Posted on 12/04/2004 2:32:26 PM PST by neverdem
COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) - Authorities say three years ago, Christopher Pittman, then 12, shot his grandparents as they slept because they had scolded him for fighting. But Christopher's father, Joe Pittman, thinks his son killed because his sense of right and wrong was clouded by the anti-depressant Zoloft.
Joe Pittman spoke out against the drug in a Food and Drug Administration hearing early this year. The boy, who had threatened suicide, was put on the drug three weeks before the slayings, and his dose was doubled just two days earlier.
Joe Pittman's hands shook as he read his son's confession to a roomful of strangers during the hearing.
"I took everything out on my grandparents, who I loved so very much," wrote then-12-year-old Christopher Pittman. "When I was lying in my bed that night, I couldn't sleep because my voice in my head kept echoing through my mind, telling me to kill them."
But prosecutors and police say Christopher's actions during and after the November 2001 slayings show he clearly knew what he was doing was wrong.
The boy waited until his grandparents were sleeping and took a pump-action shotgun from a gun cabinet. He crept into the couple's dark bedroom, first shooting 66-year-old Joe Frank Pittman in his open mouth, then firing into the back of 62-year-old Joy Pittman's head.
Christopher then set the house on fire and drove off in the family car. When he got stuck on a dirt road 20 miles away, he told hunters he was kidnapped by a man who killed his grandparents, set the fire, drove him into the woods and ran away.
Christopher was living with his father's parents in hopes of turning his life around. He told defense experts he felt abandoned by his mother and his relationship with his father was rocky. No one answered phone calls to Joe Pittman's home.
A month before the slayings, Christopher was hospitalized in Florida, where his father lives, after he threatened to kill himself. The boy was prescribed the anti-depressant Paxil, but another doctor soon put him on Zoloft instead.
Pittman decided to send the boy to live with his grandparents in Chester County, a rural area between Columbia and Charlotte, N.C.
Christopher, who turns 16 in April, is being prosecuted as an adult and faces 30 years to life in prison if convicted at his trial, set to start next month. His lawyers argue that his case should be moved to Family Court, where if convicted, he could only be kept in custody until he turns 21.
Karen Menzies, one of Christopher's lawyers and an attorney specializing in lawsuits against anti-depressant makers, said medical research is available to support the Zoloft defense.
In the three years the teen has spent in jail awaiting trial, the FDA has become increasingly wary of doctors prescribing Zoloft and other antidepressants for children.
In October, the agency ordered the drugs to carry "black box" warnings - the government's strongest warning short of a ban - about increasing the risk of suicidal behavior in children.
"The science has been out there for a while. The prescription drug companies have been able to hide it," Menzies said.
On the other side is Pfizer Inc. (PFE), the maker of Zoloft, which has aided the prosecution, according to Solicitor John Justice, who has since taken himself off the case for health reasons.
The company has vigorously fought cases claiming antidepressants cause violent or suicidal behavior.
A spokesman responded to inquiries by pointing out an October statement on the company's Web site addressing concerns of suicide attempts, saying studies show "no statistically significant difference" between children using Zoloft and nonusers. The statement, though, does not discuss any possible link between the drug and violent acts against others.
Trying to blame a drug for causing someone to commit a crime is an uphill fight, but it has been done successfully.
In April, a Santa Cruz, Calif., jury acquitted a man of attempted murder after he beat his friend, then blamed the episode on Zoloft.
National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers spokesman Jack King said the "Zoloft-made-me-do-it" defense likely means that the Pittman case will come down to defense vs. prosecution experts.
"It's going to be a battle of whose experts the jury believes," King said.
Christopher's maternal grandmother, Delnora Duprey, of Wildwood, Fla., said her grandson is no longer on any medication and is the "sweet, quiet, laid-back" boy she knew growing up. "He's the old Christopher again."
Menzies said the teenager is getting good grades and behaving behind bars.
Duprey says the "whole entire family is behind Christopher 150 percent."
She thinks Zoloft had to have caused Christopher to kill his grandparents because he loved them both, especially the grandfather he called "Pop-Pop."
"We used to joke that he was his Pop-Pop's shadow," Duprey said.
However, those who dealt with the boy after the crime feel differently.
