Chemical Warfare in Syria? Or the United States?

Thanks to our New Zealand director of the International Coalition for Drug Awareness (www.drugawareness.org) and Paul Pezzack from the UK for taking my message about chemical warfare and putting it into a media format that is clear as a bell!!!!!! This is exactly the question I was asking a couple of days ago on our Facebook page about our president being upset enough about the possibility of chemical warfare being used by the government in Syria against their own people!

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Understanding Paxil Birth Defects

In December 2005, GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) posted its Paxil findings on its
website regarding pregnant women taking antidepressants. In this announcement,
GSK noted that it was revising its pregnancy precaution category from C to D.
This revision was based on recent studies that indicated positive evidence of
human fetal risk. In addition, GSK was placing this information in the WARNINGS
section of the Paxil label.

The FDA then advised pregnant women to switch from Paxil to another SSRI
drug, such as Prozac or Zoloft. This warning was based on the results of an
analysis of Sweden’s birth registry that showed women who took Paxil were 1.5 to

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SSRI Antidepressants Linked to Lactation Difficulties

According to a new study accepted for publication in The Endocrine Society’s
Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism (JCEM), women
taking commonly used forms of antidepressant drugs may experience delayed
lactation after giving birth and may need additional support to achieve their
breastfeeding goals.

Breastfeeding benefits both infants and mothers in many ways as breast milk
is easy to digest and contains antibodies that can protect infants from
bacterial and viral infections. The World Health Organization recommends that
infants should be exclusively breastfed for the first six months of life. This
new study shows that certain common antidepressant drugs may be linked to a
common difficulty experienced by new mothers known as delayed secretory
activation, defined as a delay in the initiation of full milk secretion.

“The breasts are serotonin-regulated glands, meaning the breasts’ ability to
secrete milk at the right time is closely related to the body’s production and
regulation of the hormone serotonin,” said Nelson Horseman, PhD, of the
University of Cincinnati and co-author of the study. “Common antidepressant
drugs like fluoxetine, sertraline and paroxetine are known as selective
serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) drugs and while they can affect mood,
emotion and sleep they may also impact serotonin regulation in the breast,
placing new mothers at greater risk of a delay in the establishment of a full
milk supply.”

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SSRI Birth Defects: Glaxo must pay $2.5M in Paxil case

GlaxoSmithKline P.L.C. must pay $2.5 million to settle a
claim that its Paxil antidepressant caused severe heart defects in a
3-year-old Bensalem boy, a Philadelphia common pleas jury ruled
today.

The verdict is the first in 600 cases alleging that
London-based Glaxo knew Paxil caused birth defects and hid those risks to
boost profits.

The drug, approved for U.S. use in 1992, generated about $942
million in sales last year, 2.1 percent of Glaxo’s total
revenue.

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PAXIL: BIRTH DEFECTS – TEST CASE FOR OVER 600 MORE CASES – USA

GlaxoSmithKline P.L.C., the world’s second-biggest drugmaker, begins a trial in Philadelphia next week in what may be a test case for more than 600 lawsuits over claims that the company’s antidepressant drug Paxil causes birth defects.

Patients and their parents say internal company documents show Glaxo failed to warn consumers about the risks of Paxil until forced to do so in 2005 by the Food and Drug Administration. In the trial set to start Monday, Michelle David blames the drug for causing life-threatening heart defects in her son, Lyam Kilker, now age 3.

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SSRI: 100-500% Increased Risk of Heart Birth Defects If Taken In Early Pregnancy

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – If you take antidepressants such as fluoxetine (marketed as Prozac) early in your pregnancy, you may be doubling the risk that your newborn will be born with a heart defect, according to a new study.

However, the vast majority of children born to women who take such antidepressants – known as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) – do not have such defects, the researchers are quick to note.

Earlier studies have tied SSRIs during pregnancy to heart defects, but also to even more serious birth defects. According to the new study of nearly half a million children born in Denmark between 1996 and 2003, however, only heart defects are likely to be associated with the antidepressants, note co-author Dr. Lars Henning Pedersen, from Aarhus University, Denmark, and colleagues.

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PAXIL TRIAL: Glaxo Executive’s Memo Suggested Burying Drug Studies (Update4)

Sept. 15 (Bloomberg) — An executive of GlaxoSmithKline Plc, the world’s second-biggest drugmaker, talked about burying negative studies linking its antidepressant drug Paxil to birth defects, according to a company memo introduced at a trial.

“If neg, results can bury,” Glaxo executive Bonnie Rossello wrote in a 1997 memo on what the company would do if forced to conduct animal studies on the drug. The memo was read during opening statements in the trial of a lawsuit brought by the family of a child born with heart defects.

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