Mother - Prosecuting for Pharma

[Guest guest]

http://www.motherjones.com/news/outfront/2004/11/10_401.html

Prosecuting for Pharma

Antidepressant manufacturers team up with district attorneys to make sure

the Zoloft defense doesn't fly.

By Rob Waters

November/December 2004 Issue

For all of his 12 years, the only constant and reliable figures in

Pittman's turbulent life were his paternal grandparents. " He

loved his grandparents with all his heart, " says his father, Joe Pittman.

" They were his life. " But on the night of November 28, 2001,

rose from bed and got the pump-action, .410-gauge shotgun that had been

passed down from his grandfather to his father and on to him. He fired it

into the sleeping bodies of Joe Pittman, 66, and his wife, Joy, 62;

then he set their house on fire and fled.

Sometime this year, , now 15, will be tried -- probably as an

adult -- in a South Carolina courtroom for first-degree murder. He admits to

the killings, but says he acted in a fit of agitation and psychosis caused

by the antidepressant he had been taking for just three weeks, Zoloft.

The antidepressant defense has been raised by at least 100 people accused of

violence or murder, but it's not one that Pfizer, the maker of Zoloft, wants

to succeed -- particularly now,

when manufacturers and the FDA are under fire for withholding information

about dangerous side effects of antidepressants. So the company's lawyers

are doing what they've done many times before: assisting the prosecutors by

supplying medical information and legal advice.

In the early 1990s, Eli Lilly, the maker of Prozac, started the practice of

aiding district attorneys who were prosecuting defendants who blamed the

drug for their acts of violence. Lawyers for Pfizer, the world's largest

pharmaceutical company, later created a " prosecutor's manual " for the same

purpose.

The Zoloft manual itself is a closely held secret -- and Pfizer has fought

hard to keep it that way. In 2001, a widow sued Pfizer because her husband

shot and killed himself after six days on Zoloft. Her lawyers discovered in

Pfizer's records a reference to a document called " prosecutor's manual, " and

requested a copy.

Pfizer fought the request, claiming it was privileged information between

the company and its attorneys. The judge allowed the manual to be

introduced -- noting it was designed to prevent " harm to Pfizer's

reputation " if a defendant successfully raised " a Zoloft causation

defense " -- but he agreed to thereafter seal the manual and keep it out of

the public record.

Hooper, an attorney for Pfizer, says that " in rare cases " the company'

s attorneys have provided the manual to prosecutors if a defendant " is

attempting to blame some sort of criminal behavior on the medicine. It's

important for the prosecutor to have accurate information. We're trying to

make sure the truth gets told. " He declined to provide a copy of the manual

to Mother .

GlaxoKline, the maker of the antidepressant Paxil -- which

also took briefly -- also supplied information to the Pitt- man prosecution.

At a court hearing in June, prosecutor Justice said he'd received a

manual from GlaxoKline, and that Pfizer representatives had given him

documents and information on a defense psychiatric expert, Breggin. " I

have been given advice on how to cross [examine] Breggin ... and have been

schooled on how these drugs are supposed to work, " Justice told the court.

Until recently, defendants who've blamed violent episodes on antidepressants

have rarely succeeded. But as information comes to light that manufacturers

have long had indications that the drugs might trigger suicidal or violent

urges in some people, the legal argument is gaining traction.

.. In 2001, a Wyoming jury found that Paxil had caused 60-year-old

Schell to kill his wife, daughter, granddaughter, and himself, and ordered

GlaxoKline to pay $6.4 million to surviving family members. Three hours

before the killings, Schell took his first two sample tablets of Paxil.

.. In April of this year, a jury in Santa Cruz, California, acquitted

Meyers of attempted murder. He had struck a friend with a spiked,

brass-knuckles-like weapon, opening a gash in his head. A neuropsychiatrist

testified that Zoloft eliminated Meyers' inhibitions and impulse control, so

that he expressed a fleeting emotion -- anger -- with sudden violence.

.. And in Florida, the trial of Demeniuk, accused of killing her

four-year-old twin sons in 2001, is on hold while prosecutors appeal a judge

's ruling that two defense experts could testify that Demeniuk was

" involuntarily intoxicated " and " psychotic " as a result of taking Zoloft and

then Paxil.