"Anybody who could kill his grandparents in the fashion he did shouldn't be let loose on the public at age 21. And that would have been the best-case scenario," said former prosecutor Justice, who pushed to move the case to adult court.
The current prosecutor, Barney Giese of Columbia, said through his office that he doesn't talk about cases before they go to trial.
Chester County Sheriff Robbie Benson said interviews with Christopher left him shaken because he could not believe the lack of remorse. "This was cold-blooded."
Menzies said those observations might help her case.
"The boy was still suffering from the side-effects of this medication after the incident," she said. "I think we see a different Christopher now."
How much has the suicide rate changed since prosac was introduced? Enquiring minds want to know!
This might help with regard to causation AND as to the question of suicide figures:
(Please bear in mind when trying to work the following out, that many studies were done EXCLUDING people who were (or had been) suicidal to try to avoid suicides negatively affecting clinical studies, and that in some studies perfectly healthy volunteers also became suicidal and some actually committed suicide, and that many trial participants were said ("coded") to have dropped out because of "nausea" but who actually dropped out because of suicidal acts).
1) From correspondence between a psychopharmacological expert to a regulatory agency:
"...Reports on these trials list patients who have committed suicide, and list those patients as being of a certain age and as having committed suicide at a certain point during the trial, when the patient in question has a very different age and the event in question happened at a completely different point during the trial".
"Miscoding of suicidal act as emotional lability."
" Lilly have resorted to treatment non-response and a range of other headings to code what happened." [re coding/mislabelling suicidal acts happening on clinical trials]
"...records on Prozac, Seroxat/Paxil and Lustral/Zoloft, you will find cases of homicidality coded as nausea for instance."
"Discontinuation of patients from studies for primary adverse effects such as nausea when in fact there has been a suicidal act;"
"But it is also worth adding specifically that this has been a feature of all trials of Zoloft/Lustral, Seroxat/Paxil and Prozac throughout, as far as I can make out... "
2) AMERICA'S LOST DREAM: Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness
By James W. Prescott, Ph.D.
(http://www.violence.de/prescott/appp/ald.pdf)
V. Depression and Suicide in Children and Youth of America
Depression and suicide are of epidemic proportions in America. Suicide has been the third leading cause of death in the youth age group of 15-24 years for the past generation (1979-1997) and is the fifth and sixth leading cause of death in the 5-14 year age group for the years 1979 and 1997, respectively. Tables 2 & 3 show that the suicide rates have doubled in the 5-14 year age group from 1979-1997. Table 4 gives the number of suicidal and homicidal deaths for the years 1979, 1994 and 1998 for the age groups of 1-4 years; 5-14 years and 15-24 years. The total number of suicidal deaths in these age groups for the years 1979, 1994 and 1998 are 5,398; 5,274 and 4,321, respectively. This represents an average of 4,999 suicide deaths per year for these years.
Given the average of 5,000 suicidal deaths per year, the estimated total number of suicidal deaths in these age groups from 1979-2000 is 105,000 children and youth who have committed suicide over this past generation. More children and youth (ages 5-24 years) have committed suicide in the past ten years than the total number of American combat lives lost in the ten year Vietnam War (est. 55,000 v 47,355), yet little or no public attention has been given to this reality and what it represents.
There are an estimated 60,828 suicides in the 25-44 year age group for the five years from 1994-1998 (12,166x5=60,828), an estimated total of 121,656 American lives lost to suicide for ten years in this age group that is more than double all the American lives lost in the ten year Vietnam War.
Table 5 gives the suicide rates as a percent of the homicide rates for these specific age groups and for the years 1979, 1994 and 1998. For the 5-14 year old age group, suicide rates, as a percent of homicide rates, have systematically increased from 1979 to 1998, as follows: 1979:36%; 1994: 60 %; 1998:73 %.
Suicidal death, relative to homicidal death, has dramatically increased for our children and youth in the 5- 14 year age group from 1979-1998. The question that remains unanswered is why do our children and youth prefer suicidal death to living in America, presumably the healthiest, wealthiest, and greatest nation of the world? Clearly, these dramatic increases in suicide rates over a single generation cannot be attributed to any changes in the human gene pool.
