Depressed Over Prozac - Deseret News Sunday Church News Section

[Guest guest]

Dear Friends,

For those of you who have time, please take a moment to send your comments

to Elaine Jarvik. (Her email is included at the end of the article). It is

regrettable that Vickie Cottrell, president of Utah NAMI, would suggest that

Ann Blake is funded by Scientologists. You would think that someone

who heads an influential organization and represents the interests of

thousands would be more careful to have her facts clear.

Ann is most definitely NOT a Scientologist, nor is she funded by them. This

I can attest to with absolute certainty. Furthermore, I can assure you that

NAMI has received a great deal of funding from the pharmaceutical firms.

With that said, if this article happens to pave a way for Mormons to put

down their defenses and acknowledge we have a work to do, and if we can work

with the Scientologists, the Catholics, the Muslims, the Buddhists and every

other religious group to make sure the public has ALL the facts on these

antidepressant drugs, then all the better.

Best to all,

Cassandra Dawn Casey

A.S.P.I.R.E.

(and, a Mormom - like Ann Blake-)

===============================================================================

===============================================================================

http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,595085602,00.html

Deseret Morning News, Sunday, August 22, 2004

Depressed over Prozac

Antidepressants dangerous and should be banned, crusader says

By Elaine Jarvik

Deseret Morning News

Ann knows hundreds of grisly stories: the professor on Prozac who bit

her mother to death; the Stanford graduate on Paxil who stabbed herself in

the kitchen while her parents slept; the mother who bludgeoned her son and

then drank a can of Drano; the 12-year-old girl who strangled herself with a

bungee cord she attached to a plant hanger on the wall.

Sit with for an hour and pretty soon your head is swimming in details:

the shooting at Columbine, a study of violent mice, the conversation she had

with Rusty Yates, whose wife drowned their five children in a bathtub.

Yates was on maximum doses of Effexor and Remeron, she reminds you.

The world according to Ann is a place full of people who were put on

antidepressants and then went on to do horrible things.

is executive director of the International Coalition for Drug

Awareness, which she operates out of her home office in West Jordan, a home

she has mortgaged twice to pay for her 15-year crusade against

antidepressants and the pharmaceutical companies who make them.

She is heartened by recent scrutiny of the drugs. Last year, the British

version of the FDA banned all antidepressants other than Prozac for use in

children under 18. In March, the Food and Drug Administration issued a

Public Health Advisory about antidepressants — urging doctors and families

to monitor adult and child patients on the drugs — and then appointed a

panel of experts to reanalyze the incidence of suicide attempts during

clinical trials of teens. In June, New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer

sued the makers of Paxil for consumer fraud, and 30 Utahns joined a

nationwide class-action suit charging that GlaxoKline " concealed,

suppressed and downplayed " severe withdrawal reactions in people trying to

go off the antidepressant.

But won't be happy until the drugs are banned altogether. They cause

people to become violently suicidal and homicidal, she argues. They cause

cancer, she says, and heart disease and diabetes and divorce.

Some people call her a visionary. Others roll their eyes and call her

misinformed — and worry that she is hurting the very people she wants to

help.

Panacea or Pandora?

In 1991, wrote an 80-page pamphlet called " Prozac: Panacea or

Pandora? " Three years later she expanded it into a 424-page book that she

published herself. She wrote a lot of it longhand, while sitting in the Salt

Lake LDS Temple: the one place, she says, where she was sure Satan didn't

have a foothold.

Hers was one of the first books to criticize antidepressants, but others

followed: Dr. Breggin's 1995 " Talking Back to Prozac, " Dr. ph

Glenmullen's 2000 " Prozac Backlash, " Dr. Healy's 2004 " Let Them Eat

Prozac. " As the titles suggest, Prozac has become shorthand for

antidepressant, the way Kleenex is shorthand for tissue, because Prozac was

the first of a new class of antidepressants called SSRIs (selective

serotonin reuptake inhibitors). But there are now plenty of others,

including Paxil, Effexor, Zoloft and Luvox.