One of the prosecutors in the Demeniuk case, Assistant State Attorney Norma

Wendt, told Mother that Pfizer lawyers have provided her with advice

and documents from other court battles. " I can pick up the line and call Jim

Hooper or another Pfizer lawyer, " she said. " They hope like heck we

prevail. "

Back in South Carolina, Pittman could face life in prison. It

will be another ordeal in a life that was troubled from the start. His

mother, Hazel, left him when he was six weeks old. In the following years,

he lived with Hazel's mother, his father Joe alone, and with Joe and his

second and third wives. But mostly, he lived with Joe's parents.

" My mom and dad -- his Pop-pop and Nanna -- were like parents to him, " says

Joe. " He worshiped the ground Pop-pop walked on. "

The trouble began when 's grandparents retired and moved to South

Carolina, leaving and his sister in Florida with Joe. Soon

after, 's mother briefly initiated, then cut off, contact with

her long-estranged children. threatened to kill himself and was

placed in a psychiatric hospital, where he was put on Paxil.

's grandparents convinced Joe that they should take the boy to

South Carolina, where they enrolled him in school, brought him to church,

and took him to a doctor, who switched his prescription to Zoloft.

says the doctor told him to take 100 milligrams a day, but a

week later increased the dosage to 200 milligrams.

When visited Joe at Thanksgiving, he initially seemed " more

upbeat, " Joe recalls. " But now I look back at it, it was almost like an

adrenaline rush. He was shaking his hands and feet like he was nervous. "

Back in South Carolina, got into a fight on the school bus and

hurt a younger boy. His grandparents told school officials they would

discipline him. In the evening, they took him to church choir practice, and

then went home. That night, tragedy struck.

" 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, " the boy wrote

in a letter his father read early this year to an FDA committee. " I got up,

got the gun, and I went upstairs and I pulled the trigger. Through the whole

thing, it was like watching your favorite TV show. You know what is going to

happen, but you can't do anything to stop it. "

Civil attorneys who have joined Pittman's defense team want Pfizer to turn

over sealed confidential documents they've been allowed to see in civil

cases that they say show Zoloft can trigger acts of suicide and violence.

Pfizer has resisted releasing the documents, and the two sides continue to

skirmish. At stake is the reputation of the top-selling antidepressant in

the United States, its $3 billion in annual sales -- and the future of a

15-year-old boy.

The K(a-ching!) Street Congressman

At least 90 former members of Congress are now active lobbyists, and their

ranks keep on swelling. The latest congressman to pass through the revolving

door between K Street and the Capitol is Rep. Greenwood (R-Pa.). He

has chaired a subcommittee that regulates the biotech and drug industries;

so it should come as no surprise that Greenwood will now take the reins at

the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO), a lobbying group with a

million annual budget and clients that include the pharmaceutical giants

Pfizer, Eli Lilly, GlaxoKline, Wyeth, and Bristol-Myers Squibb.

More and more, legislators are cashing in with the very lobby shops that

sought to influence them while they were in office. " It calls into question

whether the lawmakers gave special treatment to issues in return for a job

offer, " says Weiss of the Center for Responsive Politics. " It

certainly creates that appearance. "

In Greenwood's case, he accepted the BIO job in July, just days before he

was to lead an investigation into the link between child suicide and

antidepressants (including Pfizer's drug Zoloft), which postponed the

hearings for two months. " I understand how this could raise an eyebrow, "

Greenwood told the Philadelphia Inquirer, while denying any conflict of

interest. " B following A does not mean that A caused B, " the congressman

said.

BIO, whose board also includes a Pfizer vice president, will pay Greenwood

0,000 a year-plus as much as 0,000 in bonuses-for his help in " encouraging a

regulatory climate in Washington that will help our industry. " The

congressman reports for duty the first week of January, right after leaving

office.

-- Gettelman

[Guest guest]

http://www.motherjones.com/news/outfront/2004/11/10_401.html

Prosecuting for Pharma

Antidepressant manufacturers team up with district attorneys to make sure

the Zoloft defense doesn't fly.

By Rob Waters

November/December 2004 Issue

For all of his 12 years, the only constant and reliable figures in

Pittman's turbulent life were his paternal grandparents. " He

loved his grandparents with all his heart, " says his father, Joe Pittman.

" They were his life. " But on the night of November 28, 2001,

rose from bed and got the pump-action, .410-gauge shotgun that had been

passed down from his grandfather to his father and on to him. He fired it

into the sleeping bodies of Joe Pittman, 66, and his wife, Joy, 62;

then he set their house on fire and fled.