These statistics indicate that America is an unsafe nation to rear its children and this conclusion is also supported by the epidemic of depression that afflicts our children and youth, as evidenced by their massive psychiatric medication (Zito, et.al, 2000). Some 1.5 million prescriptions of the anti-depressant class of drugs called the serotonin re-uptake inhibitors (SRIs, e.g., Prozac) are given annually to children and youth and some 3 million prescriptions of Ritalin are prescribed annually. The problem of underestimating child/youth suicides in our society is as real as it is for child abuse homicides, previously cited (Herman-Giddens, et.al, 1999), where they found that child abuse homicides were underascertained by 62%. It is reasonable to project a similar or larger underestimation of suicidal deaths, given the higher societal and family shame and guilt that is associated with suicidal death, particularly of children and youth. Undoubtedly, many suicidal deaths are hidden in the accidental death statistics and are a greater problem than the current statistics indicate.
The pioneering study of Salk, et al (1985) found prenatal and perinatal stress factors in 81% of teen suicides that represented a 400% increased risk of suicide compared to the control subjects. The studies of the Jacobson group in Sweden also documented the role of perinatal trauma and obstetric medications on later adult behaviors of suicide, homicide and drug addictive behaviors, where increased risks for some of these behaviors was as high as 500% compared to control groups (Jacobson, et al, 1987,1988, 1990, 1998/ 2000). The study of Raine, et al (1994) found birth complications and maternal rejection predicting violent crime at 18 years of age, which adds additional evidence that prenatal/perinatal trauma contributes to adult behavioral disorders. The report of Levy (1945) that the trauma of circumcision can lead to homicidal and suicidal emotional states should not be neglected in the overall assessment of prenatal, perinatal and postnatal factors that contribute to child, teen and adult emotional-behavioral disorders.
VI. Psychiatric Medications of the Children and Youth of America.
Breggin (1994, 1995, 1998) has warned America about the effects of a Toxic Psychiatry upon the children and youth of America, which have gone unheeded. The psychiatric drugging of the children, youth and adults of America have become worse where there is little or no questions being asked by the psychiatric-political establishment as to why are all these psychiatric drugs are necessary. Breggin (2000) provides a framework for the prevention of the psychiatric drugging of the children and youth of America and a path to follow, if natural happiness is to become a reality, which is the true prevention of depression and violence.
Zito, et al (2000) have reviewed the prevalence of psychotropic medication use in children and youth; and in preschool-aged children from 1991-1995 from two state Medicaid programs and an HMO. They reported: The prevalence of psychotropic medication treatment for children and adolescents with emotional and behavioral disorders has significantly increased in the United States during the last few decades, particularly in the last 15 years. Specifically the 5 through 14-yearold age group has experienced a great increase in stimulant treatment for attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHS), and the 15 through 19 -year- old age group has had sizable increases in the use of antidepressant medications (pp.1-2)... The rate of psychotropic medication prescribed for preschoolers in the MWM program increased substantially from 1991-1995. The increase was greatest for clonidine (28.2-fold), stimulants (3.0-fold), and antidepressants (2.2-fold). By contrast, neuroleptic use did not increase substantially during this time (p.4)... Methylphenidate (Ritalin) use according to age group in children and adolescents in the MWM program was most prominent for those aged 5-14 years... The largest methylphenidate increase (311%) was among 15 through19- year olds, whereas the 2 through 4- year-olds, like the 5-through 14 -year-olds, had a smaller but still substantial increase (169% to 176%) (pp.4-5)...
Several prominent trends characterized the use of psychotropic medications in preschoolers during the early to mid 1990s. Overall, there were large increases for all study medications (except the neuroleptics) and considerable variation according to gender, age, geographic region, and health care system. These findings are remarkable in light of the limited knowledge base that underlies psychotropic medication use in very young children. Controlled clinical studies to evaluate the efficacy and safety of psychotropic medications for preschoolers are rare. Efficacy data are essentially lacking for clonidine and the SSRIs and methylphenidate's adverse effects for preschool children are more pronounced than for older youths. Consequently, the vast majority of psychotropic medications prescribed for preschoolers are being used offlabel. (P.5).
Recall that this 5-14 year age group showed a doubling of suicide rates over the past twenty years (supra).
3) Lilly internal document
"Activation and sedation in fluoxetine clinical trials,"
http://i.cnn.net/cnn/2005/images/01/03/eli.lilly.pdf
Adobe acrobat reader required.