According to IMS Health, a market research company for the pharmaceutical

industry, sales of antidepressants worldwide in 2003 reached $19.5 billion,

up 10 percent from 2002. Some of this growth, according to the IMS Web site,

can be attributed to the use of antidepressants in " lifestyle disorders, "

which now include or could feasibly include, according to IMS, premenstrual

dysphoric disorder, smoking cessation, weight loss and shyness — a list that

causes some people, like Jim Harper of prozactruth.com, to complain that

antidepressants are now prescribed " if you bite your nails. "

started the International Coalition for Drug Awareness in 1997. The

coalition has a Web site, www.drugawareness.org, volunteer directors in 30

states and board members in Bulgaria and Singapore. The most celebrated

member of her board is Dr. Candace Pert, the town University School of

Medicine neuroscientist who a generation ago helped discover and map the

kind of receptors that regulate mood and health.

On the case

Distraught parents of suicidal teens, and the relatives and attorneys of

people accused of murder, call asking for her help. But also

keeps her antennae up for stories about violent deaths that might possibly

be linked to antidepressants. If she reads a newspaper account about a man,

say, who has gone on a shooting rampage at work — as happened in July at a

ConAgra Foods plant in Kansas — she will immediately get on the phone to

flesh out the details, trying to find out if the assailant had been on an

antidepressant. Occasionally the victims are famous, and sometimes the

assailants become famous for their horrific crimes, but either way is

not afraid to insert herself into their lives or their deaths.

The day after she heard that Brynn Hartman had shot her husband, comedian

Phil Hartman, and then herself, called up Phil Hartman's brother,

whose number she found on the Internet. had just returned from being

an expert witness at the trial of a Wyoming woman on Paxil who had shot her

husband and later reported that she didn't remember anything about the

murder except standing there with the smoking gun. So told the

Hartmans: " Don't you stop till you find one of these drugs. " Brynn Hartman,

it turned out, had been on Zoloft; drugmaker Pfizer settled an eventual

wrongful death case for an undisclosed amount.

After reading about Mark Barton, the Atlanta day trader who killed his

family and then drove to work and killed nine more people before also

turning the gun on himself, phoned his mother. It wasn't until six

months later that Atlanta police reported that Prozac had been found in

Barton's car, so was operating on instinct when she urged Barton's

mother to have his body tested for antidepressants. " Not all coroners check

for these drugs, " explains. " It requires a few extra tests, and not

all states will pay for it. That's why you need to get to the families right

away. "

But things don't always work out the way would hope. In the Atlanta

day trader case, she says, she had his body ready to be shipped to an

independent forensic toxicologist in Oklahoma City, but Barton's mother

changed her mind. Maybe, says, the coroner told Mrs. Barton that

was a Scientologist.

The Scientology charge still surfaces occasionally, because Scientologists

are famous for their opposition to psychotropic drugs and in fact to

psychiatry in general. ( " Psychiatry is seeking to create a world where man

is reduced to a robotized or drugged, vegetablelike state so that he can be

controlled, " Church of Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard once wrote.)

Vicki Cottrell, executive director of the Utah chapter of the National

Alliance for the Mentally Ill (NAMI), is sure has Scientology ties.

" She says she's not a Scientologist, but she has the same philosophy, " says

Cottrell. " Of course I don't have the thing on paper, in writing, but I

believe they finance her. " denies any connection to Scientology and

says in fact that Scientologists don't like her because she won't go after

psychiatrists. She says her war against antidepressants has put her $100,000

in debt (mostly from phone bills and publishing her book). accuses

NAMI of getting money from drug companies.

