Congress really wanted was not just decisions, but approvals. That is what really gets dangerous.”

Indeed, the FDA drug center’s 1999 annual report referred to the review goals as “the law’s deadlines.” And, Dr. Woodcock, the center director, elaborated in a subsequent agency newsletter:

“In exchange [for the user fees], FDA makes a commitment to meet certain goals for review times. [The agency] has exceeded almost all of the goals, and it expects to continue to exceed them. Basically, the number of new approved drugs has doubled, and the review times have been cut in half.”

The user fees have enabled the FDA to hire more medical reviewers. Last year, 236 medical officers examined new drugs compared with 162 officers on duty in 1992, the year before the user fees took effect.

Even so, Woodcock acknowledged in an FDA publication this fall that the workloads and tight performance goals “create a sweatshop environment that’s causing high staffing turnover.”

An FDA progress report in 1998, describing the work of agency chemists, said that “too many reviews are coming ‘down to the wire’ against the goal date. . . . This suggests a system in stress.”

Said Nesbit, the former aide to Commissioner Kessler: “The clock is always running, whereas before the clock was never running. And that changes people’s behavior.”

Dozens of officials interviewed by The Times made similar observations.

“The pressure to meet deadlines is enormous,” said Dr. Solomon Sobel, 65, director of the FDA’s metabolic and endocrine drugs division throughout the 1990s. And the pressure is not merely to complete the reviews, he said. “The basic message is to approve.”

Over the last seven years, “there has been a huge shift,” said Kathleen Holcombe, a former FDA legislative affairs staffer and congressional aide who now is a drug industry consultant. “FDA, historically, had an approach of, ‘Regulate, be tough, enforce the law [and] don’t let one thing go wrong,’ ” Holcombe said, adding that now, “the FDA sees itself much more in a cooperative role.”

How Deaths Were Calculated
Reports of adverse drug reactions to the Food and Drug Administration are considered by public health officials to be the most reliable early warnings of a product’s danger. The reports are filed to the FDA by health professionals, consumers and drug manufacturers. The Los Angeles Times inspected all reports filed in connection with seven drugs that were approved and withdrawn since 1993. By hand and by computer, The Times counted 1,002 deaths in which the filer identified the drug as the leading suspect. Since fall 1997, this top category has been termed “primary suspect.” The Times did not count any death in which the drug was identified as the “secondary suspect” or less. The methodology and results were reviewed by Sheila R. Weiss, a former FDA epidemiologist who is an assistant professor at the University of Maryland’s department of pharmacy practice and sciences.

The perception of coziness with drug makers is perpetuated by potential conflicts of interest within the FDA’s 18 advisory committees, the influential panels that recommend which drugs deserve approval or should remain on the market. The FDA allows some appointees to double as consultants or researchers for the same companies whose products they are evaluating on the public’s behalf. Such was the case during committee appraisals of several of the recently withdrawn drugs, including Lotronex and Posicor, The Times found.

Few doubt the $100-billion pharmaceutical industry’s clout. Over the last decade, the drug companies have steered $44 million in contributions to the major political parties and to candidates for the White House and both houses of Congress.

The FDA reviewers said they and their bosses fear that unless the new drugs are approved, companies will erupt and Congress will retaliate by refusing to renew the user fees. This would cripple FDA operations–and jeopardize jobs.

The companies’ money now covers about 50% of the FDA’s costs for reviewing proposed drugs–and agency officials say that persuading Congress to renew the user fees into 2007 is now a top priority.

Yet even if the user fees remain, the FDA is prohibited from spending the revenue for anything other than reviewing new drugs. So while the budget for pre-approval reviews has soared, the agency has gotten no similar increase of resources to evaluate the safety of the drugs after they are prescribed.

“It’s shocking,” said Dr. Brian L. Strom, chairman of epidemiology at the University of Pennsylvania. “How can you say, ‘Release drugs to the market sooner,’ and not know if they’re killing people? . . . It really is a dramatic statement of public priorities.”

More than 250,000 side effects linked to prescription drugs, including injuries and deaths, are reported each year. And those “adverse-event” reports by doctors and others are only filed voluntarily. Experts, including Strom, believe the reports represent as few as 1% to 10% of all such events. “There’s no incentive at all for a physician to report [an adverse drug reaction],” said Strom, who has documented the phenomenon. “The underreporting is vast.”