Amongst other very informative information in the document about 'activation' of agitation etc, on PAGE 3 of the document you'll see far higher suicidality figures with Prozac than with 4 'pre-SSRI' drugs its compared with under the heading:
"Percent of Total Reports (SUICIDALITY All Events) For Each Drug"
FLUOXETINE (Prozac) 3.7
Trazadone 0.2
Amitriptyline 0.8
Desipramine 0.3
Maprotiline 0.0
4) http://www.ahrp.org/risks/usSSRIuse0604.pdf
(PDF file, Acrobat Reader required).
On just 3 SSRIs: PROZAC, PAXIL (Seroxat) and ZOLOFT (Lustral) in one year alone:
"...Table 1 shows that, in 2002, 7.8 million Americans became new users of either Paxil,Prozac or Zoloft and therefore they faced a net risk of induced suicide that is not likely to be lower than 32/100K and very probably is higher than 104/100K.
Nevertheless, even using these cautionary rates, somewhere between 2500 and 8200 **excess** suicides may have occurred in 2002 alone due to these drugs..."
WITH REGARD TO THE PDF FILE under 3) (now confirmed by Eli Lilly that it IS there document)
The 1988 document indicated that 3.7 percent of patients attempted suicide while on the blockbuster drug, a rate more than 12 times that cited for any of four other commonly used antidepressants.
The document, which cited clinical trials of 14,198 patients on fluoxetine -- the generic name for Prozac -- also stated that 2.3 percent of users suffered psychotic depression while on the drug, more than double the next-highest rate of patients using another antidepressant.
In addition, the paper said that 1.6 percent of patients reported incidents of hostility -- more than double the rate reported by patients on any of four other commonly used antidepressants.
The trials reviewed in the document said that 0.8 percent of users of Prozac reported causing an intentional injury -- eight times the rate associated with any of the other antidepressants.
In the paper, titled "Activation and sedation in fluoxetine clinical trials," the authors said that the drug may produce nervousness, anxiety, agitation or insomnia in 19 percent of patients, and sedation in 13 percent of patients.
The paper, apparently produced by the drug company's marketing department, said "several suggestions may be helpful in presenting this information to physicians," including emphasizing that more patients on another class of antidepressants stopped taking their drugs than did those on Prozac..."
(Zoloft is in the same class - SSRIs - carrying the same side effects as Prozac.)
"...The 1988 document indicated that 3.7 percent of patients attempted suicide while on the blockbuster drug, a rate more than 12 times that cited for any of four other commonly used antidepressants.
The document, which cited clinical trials of 14,198 patients on fluoxetine -- the generic name for Prozac -- also stated that 2.3 percent of users suffered psychotic depression while on the drug, more than double the next-highest rate of patients using another antidepressant.
In addition, the paper said that 1.6 percent of patients reported incidents of hostility -- more than double the rate reported by patients on any of four other commonly used antidepressants.
The trials reviewed in the document said that 0.8 percent of users of Prozac reported causing an intentional injury -- eight times the rate associated with any of the other antidepressants.
In the paper, titled "Activation and sedation in fluoxetine clinical trials," the authors said that the drug may produce nervousness, anxiety, agitation or insomnia in 19 percent of patients, and sedation in 13 percent of patients.
The paper, apparently produced by the drug company's marketing department, said "several suggestions may be helpful in presenting this information to physicians," including emphasizing that more patients on another class of antidepressants stopped taking their drugs than did those on Prozac.
The 1988 document indicated that 3.7 percent of patients attempted suicide while on the blockbuster drug, a rate more than 12 times that cited for any of four other commonly used antidepressants.
The document, which cited clinical trials of 14,198 patients on fluoxetine -- the generic name for Prozac -- also stated that 2.3 percent of users suffered psychotic depression while on the drug, more than double the next-highest rate of patients using another antidepressant.
In addition, the paper said that 1.6 percent of patients reported incidents of hostility -- more than double the rate reported by patients on any of four other commonly used antidepressants.
The trials reviewed in the document said that 0.8 percent of users of Prozac reported causing an intentional injury -- eight times the rate associated with any of the other antidepressants.