Sometime this year, , now 15, will be tried -- probably as an

adult -- in a South Carolina courtroom for first-degree murder. He admits to

the killings, but says he acted in a fit of agitation and psychosis caused

by the antidepressant he had been taking for just three weeks, Zoloft.

The antidepressant defense has been raised by at least 100 people accused of

violence or murder, but it's not one that Pfizer, the maker of Zoloft, wants

to succeed -- particularly now,

when manufacturers and the FDA are under fire for withholding information

about dangerous side effects of antidepressants. So the company's lawyers

are doing what they've done many times before: assisting the prosecutors by

supplying medical information and legal advice.

In the early 1990s, Eli Lilly, the maker of Prozac, started the practice of

aiding district attorneys who were prosecuting defendants who blamed the

drug for their acts of violence. Lawyers for Pfizer, the world's largest

pharmaceutical company, later created a " prosecutor's manual " for the same

purpose.

The Zoloft manual itself is a closely held secret -- and Pfizer has fought

hard to keep it that way. In 2001, a widow sued Pfizer because her husband

shot and killed himself after six days on Zoloft. Her lawyers discovered in

Pfizer's records a reference to a document called " prosecutor's manual, " and

requested a copy.

Pfizer fought the request, claiming it was privileged information between

the company and its attorneys. The judge allowed the manual to be

introduced -- noting it was designed to prevent " harm to Pfizer's

reputation " if a defendant successfully raised " a Zoloft causation

defense " -- but he agreed to thereafter seal the manual and keep it out of

the public record.

Hooper, an attorney for Pfizer, says that " in rare cases " the company'

s attorneys have provided the manual to prosecutors if a defendant " is

attempting to blame some sort of criminal behavior on the medicine. It's

important for the prosecutor to have accurate information. We're trying to

make sure the truth gets told. " He declined to provide a copy of the manual

to Mother .

GlaxoKline, the maker of the antidepressant Paxil -- which

also took briefly -- also supplied information to the Pitt- man prosecution.

At a court hearing in June, prosecutor Justice said he'd received a

manual from GlaxoKline, and that Pfizer representatives had given him

documents and information on a defense psychiatric expert, Breggin. " I

have been given advice on how to cross [examine] Breggin ... and have been

schooled on how these drugs are supposed to work, " Justice told the court.

Until recently, defendants who've blamed violent episodes on antidepressants

have rarely succeeded. But as information comes to light that manufacturers

have long had indications that the drugs might trigger suicidal or violent

urges in some people, the legal argument is gaining traction.

.. In 2001, a Wyoming jury found that Paxil had caused 60-year-old

Schell to kill his wife, daughter, granddaughter, and himself, and ordered

GlaxoKline to pay $6.4 million to surviving family members. Three hours

before the killings, Schell took his first two sample tablets of Paxil.

.. In April of this year, a jury in Santa Cruz, California, acquitted

Meyers of attempted murder. He had struck a friend with a spiked,

brass-knuckles-like weapon, opening a gash in his head. A neuropsychiatrist

testified that Zoloft eliminated Meyers' inhibitions and impulse control, so

that he expressed a fleeting emotion -- anger -- with sudden violence.

.. And in Florida, the trial of Demeniuk, accused of killing her

four-year-old twin sons in 2001, is on hold while prosecutors appeal a judge

's ruling that two defense experts could testify that Demeniuk was

" involuntarily intoxicated " and " psychotic " as a result of taking Zoloft and

then Paxil.

One of the prosecutors in the Demeniuk case, Assistant State Attorney Norma

Wendt, told Mother that Pfizer lawyers have provided her with advice

and documents from other court battles. " I can pick up the line and call Jim

Hooper or another Pfizer lawyer, " she said. " They hope like heck we

prevail. "

Back in South Carolina, Pittman could face life in prison. It

will be another ordeal in a life that was troubled from the start. His

mother, Hazel, left him when he was six weeks old. In the following years,

he lived with Hazel's mother, his father Joe alone, and with Joe and his

second and third wives. But mostly, he lived with Joe's parents.

" My mom and dad -- his Pop-pop and Nanna -- were like parents to him, " says

Joe. " He worshiped the ground Pop-pop walked on. "

The trouble began when 's grandparents retired and moved to South

Carolina, leaving and his sister in Florida with Joe. Soon

after, 's mother briefly initiated, then cut off, contact with

her long-estranged children. threatened to kill himself and was

placed in a psychiatric hospital, where he was put on Paxil.