Cause and effect

Emotions run high because, on both sides, there is a belief that lives are

at stake. Mental-health advocates argue that antidepressants have helped

millions of people, and they worry that crusades like 's will convince

the very people who need drugs to go off them. The stories of people who

have committed suicide or crimes while on antidepressants are sad and

regrettable, they agree, but anecdotes aren't scientific proof.

Did Mark Barton, for example, kill his family and co-workers because he was

on Prozac orwhile he was on Prozac?

" It's a cause-and-effect issue, " says Dr. Meredith Alden, president of the

Utah Psychiatric Association. " People make assumptions about cause and

effect when there is only an association. "

Yes, sometimes people on antidepressants kill themselves or act violently,

she says, but that's because " you're already dealing with people who are

prone to violent behavior. " And, she says, " people who are depressed are

going to be at greater risk of hurting themselves. "

Sometimes, concedes University of Utah psychiatry professor Dr. Tomb,

" some people will briefly feel more suicidal " when they're first put on

antidepressants, but that happens when they first go into psychotherapy,

too, he argues, " or just because they're getting better by tincture of

time. " Tomb, like a lot of people in the field, offers this explanation: A

really depressed person may not have the energy to kill himself; then he

starts taking medication, still feels depressed, but suddenly has enough

energy to follow through with his suicidal thoughts.

But what about the people who weren't suicidal until they took the drugs,

asks. What about the people who had no history of violence but then

killed their own children?

FDA weighs in

The FDA, in its Health Advisory issued in March, asked drug companies to add

stronger warnings to their package inserts, cautioning physicians and

families to " closely monitor " both adults and children for suicidal

thinking, and " certain behaviors that are known to be associated with these

drugs, " including mania and hostility, especially at the beginning of

treatment, or when the doses are increased or decreased. The FDA stopped

short of requiring the companies to issue these warnings, though, and made

it clear that the matter of cause and effect has not been settled yet.

The FDA appointed a panel of independent experts to review clinical trials

of antidepressant use in children and teens, trying to determine if these

studies report more suicide attempts in patients prescribed the drugs

compared to those given a placebo pill. The review follows allegations that

GlaxoKline failed to report trials that showed an increase in suicide

attempts, as well as those trials that showed that Paxil was no more

effective than a placebo for younger patients. According to the Wall Street

Journal, which obtained a draft of the panel's review last week, the

clinical trials show children and teens on the drugs were indeed more likely

to have thoughts that appeared to be suicidal.

Earlier this month, Health Canada, the Canadian version of the FDA, issued a

warning that newborns may suffer withdrawal and other possible symptoms

(seizures, constant crying, etc.) when pregnant women take SSRIs during the

third trimester of their pregnancies.

In June, the National Association for the Mentally Ill (NAMI) Policy

Research Institute issued a report urging that psychotropic drugs should be

prescribed for children " only when the anticipated benefits outweigh the

risks. " Next month, a congressional committee will hold hearings about the

safety of antidepressants and the FDA's alleged censoring last winter of a

staff member who argued that the drugs are dangerous for young people.

" From those who have seen the internal company documents, " says , " we

know that there is no distinction in age groups with these suicidal

reactions. These reactions are the same across the board, no matter the

age. "

Utah cases

argues that the perpetrators of some of Utah's famous violent crimes —

Margaret Kastanis, who stabbed herself and her three children in 1991;

Sergei Babarin, who shot five people at the LDS Family History Library in

1999; Lenny Gall, who killed his mother with an axe in 2001 — were violent

because they were either on antidepressants or had gone off them too

abruptly.

Lenny Gall's father, Len, contacted six months ago, before his son's

sentencing hearing. then went through Lenny's medical records, Gall

says, and found that " he had a very significant reaction to Paxil when he

was 16 " and was put on the antipsychotic drug Zyprexa " shortly before " the

murder. " He's never had a shred of violence in him, " Gall says.

has served as an expert witness in a dozen criminal cases — most

recently a land case against a teenage boy who fatally laced his best

friend's soda with cyanide — and has been hired as a consultant in several

civil cases against drug companies, including one that tried to implicate

Luvox as the reason why shot students at Columbine High School.