In the paper, titled "Activation and sedation in fluoxetine clinical trials," the authors said that the drug may produce nervousness, anxiety, agitation or insomnia in 19 percent of patients, and sedation in 13 percent of patients.
The paper, apparently produced by the drug company's marketing department, said "several suggestions may be helpful in presenting this information to physicians," including emphasizing that more patients on another class of antidepressants stopped taking their drugs than did those on Prozac..."
As to the 'serotonin link to depression' theory on which the promotion of Prozac, Paxil and Zoloft and other SSRIs have been based, it's interesting that Paxil maker GlaxoSmithKline eventually had to do the following (from a pdf file relating to Pfizer's zoloft)
"...In May 2003, the maker of the SSRI Paxil, GlaxoSmithKline (“GSK”), announced that it was withdrawing claims contained in its promotional material for Paxil (called Seroxat in Ireland and the UK) that the drug worked by normalizing levels of serotonin.
GSK acknowledged that the link between depression and serotonin levels is unproven and that such claims “were not consistent with the scientific literature.”..."
It can be assumed from that withdrawal, that 'science' (genuine science) does not actually come into pharamaceutical claims for the need, or efficacy, or benefits of Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors.
More a con trick on the public similar to that of Eli Lilly's LSD of decades ago. Eli Lilly pulled off the next global con with a drug not to dissimilar to LSD when it produced 'prozac'.
Magnificent achievement to be able to push these drugs so successfully on such a massive scale. Fortunately for the industry, the thousands of dead are no longer around to give an adequate description of the surreal and fatally damaging 'tripping' that can occur on SSRIs.
But those who end up tripping with a slight difference, in that they kill others in that drug-induced dark nightmare of a world CAN relate what happened and are therefore VERY DANGEROUS to the future of the pharmaceutical industry and the blockbuster mind-altering drugs indeed. Even when they are just children.
Elavil is a tricyclic. Zoloft, Prozac, etc. are seratonin reuptake inhibitors. They tamper with different sets of neurotransmitters.
I'm not suggesting that I buy the "Zoloft made me do it" excuse; just pointing out that there are significant differences in the ways the different classes of antidepressants work.
You're quite right :-)
And from the last post I left you've probably noticed that
in Eli Lilly did comparitive studies and (cutting out the others) the suicide rate on their SSRI was
FLUOXETINE (Prozac) 3.7
as compared to
Amitriptyline 0.8
3.7 is
VERY MUCH higher an RR (relative risk)
than that for the level which decided that ASBESTOS was dangerous (not for suicide! but dangerous).
Unfortunately, it seems that Christopher Pittman had a FAR HIGHER chance of becoming either suicidal or homicidal than he would have had of becoming ill/fatally ill from having been in contact with Asbestos.
As to someone above who mentioned that the child was a sociopath (though I don't see any evidence to back that statement).. "disassociation" is documented as a side effect of SSRIs.
Isn't one of the signs of a sociopathic personality that of lack of empathy for others?
Does that apply to those who cannot put themselves into the shoes of children like Christopher before making judgemental decisions founded on nothing other than 'personal' ideas and not on reasoning or empathy?
I'd say that corporate psychopathy (including psychopathic personalities within the corporation) was clearly evident when industries knowingly distort the evidence from their own clinical studies, lie about the 'scientific' need for mind-altering drugs, and promote their use KNOWING that their own studies caused deaths? THAT is sociopathic surely? To push drugs knowing they will kill, and then continue to lie and deceive even after very many people have died?
Doesn't that hint just a little at a lack of concern about human life? Is that not the REAL sociopathy in evidence here?
There was no need for it. They could have made plenty of money being truthful. Now they will get sued (rightfully) by every shyster lawyer in the country. And it will be their fault.
Doesn't that hint just a little at a lack of concern about human life? Is that not the REAL sociopathy in evidence here?
Amen
It is impossible for most moral people to comprehend that otherwise respectable people can make these decisions and sleep at night. Until I was confronted with it I could not believe that people could make decisions that would lead to the maiming of others for a hundred or so a year. Groups of people. It totally freaks me out that people could have these facts and then commission studies in children and promote their use in children! Those people are cold blooded killers. Unbelievable cold blooded killers.
The refered post is excellent.
I truly hope that the Jurors and the Judge have an open mind as you do.