's grandparents convinced Joe that they should take the boy to

South Carolina, where they enrolled him in school, brought him to church,

and took him to a doctor, who switched his prescription to Zoloft.

says the doctor told him to take 100 milligrams a day, but a

week later increased the dosage to 200 milligrams.

When visited Joe at Thanksgiving, he initially seemed " more

upbeat, " Joe recalls. " But now I look back at it, it was almost like an

adrenaline rush. He was shaking his hands and feet like he was nervous. "

Back in South Carolina, got into a fight on the school bus and

hurt a younger boy. His grandparents told school officials they would

discipline him. In the evening, they took him to church choir practice, and

then went home. That night, tragedy struck.

" 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, " the boy wrote

in a letter his father read early this year to an FDA committee. " I got up,

got the gun, and I went upstairs and I pulled the trigger. Through the whole

thing, it was like watching your favorite TV show. You know what is going to

happen, but you can't do anything to stop it. "

Civil attorneys who have joined Pittman's defense team want Pfizer to turn

over sealed confidential documents they've been allowed to see in civil

cases that they say show Zoloft can trigger acts of suicide and violence.

Pfizer has resisted releasing the documents, and the two sides continue to

skirmish. At stake is the reputation of the top-selling antidepressant in

the United States, its $3 billion in annual sales -- and the future of a

15-year-old boy.

The K(a-ching!) Street Congressman

At least 90 former members of Congress are now active lobbyists, and their

ranks keep on swelling. The latest congressman to pass through the revolving

door between K Street and the Capitol is Rep. Greenwood (R-Pa.). He

has chaired a subcommittee that regulates the biotech and drug industries;

so it should come as no surprise that Greenwood will now take the reins at

the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO), a lobbying group with a

million annual budget and clients that include the pharmaceutical giants

Pfizer, Eli Lilly, GlaxoKline, Wyeth, and Bristol-Myers Squibb.

More and more, legislators are cashing in with the very lobby shops that

sought to influence them while they were in office. " It calls into question

whether the lawmakers gave special treatment to issues in return for a job

offer, " says Weiss of the Center for Responsive Politics. " It

certainly creates that appearance. "

In Greenwood's case, he accepted the BIO job in July, just days before he

was to lead an investigation into the link between child suicide and

antidepressants (including Pfizer's drug Zoloft), which postponed the

hearings for two months. " I understand how this could raise an eyebrow, "

Greenwood told the Philadelphia Inquirer, while denying any conflict of

interest. " B following A does not mean that A caused B, " the congressman

said.

BIO, whose board also includes a Pfizer vice president, will pay Greenwood

0,000 a year-plus as much as 0,000 in bonuses-for his help in " encouraging a

regulatory climate in Washington that will help our industry. " The

congressman reports for duty the first week of January, right after leaving

office.

-- Gettelman

[Guest guest]

Good luck to Mr. Andy Vickery with this case. Ed J

Mother - Prosecuting for Pharma

http://www.motherjones.com/news/outfront/2004/11/10_401.html

<http://www.motherjones.com/news/outfront/2004/11/10_401.html>

Prosecuting for Pharma

Antidepressant manufacturers team up with district attorneys to make

sure

the Zoloft defense doesn't fly.

By Rob Waters

November/December 2004 Issue

For all of his 12 years, the only constant and reliable figures in

Pittman's turbulent life were his paternal grandparents. " He

loved his grandparents with all his heart, " says his father, Joe

Pittman.

" They were his life. " But on the night of November 28, 2001,

rose from bed and got the pump-action, .410-gauge shotgun that had been

passed down from his grandfather to his father and on to him. He fired

it

into the sleeping bodies of Joe Pittman, 66, and his wife, Joy,

62;

then he set their house on fire and fled.

Sometime this year, , now 15, will be tried -- probably as an

adult -- in a South Carolina courtroom for first-degree murder. He

admits to

the killings, but says he acted in a fit of agitation and psychosis

caused

by the antidepressant he had been taking for just three weeks, Zoloft.

The antidepressant defense has been raised by at least 100 people

accused of

violence or murder, but it's not one that Pfizer, the maker of Zoloft,

wants

to succeed -- particularly now,

when manufacturers and the FDA are under fire for withholding

information

about dangerous side effects of antidepressants. So the company's

lawyers

are doing what they've done many times before: assisting the prosecutors

by

supplying medical information and legal advice.