She estimates that the number of people she has consulted with about

antidepressants — how to safely get off them, how to find alternative

methods for treating depression, what to do when a family member is suicidal

or manic — is now in the thousands.

Atwood, who will be a senior this year at Copper Hills High School,

credits with helping him get off antidepressants, first prescribed for

him when he was 12. He tried suicide at least 15 times before reading

's book and listening to her tape. It was then, he says, that he

discovered that odd symptoms — persistent dreams of gouging his eyes out,

for example — might be side effects of the drugs that were supposed to be

making him feel normal. Following 's advice, he slowly tapered off

Remeron and now tries to avoid sugar, meat and dairy products. " I still have

my moments of depression, " he says. " But I haven't attempted suicide for

over a year. "

Ann Blake , according to the International Coalition for Drug Awareness

web site, has a doctorate in health sciences with an emphasis on psychology.

There is no mention of the institution that awarded her this degree —

Wythe College, in Cedar City. explains that the Ph.D. was awarded for

" lifetime experience, " specifically for the writing of " Prozac: Panacea or

Pandora? " which she says she has been told is the equivalent of, or " far

beyond, " a dissertation.

Self-published, the book contains spelling and punctuation errors and

incomplete sentences (although says an edited version will be

published in the next few weeks). It also contains page after page of

references to studies that seem to cast a cloud over the safety of

antidepressants.

argues that the whole hypothesis of SSRIs is " backwards. " She

maintains that the drugs increase serotonin while decreasing the metabolism

of serotonin, especially in the 7 to 10 percent of the population she says

that studies have shown don't have the proper enzyme to metabolize SSRIs in

the first place. The drugs, she charges, can also cause REM sleep behavior

disorder (RBD), which can cause people to act out their vivid, violent

dreams while in a dreamlike state.

Deconstructing

" It's hard to know where to begin to detail the cognitive errors she's

making, " says psychiatrist Tomb about 's book. " She is really taking

license with the scientific method. " Yes, is passionate about the

evils of antidepressants, Tomb says, " but passion has very little place in

the scientific method in terms of deciding what is accurate and truthful. "

The book is full of vignettes, but vignettes don't tell the whole story, he

argues. " You could take aspirin and do the same thing: comb the literature

and find horrible things that have occurred with aspirin. "

But Dr. Marks, an internal medicine physician from Alabama who was

director of research at two large drug companies and now often testifies as

an expert witness against the drugs, calls " in many ways a visionary. "

She " has observed a phenomenon that is now being validated, " he says.

" I do think there are some people who don't understand Dr. and don't

understand her passion and don't understand how smart she is, " says

Tierney, a North Carolina mother whose teenage daughter was put on Effexor

to treat her migraine headaches.

In her darkest hours — when her cheerful, straight-A daughter first became

" a monster " and later, in an effort to wean herself from Effexor, had

withdrawal symptoms that left her unable even to walk — Tierney called every

antidepressant expert she could find on the Internet. Only called her

back.

" Dr. never got one dime from me. She never mentioned money to me at

all. When she first called me back and I said, 'What can I pay you?' she

said, 'No. No.' You have to think that's pretty pure. And she helped me more

than anyone else. "

" An unsung hero, " says Cassandra Dawn Casey, a Utah County woman who started

an antidepressant group called Aspire after her son's death two years ago.

" None of us would have known what was causing these problems in our lives if

it hadn't been for trailblazers like Ann. "

The beginning

's interest in antidepressants began in 1989 when, she says, she

watched two LDS friends turn into alcoholics after being put on Prozac.

After that she started reading about the drugs, and soon she was hunting

down scientific studies, and then she got a button made that said " Just Say

No to Prozac. " After that she'd be at the grocery store or church and people

would come up to her and start telling her their stories.