I don't know how to use this board properly, but I meant that to all those who are keeping an open mind.
I'm from the UK, and its VERY late here and I'm too tired to think clearly, but its nice to have met a group of people who DO think for themselves, who DO (even when maybe they've only accessed a bit of the information) CONSIDER what is going on.
You can make a difference - and I trust that you've got the insight to do so once you've accessed the information. Children (and unsuspecting adults also) NEED people like you to change things and to protect them.
Paula
Actually it turned out to be twice that, 38%. The wonders of statistics!! Neverdem posted it here. It is good article that touches on some of the "methods" used.
January 17, 2005
Dispute Puts a Medical Journal Under Fire
By BARRY MEIER
Last year was an especially bad one for the pharmaceutical industry, which experienced controversies over how drug studies are disclosed and the implosion of the painkiller Vioxx. Now, as a result of the recent publication of an article about the antidepressant Prozac, it appears that the staid, usually methodical world of medical journals could suffer its own black eye.
On New Year's Day, the British medical journal BMJ published a news article suggesting that "missing" documents from a decade-old lawsuit indicated that Eli Lilly & Company, the maker of Prozac, had minimized data about the drug's risks of causing suicidal or violent behavior.
Within days, the article was cited in hundreds of television and newspaper reports. An outraged Washington lawmaker demanded to know if Lilly had hidden the information from the Food and Drug Administration. While company officials refuted the article's assertions, it was still repeatedly cited. And last Thursday, Lilly spent about $800,000 to run full-page advertisements in 15 major publications to dispute the article.
The incident may prove to be a messy one for the BMJ, which is based in London and owned by the British Medical Association, a professional group. Much of the journal, formerly known as the British Medical Journal, is devoted to research reports about medical issues that are reviewed by experts. But the BMJ, like some other medical journals, also has a separate news section that prints articles like the recent one about Prozac. As it turns out, some of the Eli Lilly documents, which the BMJ said it received from an anonymous source, have been circulating for years. And, Lilly officials said, the BMJ and its reporter declined to provide the company with copies of the documents at issue prior to the article's publication.
The American freelance reporter who wrote the article, Jeanne Lenzer, declined to be interviewed, referring all questions to the BMJ. Officials there did not respond to written questions, but a spokeswoman, Emma Dickinson, said in an e-mail message on Friday that the publication "takes this issue very seriously" and will address Lilly's concerns after reviewing them.
The BMJ, which is considered a leading medical journal, may have little choice. While Lilly has not taken legal action, its lawyers have notified the publication that the company considers the article to be "inaccurate and defamatory," asserting that the records were not missing and that all their relevant data had been previously submitted to the F.D.A. Also, Lilly issued an analysis last week of the 52 pages of records that the BMJ had received, which the company said supported its claims. Lilly said it got the documents from a congressman who received them from the BMJ.
"You put something out on the newswire with the imprimatur of a medical journal and people think it is fact," said Dr. Alan Brier, the chief medical officer of Eli Lilly, which is based in Indianapolis.
The article's appearance follows the recent controversy over whether drug makers adequately disclosed the risks that antidepressants like Prozac posed to pediatric patients. And its comes as a South Carolina teenager faces trial for murder as an adult on charges that he killed his grandparents when he was 12. The teenager, Christopher Pittman, has acknowledged the crime, but his lawyers have based his defense on the argument that he became violent after taking the drug Zoloft, an antidepressant similar to Prozac.
It was in a little-noticed article written by Ms. Lenzer in the Dec. 11 issue of the BMJ about the Pittman case that she first mentioned that the publication had received "a set of documents that mysteriously went missing from a U.S. mass murder case ten years ago."
That article did not go into specifics. But in her article on Jan. 1, Ms. Lenzer wrote that the documents in question were connected to a Prozac-related lawsuit that grew out of a shooting rampage in 1989 by a Kentucky man, Joseph Wesbecker, that left nine people dead, including Mr. Wesbecker.
Lawyers representing the victims sued Lilly, asserting that Mr. Wesbecker's killing spree was caused by Prozac, a drug he had been prescribed just before the crimes. During the 1994 trial of the case, Lilly pointed to Mr. Wesbecker's long history of severe psychological problems and said that Prozac was safe.
