Mmmmmm! Sugar pills!!
Posted on 08/14/2003 4:40:59 AM PDT by Wolfie
PAXIL KILLS ( DITTO PROZAC, ZOLOFT )
By an amazing coincidence, just as their patents are running out, the "blockbuster" antidepressants introduced by Eli Lilly, Pfizer, and other pharmaceutical corporations in the late 1980s and early 1990s are being exposed as dangerous -potentially fatal, in fact. The New York Times ran a front-page story Aug. 7 stating "Doctors are just beginning to react to the finding - -reported first by British drug authorities in June and then endorsed the next week by the Food and Drug Administration -that unpublished studies about Paxil show that it carries a substantial risk of prompting teenagers and children to consider suicide."
British government regulators analyzed data from nine studies and concluded that Paxil more than tripled the incidence of suicide attempts -not just fantasies-in children and teenagers.
Moreover, Paxil is only slightly more effective than sugar pills at relieving depression. Since Prozac, Zoloft, Celexa and other "selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors" affect the same neurotransmitters, they presumably have similar safety and efficacy profiles.
The drug companies have responded to the British report with a predictable array of tactics-deny, obfuscate, claim benefit instead of harm, stall in the name of science, then negotiate the mildest possible slap on the wrist. "'We're trying right now to look at this issue with the FDA and come up with an understanding together of what the data mean,' said Dr. Philip Perera, a medical director of GlaxoSmithKline, the British company that makes Paxil. Pfizer, the maker of Zoloft, said that its drug was different from Paxil and had passed all FDA safety evaluations... Eli Lilly & Company said that Prozac does not cause suicides."
That Prozac causes suicide has been known to Lilly since the mid-1980s, when German regulators reported the connection. Then, almost immediately after its release in the U.S., we began hearing about bizarre Prozac-induced suicides and homicides. In response to the swell of ominous anecdotal evidence, the FDA convened a panel of experts -most of them on drug-company payrolls-who promptly gave Prozac their seal of approval.
Is the Times story implicitly critical of the FDA is designated experts for exposing millions of people to dangerous drugs without so much as a small-print warning on the labels? No, science writer Gardiner Harris invites their self-justifications, which he quotes without challenge. Here's Jeffrey A. Lieberman, a professor of psychiatry and pharmacology: "In 1991 we said there wasn't sufficient evidence to support a link between these drugs and suicide. Now there is evidence, at least in children, and I wouldn't rule out that it's in adults, too."
But there WAS evidence in 1991 -Peter Breggin, MD, presented it to the FDA with ample documentation- and Lieberman and his colleagues chose to ignore it. What enables Scientists ( with a capital S and corporate or government affiliation ) to ignore obvious reality is the sanctity of ithe literature" -the ever-expanding set of peer-reviewed journals, a modern-day Talmud, complete with prestigious expositors and quasi-religious authority.
The "peer review" process involves an editor at a journal ( supported by drug-company ads ) submitting an article to researchers of his acquaintance ( who are employed directly or indirectly by drug companies ) for approval prior to publication. As if that made the results irrefragably true!
"Unpublished" as used in the lead of the Times story, means "has not appeared in 'the literature.'" A small, flawed study conducted by a PhD in the pay of Eli Lilly and printed in the pages of a journal supported by ads from Eli Lilly is "published," and therefore presumed to be valid. A fact-filled book by an iconoclastic doctor like Peter Breggin or John Lee is "unpublished" and therefore dismissed as "mere anecdotal evidence." That's Science for you in the corporate state. The drug companies pay for studies of their products and then don't publish the ones that show dangers and ineffectiveness.
The Times story quotes Charles B. Nemeroff, a Lilly-funded professor of psychiatry at Emory University: "There is simply no scientific evidence whatsoever, no placebo-controlled double-blind study, that has established a cause-and-effect relationship between antidepressant pharmacotherapy of any class and suicidal acts or ideation". Dr. Nemeroff said he believed that his statement was accurate then and remains so, since he has not seen any published study to contradict it.
The Times puts the total number of SSRI prescriptions issued in the U.S. at just under 120 million, with about six million going to kids and teenagers. If a typical 'script is good for two months and is renewed twice, that means two million American kids are on Prozac and its analogues. We know that at least two of them, Eric Harris, of Columbine, Colorado and Kip Kunkel of Springield, Oregon, plotted massacres under the influence of their legally prescribed SSRIs.
According to Harris of the Times, "Some of the early critics say the warnings demonstrate their prescience. 'I feel vindicated,' said Joseph Glenmullen, author of 'Prozac Backlash...' Your correspondent does not feel vindicated, he feels powerless and desperate and depressed beyond what any drug can relieve. Is there a sadder phrase in the language than "I told you so?"
That's almost half of the total population.
And these death-drugs are legal?
Similarly, Preparation H users are three times as likely to have hemorrhoids. Better pull it from the shelves...
Moreover, Paxil is only slightly more effective than sugar pills at relieving depression. Since Prozac, Zoloft, Celexa and other "selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors" affect the same neurotransmitters, they presumably have similar safety and efficacy profiles.
Now I'm convinced. It's only slightly more effective. How could anyone stand in the face of such solid evidence?
The drug companies have responded to the British report with a predictable array of tactics-deny, obfuscate, claim benefit instead of harm, stall in the name of science, then negotiate the mildest possible slap on the wrist.
No bias in this article. No sir, none at all...
Mmmmmm! Sugar pills!!
While people with emotional problems who take these meds are obviously more prone to suicide than the average population, my experience is that these 'happy pills' are evil.
My wife started taking them about 18 months ago. While she was a bit bi-polar (fun to be around when she was happy, run for the hills when she got mad), now she's emotionally empty and either angry or depressed almost all of the time.
She lost all positive emotions immediately, our sex life stopped, she lost weight for a few months, then gained what she lost times 3, drinks to excess frequently - not a pretty picture, but common side effects of these drugs.
Our marriage is now basically nil - you just can't solve your problems with a pill.
Her cousin started taking these about the same time. Marriage over, husband doesn't know what hit him, kids scarred for life.
We tell our kids 'don't do drugs'. We should follow the same advise. SARAFEM RUINED MY WIFE!
It would be so nice to have a footnoted reference or two for assertions like this because the author leaves the reader asking the obvious question: "To whom was the Paxil group compared? The non-depressed teen population or depressed but untreated teens?"
Additionally, the criticism of the peer review process is well deserved but poorly presented. It's unfortunate that it comes across as hysterical and easily dismissed, because it is a subject that deserves serious debate.
Look at the masthead of the source paper. Read those quotes.
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