" There's great power in those stories, " says Texas trial attorney Andy

Vickery, who has been involved in more than 50 cases related to

antidepressants. " They have a power to persuade and even change the

bureaucratic forces of our country. "

And that's just what expects to eventually happen. " I think these

drugs are history, " she says. Eventually, the stories told by parents, and

the investigations into the clinical trials that the drug companies have

suppressed, will add up to public outrage — and then antidepressants will be

pulled from the market, she predicts.

" What is sad, " she says, " is that so many have had to die or have their

lives ruined while we have learned that this was yet another terrible

mistake in our hope of 'Better Living Through Chemistry.' "

E-mail: jarvik@...

Related Content:

http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,595085633,00.html

Close monitoring urged for antidepressants

Doctors often lack facts on drugs, psychiatrist says

[Guest guest]

> Best to all,

> Cassandra Dawn Casey

>

> A.S.P.I.R.E.

>

> (and, a Mormom - like Ann Blake-)

Last month, due to fundamentalist sectarian proselytizing posts

here, there was discussion of the place of religion in the list and

its work. After some intimidation tactics on the part of the

" religious " person, and his/her removal, things seemmed to

settle down. Most regular contributors felt more comfortable and

progress resumed.

Now we have mention of two " faiths " , or groups with religious

status once again. In some eyes, each is as bad as the other.

Has Ms. Casey forgotten that the R in ASPIRE was supposed to

stand for prevention of undue influence by RELIGION.

Ann Blake is a good doctor and activist and that is all that

matters.

Thank you.

[Guest guest]

> Best to all,

> Cassandra Dawn Casey

>

> A.S.P.I.R.E.

>

> (and, a Mormom - like Ann Blake-)

Last month, due to fundamentalist sectarian proselytizing posts

here, there was discussion of the place of religion in the list and

its work. After some intimidation tactics on the part of the

" religious " person, and his/her removal, things seemmed to

settle down. Most regular contributors felt more comfortable and

progress resumed.

Now we have mention of two " faiths " , or groups with religious

status once again. In some eyes, each is as bad as the other.

Has Ms. Casey forgotten that the R in ASPIRE was supposed to

stand for prevention of undue influence by RELIGION.

Ann Blake is a good doctor and activist and that is all that

matters.

Thank you.

[Guest guest]

Dear Niles,

> Best to all,

> Cassandra Dawn Casey

>

> A.S.P.I.R.E.

>

> (and, a Mormom - like Ann Blake-)

>Last month, due to fundamentalist sectarian

>proselytizing posts

>here, there was discussion of the place of religion

>in the list and

>its work. After some intimidation tactics on the

>part of the

> " religious " person, and his/her removal, things

>seemmed to

>settle down. Most regular contributors felt more

>comfortable and

>progress resumed.

>Now we have mention of two " faiths " , or groups with

>religious

>status once again. In some eyes, each is as bad as

>the other.

>Has Ms. Casey forgotten that the R in ASPIRE was

>supposed to

>stand for prevention of undue influence by RELIGION.

Religion is not the problem here. The problem is that

most people claim to be apart of an organization with

certain beliefs, but fail to live by their doctrine.

>Ann Blake is a good doctor and activist and

>that is all that

>matters.

All here are from many walks of life who have been

affected by this trash they call medicine. Religion is

not banned on this site (per Dawn Ryder who is the

owner), what is banned is mean spirited comments from

one member to another. As a moderator i have often

posted religious thoughts and will in the future as

well. Each one of us have the right to read a post or

delete it. No one forces you are anyone else to read a

post with a religious tone. Jim is right, religion is

so much apart of each and everyone of us that is hard

to say that they are not allowed. We all need to learn

to LOVE one another regardless of where we are from or

what religous denomination we claim. Most religions

encourage this, but few actually practice it. We tend

to lean more to hate because sometimes people don't

quite measure up to our standards. This mentality is

the same mentality of the big pharma co's. THAT IS

WHAT IS NOT ALLOWED ON THIS GROUP. SO, i ask that you

please delete any post with religious tone's that you

would rather not read. Remembering that hate and greed

are the reasons we are all here and it is this air of

emotion that rules the world, NOT US HERE IN THE

ANTI-SSRI CRUSADERS GROUP.