To combat those assertions, plaintiffs' lawyers introduced hundreds of Lilly documents. They argued that the records showed that Lilly had fully disclosed to the F.D.A. in the late 1980's the potential of Prozac to produce suicidal thinking or acts of violence, including all the reviews by drug regulators in Germany of the issue at that time. Lilly disputed that.
The jury found in favor of Lilly. But a legal controversy over the trial later erupted when it was revealed that plaintiff lawyers and Lilly lawyers had reached an undisclosed financial deal just before the case went to the jury to effectively settle by agreeing not to appeal the verdict.
A Lilly spokesman, Phil Belt, said that Ms. Lenzer, who lives in Kingston, N.Y., first contacted the company on Dec. 13, a few days after her article about the Pittman case appeared.
Mr. Belt said Ms. Lenzer asked where a published report about the data in a specific 1988 internal Lilly report had appeared. At that time, she also requested an interview with the company's chief executive, Sidney Taurel, to discuss what she described as "missing" Lilly documents, Mr. Belt said.
Mr. Belt said the company told Ms. Lenzer that Lilly needed to see the records at issue before it proceeded. He added that Ms. Lenzer later told Lilly that she could not do so, saying that the source of the documents was anonymous.
As the Christmas and New Year's season approached, Mr. Belt said that Ms. Lenzer told Lilly officials that they could pick up the issue after the holidays.
At some point in December, however, Ms. Lenzer or her editors apparently sent the documents it had received to Congressman Maurice Hinchey, Democrat of New York, and to the F.D.A. And a few days before New Year's, the BMJ distributed Ms. Lenzer's article to other news organizations with the provision they could not write about it until its publication date on Jan. 1 - a practice known as an "embargo."
That article carried the headline, "FDA to Review 'Missing' Drug Company Documents," which caught the attention of other news organizations. Mr. Belt said that when Lilly became aware of the embargoed news release, it tried to reach editors at BMJ but was unsuccessful. Both Ms. Lenzer and the BMJ did not respond to written questions about the publication's interactions with Lilly, including why the documents were not shown to the drug maker.
The only Lilly document specifically mentioned in the BMJ article was a 1988 report that stated that 38 percent of depressed patients taking Prozac during clinical trials experienced side effects like agitation, insomnia and nervousness, a rate twice that of those taking a placebo.
Such side effects, which are sometimes referred to as "activation," reflect the fact that some depressed patients who take Prozac and drugs like it often experience a surge of physical energy well ahead of psychological recovery. Some experts have long expressed concerns that such reactions can be so severe in a few patients that they may ultimately act on suicidal or violent impulses.
For procedural reasons, the 1988 Lilly memo itself was not introduced as evidence in the Wesbecker case, said Nancy Zettler, one of the two plaintiffs' lawyers involved. But Ms. Zettler said that one of her expert witnesses, Dr. Peter Breggin, testified extensively about its contents at that trial.
Ms. Zettler said that she was so perplexed by the BMJ article that she contacted Ms. Lenzer after it appeared. "Her original article made it seem like we had deep-sixed some of this stuff and I was curious," she said.
Both Ms. Zettler and Paul Smith, the other plaintiffs' lawyer in the Wesbecker case, said that Ms. Lenzer did not contact them prior to the article to talk about the records or ask for others from that case.
Another plaintiffs' lawyer who has used Lilly documents in other lawsuits, Arnold Vickery, also said he did not discuss the records with Ms. Lenzer prior to her report. Mr. Vickery and another lawyer are representing Christopher Pittman.
Dr. Breggin has written articles arguing against the use of Prozac and other drugs and has mentioned the 1988 Lilly memo in his writings; he is scheduled to be an expert witness in the Pittman case.
Several pages sent to the BMJ were not produced by Lilly but are photocopies of slides produced by an F.D.A. official who presented them at a 1991 public hearing that reviewed the possible suicide risks of Prozac. After its review, that agency panel decided not to issue any additional warnings.
Ms. Zettler said she still thinks the issue of what Lilly told the F.D.A. in the mid-1980's about Prozac's potential risks is unsettled. But after more than 15 years of the drug's use, numerous lawsuits and public reviews, it may also be largely moot.
As a result of the recent controversy about the potential suicide risks posed by antidepressants to children and teenagers, the F.D.A. last week sent out final new labeling language about those dangers to all makers of such drugs, including Lilly.