Even when deaths are reported, records and interviews show that companies consistently dispute that their product has caused a given death by pointing to other factors, including preexisting disease or use of another medicine.

To be sure, a chain of events affects the safe use of a prescription drug: The companies’ conduct of clinical studies; the FDA’s regulatory actions; the doctor’s decision to prescribe; the pharmacist’s filling of a handwritten prescription; the patient’s ability to take the drug as directed. A lapse at any link could prove fatal.

And once a pill is approved by the FDA, the manufacturer often spends heavily on promotion to seize the largest possible market share. This can exacerbate the risk to public health, according to experts.

“Aggressive promotion increases exposure–and doesn’t give you the time to find the problem before patients get hurt,” said Dr. Raymond L. Woosley, pharmacology department chairman at Georgetown University and a former FDA advisory committee member.

When serious side effects emerge, the FDA officials have championed using package labeling as a way to, in their words, “manage” risks. Yet the agency typically has no way to know if the labeling precautions–dense, lengthy and in tiny print–are read or followed by doctors and their patients.

The FDA often addresses unresolved safety questions by asking companies to conduct studies after the product is approved. But the research frequently is not performed–prompting the inspector general of the Department of Health and Human Services to say in 1996 that “FDA can move to withdraw drugs from the market if the post-marketing studies are not completed with due diligence.”

Since that report was issued, the FDA has not withdrawn any drug due to a company’s failure to complete a post-approval safety study. Officials conceded this week that they still do not know how often the studies are performed.

One consequence is that greater risk is shifted to doctors and patients.

For example, Woodcock and her senior aides allowed Rezulin to remain on the U.S. market nearly 2 years after it was withdrawn in Britain in December 1997. The FDA recommended frequent laboratory testing of patients using the drug but had no scientific assurance that the tests would prevent Rezulin-induced liver failure.

“They kept increasing the number of liver-function tests you should have,” noted Dr. Alastair J.J. Wood, a former FDA advisory committee member who is a professor of medicine at Vanderbilt University. “That was clearly designed to protect the FDA, to protect the manufacturer, and to dump the responsibility on the patient and the physician. If the patient developed liver disease and he hadn’t had his [tests] done, somebody was to blame and it wasn’t the manufacturer and it wasn’t the FDA.”

Industry Assurances
Leading industry officials say Americans have nothing to fear from the wave of drug approvals.

“Do unsafe drugs enter and remain in the marketplace? Absolutely not,” said Dr. Bert A. Spilker, senior vice president for scientific and regulatory affairs for the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, in remarks last year to industry and FDA scientists.

But during interviews over the last two years, current and former FDA specialists cited repeated instances when drugs were approved with less than compelling evidence of safety or effectiveness. They also said that important information has been excluded from the labels on some medications.

Elashoff, for instance, was surprised at the labeling for a drug called Prograf, approved in 1997 to prevent rejection of transplanted kidneys. The drug first had been approved in 1994 for use among liver-transplant patients.

The new label notes that Prograf was proved effective in a study of 412 U.S. kidney transplant patients. But no mention is made of the company’s 448-patient European study, in which 7% of the patients who took Prograf died–double the 3.5% death rate among those who received a different anti-rejection drug, documents show.

Contributors to this Report
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An auditor from the FDA’s scientific investigations unit, Antoine El-Hage, examined the European study results and concluded the “data are reliable.” Elashoff agreed in his review.
Yet the only way for doctors or patients to find that data is to search the medical literature or seek the FDA’s review documents.

Excluding the European study from the Prograf label, Elashoff said, “was just a total whitewash. . . . I think any rational person would reconsider taking this drug if they knew what happened in Europe.”

A spokesman for the manufacturer of Prograf said the company had no objection to including the European study results in the labeling. William E. Fitzsimmons, a vice president of drug development for Fujisawa Healthcare Inc., said the decision to exclude the results was entirely the FDA’s.

“We submitted that data,” he said. “It came down to what the FDA was comfortable putting in the label. We certainly have no interest in trying to hide that information. We presented it at major meetings on transplantation. . . . We’re comfortable with that information being out in the public domain.”

But if the FDA had included the European results in the label, it would have impugned the agency’s basis for approving the new, expanded use for Prograf, according to Elashoff and others.

Asked why the agency excluded the information, Woodcock said the European results were “unreliable and could be potentially misleading to doctors and patients in the U.S. if these were included in the label.”

Copyright 2000 Los Angeles Times