In the early 1990s, Eli Lilly, the maker of Prozac, started the practice

of

aiding district attorneys who were prosecuting defendants who blamed the

drug for their acts of violence. Lawyers for Pfizer, the world's largest

pharmaceutical company, later created a " prosecutor's manual " for the

same

purpose.

The Zoloft manual itself is a closely held secret -- and Pfizer has

fought

hard to keep it that way. In 2001, a widow sued Pfizer because her

husband

shot and killed himself after six days on Zoloft. Her lawyers discovered

in

Pfizer's records a reference to a document called " prosecutor's manual, "

and

requested a copy.

Pfizer fought the request, claiming it was privileged information

between

the company and its attorneys. The judge allowed the manual to be

introduced -- noting it was designed to prevent " harm to Pfizer's

reputation " if a defendant successfully raised " a Zoloft causation

defense " -- but he agreed to thereafter seal the manual and keep it out

of

the public record.

Hooper, an attorney for Pfizer, says that " in rare cases " the

company'

s attorneys have provided the manual to prosecutors if a defendant " is

attempting to blame some sort of criminal behavior on the medicine. It's

important for the prosecutor to have accurate information. We're trying

to

make sure the truth gets told. " He declined to provide a copy of the

manual

to Mother .

GlaxoKline, the maker of the antidepressant Paxil -- which

also took briefly -- also supplied information to the Pitt- man

prosecution.

At a court hearing in June, prosecutor Justice said he'd received a

manual from GlaxoKline, and that Pfizer representatives had given

him

documents and information on a defense psychiatric expert,

Breggin. " I

have been given advice on how to cross [examine] Breggin ... and have

been

schooled on how these drugs are supposed to work, " Justice told the

court.

Until recently, defendants who've blamed violent episodes on

antidepressants

have rarely succeeded. But as information comes to light that

manufacturers

have long had indications that the drugs might trigger suicidal or

violent

urges in some people, the legal argument is gaining traction.

.. In 2001, a Wyoming jury found that Paxil had caused 60-year-old

Schell to kill his wife, daughter, granddaughter, and himself, and

ordered

GlaxoKline to pay $6.4 million to surviving family members. Three

hours

before the killings, Schell took his first two sample tablets of Paxil.

.. In April of this year, a jury in Santa Cruz, California, acquitted

Meyers of attempted murder. He had struck a friend with a spiked,

brass-knuckles-like weapon, opening a gash in his head. A

neuropsychiatrist

testified that Zoloft eliminated Meyers' inhibitions and impulse

control, so

that he expressed a fleeting emotion -- anger -- with sudden violence.

.. And in Florida, the trial of Demeniuk, accused of killing her

four-year-old twin sons in 2001, is on hold while prosecutors appeal a

judge

's ruling that two defense experts could testify that Demeniuk was

" involuntarily intoxicated " and " psychotic " as a result of taking Zoloft

and

then Paxil.

One of the prosecutors in the Demeniuk case, Assistant State Attorney

Norma

Wendt, told Mother that Pfizer lawyers have provided her with

advice

and documents from other court battles. " I can pick up the line and call

Jim

Hooper or another Pfizer lawyer, " she said. " They hope like heck we

prevail. "

Back in South Carolina, Pittman could face life in prison.

It

will be another ordeal in a life that was troubled from the start. His

mother, Hazel, left him when he was six weeks old. In the following

years,

he lived with Hazel's mother, his father Joe alone, and with Joe and his

second and third wives. But mostly, he lived with Joe's parents.

" My mom and dad -- his Pop-pop and Nanna -- were like parents to him, "

says

Joe. " He worshiped the ground Pop-pop walked on. "

The trouble began when 's grandparents retired and moved to

South

Carolina, leaving and his sister in Florida with Joe. Soon

after, 's mother briefly initiated, then cut off, contact

with

her long-estranged children. threatened to kill himself and

was

placed in a psychiatric hospital, where he was put on Paxil.

's grandparents convinced Joe that they should take the boy

to

South Carolina, where they enrolled him in school, brought him to

church,

and took him to a doctor, who switched his prescription to Zoloft.

says the doctor told him to take 100 milligrams a day, but a

week later increased the dosage to 200 milligrams.