A spokeswoman for the agency, which is still reviewing the records sent to BMJ, said that it had not yet found anything new in them. Ms. Dickinson, the publication's spokeswoman, said that it was reviewing Lilly's rebuttal to its article.
Thank you Nov3 :-) And of course to Neverdem as well.
Its 4.30 am here, and I'm too tired to concentrate, but I'll be back to look at that article, and if I don't have it will be really grateful to 'copy' it over to my website.
I've GOT to go to sleep now... or I'll fall over on the keyboard :-)
You're also welcome to get any information you don't have from my site if you need it.
I'm going offline now, but will come back to read that last message tomorrow. Thanks again :)
Paula
http://wwww.ssri-uksupport.com
Yes --- I don't see why being crazy gets anyone off the hook for anything. Murder is murder. If someone kills one of my family members --- how is it better if they're stark raving mad versus calm and collected?
I saw this drug dramatically affect two people close to me in the early to mid nineties- more if you include the people murdered by one of them. Prozac was mothers milk in everyone's eyes then. I saw the doctors reaction to the agitation side effects in one of them. (An immediate diagnosis of bipolar type II, upping of the SSRI dose, additon of Tegretol with the intent to try others and the final addition of lithium. This to someone who a few weeks before was mildly depressed. Was told by the preening bastard that this person was mentally ill and doomed to a life of misery if she wasn't treated properly. That person is stable and well without drugs now.) As a result I started studying this drug class and was horrified by what I saw.
I am pretty hands off as far as business goes but the Pharmaceutical Industry and especially the marketing side is out of control and doctors don't seem to be able to think independently on this issue.
P.s take a w out of your address!
Thanks for the wwww bit - that was probably down to being too tired to take care with the typing :-)
No, Kara wasn't related to me - but her mother is a friend and the site was 'dedicated to Kara and other children...' almost three years ago and some time before Kara's story became well known. Despite the mother's intense grief she helped many people who were struggling with withdrawal, as have other mothers in the same circumstances, and to do so shows outstanding concern for others above themselves.
At the time I started the website, her mother wanted to ensure that people were aware of the effect it could have on children, and that by doing so other children's lives might not be lost and Kara's death wouldn't be in vain.
I personally had a LOT of help and support from her too, and without her 'being there', along with another grieving mother and some other caring parties, I'm quite certain I wouldn't be here now. The awful tragedy is that she she wouldn't have been there for others had Kara not died, and that lives that WERE saved came about by the loss of a little child. Kara was given Paxil at the same age as Christopher was given Zoloft, both of which children suffered devastating effects in different ways.
Just like you, in a way - you looked into the class of drugs because you witnessed harm to and loss of friends, and now have the information and means to help other people as a result. You just being here is helping to bring awareness of what drugs can do, and that more people becoming aware might even help Christopher, but if not - certainly others in the future.
I didn't lose anyone, I simply had an horrific experience from the drug (and I wasn't described it for depression initially, just a couple of days of 'post-op blues') and have been left with some long term damage 3 years on from being taken off them cold turkey. The doc who took me off them that way would have done so because the pharmaceutical industry lied and stated at that time, on that SSRI, that in RARE cases "mild flu-like symptoms" could occur but these would last at most for 2 weeks. How was the doc to know any different 3 years ago? The doc believed the "scientific" evidence from the "scientists" in the industry - there was no "withdrawal" because "seroxat is NOT addictive". Unfortunately that doc CONTINUED to believe it for quite some time afterwards and so exacerbated what was happening by her dismissal of the symptoms and by her lack of understanding and support.
Had the facts been available at the time, then the doc would have known to have prescribed them again and overseen a tapering down regime, which may well have saved long-term damage - though maybe it wouldn't, there's no way of knowing really as tapering didn't happen.
So though I didn't lose a relative, I still don't want other people to suffer from the effects of these drugs, promoted by lies and corruption, and like many others, try to 'warn' in an attempt to at least SLIGHTLY balance out the mass of misinformation put out by the industry and their 'allies'.
And round it all goes..
Now I'm late, but hopefully I'll be back this evening to look at the articles you posted and maybe transport them back to my site with THREE, not FOUR, www's :-)
Paula
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