Connie (Moderator) who's son has been victimized by

HATE AND GREED. Who, through these emotions has

learned to love.

*** Rbi8 1 4:16 ***

God is love . . .

*** Rbi8 2 3:1-7 ***

3 But know this, that in the last days critical times

hard to deal with will be here. 2 For men will be

lovers of themselves, lovers of money, self-assuming,

haughty, blasphemers, disobedient to parents,

unthankful, disloyal, 3 having no natural affection,

not open to any agreement, slanderers, without

self-control, fierce, without love of goodness,

4 betrayers, headstrong, puffed up [with pride],

lovers of pleasures rather than lovers of God,

5 having a form of godly devotion but proving false to

its power; and from these turn away. . . 7 always

learning and yet never able to come to an accurate

knowledge of truth.

[Guest guest]

Dear Niles,

> Best to all,

> Cassandra Dawn Casey

>

> A.S.P.I.R.E.

>

> (and, a Mormom - like Ann Blake-)

>Last month, due to fundamentalist sectarian

>proselytizing posts

>here, there was discussion of the place of religion

>in the list and

>its work. After some intimidation tactics on the

>part of the

> " religious " person, and his/her removal, things

>seemmed to

>settle down. Most regular contributors felt more

>comfortable and

>progress resumed.

>Now we have mention of two " faiths " , or groups with

>religious

>status once again. In some eyes, each is as bad as

>the other.

>Has Ms. Casey forgotten that the R in ASPIRE was

>supposed to

>stand for prevention of undue influence by RELIGION.

Religion is not the problem here. The problem is that

most people claim to be apart of an organization with

certain beliefs, but fail to live by their doctrine.

>Ann Blake is a good doctor and activist and

>that is all that

>matters.

All here are from many walks of life who have been

affected by this trash they call medicine. Religion is

not banned on this site (per Dawn Ryder who is the

owner), what is banned is mean spirited comments from

one member to another. As a moderator i have often

posted religious thoughts and will in the future as

well. Each one of us have the right to read a post or

delete it. No one forces you are anyone else to read a

post with a religious tone. Jim is right, religion is

so much apart of each and everyone of us that is hard

to say that they are not allowed. We all need to learn

to LOVE one another regardless of where we are from or

what religous denomination we claim. Most religions

encourage this, but few actually practice it. We tend

to lean more to hate because sometimes people don't

quite measure up to our standards. This mentality is

the same mentality of the big pharma co's. THAT IS

WHAT IS NOT ALLOWED ON THIS GROUP. SO, i ask that you

please delete any post with religious tone's that you

would rather not read. Remembering that hate and greed

are the reasons we are all here and it is this air of

emotion that rules the world, NOT US HERE IN THE

ANTI-SSRI CRUSADERS GROUP.

Connie (Moderator) who's son has been victimized by

HATE AND GREED. Who, through these emotions has

learned to love.

*** Rbi8 1 4:16 ***

God is love . . .

*** Rbi8 2 3:1-7 ***

3 But know this, that in the last days critical times

hard to deal with will be here. 2 For men will be

lovers of themselves, lovers of money, self-assuming,

haughty, blasphemers, disobedient to parents,

unthankful, disloyal, 3 having no natural affection,

not open to any agreement, slanderers, without

self-control, fierce, without love of goodness,

4 betrayers, headstrong, puffed up [with pride],

lovers of pleasures rather than lovers of God,

5 having a form of godly devotion but proving false to

its power; and from these turn away. . . 7 always

learning and yet never able to come to an accurate

knowledge of truth.