When visited Joe at Thanksgiving, he initially seemed " more

upbeat, " Joe recalls. " But now I look back at it, it was almost like an

adrenaline rush. He was shaking his hands and feet like he was nervous. "

Back in South Carolina, got into a fight on the school bus

and

hurt a younger boy. His grandparents told school officials they would

discipline him. In the evening, they took him to church choir practice,

and

then went home. That night, tragedy struck.

" 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, " the boy

wrote

in a letter his father read early this year to an FDA committee. " I got

up,

got the gun, and I went upstairs and I pulled the trigger. Through the

whole

thing, it was like watching your favorite TV show. You know what is

going to

happen, but you can't do anything to stop it. "

Civil attorneys who have joined Pittman's defense team want Pfizer to

turn

over sealed confidential documents they've been allowed to see in civil

cases that they say show Zoloft can trigger acts of suicide and

violence.

Pfizer has resisted releasing the documents, and the two sides continue

to

skirmish. At stake is the reputation of the top-selling antidepressant

in

the United States, its $3 billion in annual sales -- and the future of a

15-year-old boy.

The K(a-ching!) Street Congressman

At least 90 former members of Congress are now active lobbyists, and

their

ranks keep on swelling. The latest congressman to pass through the

revolving

door between K Street and the Capitol is Rep. Greenwood (R-Pa.).

He

has chaired a subcommittee that regulates the biotech and drug

industries;

so it should come as no surprise that Greenwood will now take the reins

at

the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO), a lobbying group with a

million annual budget and clients that include the pharmaceutical giants

Pfizer, Eli Lilly, GlaxoKline, Wyeth, and Bristol-Myers Squibb.

More and more, legislators are cashing in with the very lobby shops that

sought to influence them while they were in office. " It calls into

question

whether the lawmakers gave special treatment to issues in return for a

job

offer, " says Weiss of the Center for Responsive Politics. " It

certainly creates that appearance. "

In Greenwood's case, he accepted the BIO job in July, just days before

he

was to lead an investigation into the link between child suicide and

antidepressants (including Pfizer's drug Zoloft), which postponed the

hearings for two months. " I understand how this could raise an eyebrow, "

Greenwood told the Philadelphia Inquirer, while denying any conflict of

interest. " B following A does not mean that A caused B, " the congressman

said.

BIO, whose board also includes a Pfizer vice president, will pay

Greenwood

0,000 a year-plus as much as 0,000 in bonuses-for his help in

" encouraging a

regulatory climate in Washington that will help our industry. " The

congressman reports for duty the first week of January, right after

leaving

office.

-- Gettelman

[Guest guest]

Good luck to Mr. Andy Vickery with this case. Ed J

Mother - Prosecuting for Pharma

http://www.motherjones.com/news/outfront/2004/11/10_401.html

<http://www.motherjones.com/news/outfront/2004/11/10_401.html>

Prosecuting for Pharma

Antidepressant manufacturers team up with district attorneys to make

sure

the Zoloft defense doesn't fly.

By Rob Waters

November/December 2004 Issue

For all of his 12 years, the only constant and reliable figures in

Pittman's turbulent life were his paternal grandparents. " He

loved his grandparents with all his heart, " says his father, Joe

Pittman.

" They were his life. " But on the night of November 28, 2001,

rose from bed and got the pump-action, .410-gauge shotgun that had been

passed down from his grandfather to his father and on to him. He fired

it

into the sleeping bodies of Joe Pittman, 66, and his wife, Joy,

62;

then he set their house on fire and fled.

Sometime this year, , now 15, will be tried -- probably as an

adult -- in a South Carolina courtroom for first-degree murder. He

admits to

the killings, but says he acted in a fit of agitation and psychosis

caused

by the antidepressant he had been taking for just three weeks, Zoloft.

The antidepressant defense has been raised by at least 100 people

accused of

violence or murder, but it's not one that Pfizer, the maker of Zoloft,

wants

to succeed -- particularly now,

when manufacturers and the FDA are under fire for withholding

information

about dangerous side effects of antidepressants. So the company's

lawyers

are doing what they've done many times before: assisting the prosecutors

by

supplying medical information and legal advice.

In the early 1990s, Eli Lilly, the maker of Prozac, started the practice

of

aiding district attorneys who were prosecuting defendants who blamed the

drug for their acts of violence. Lawyers for Pfizer, the world's largest

pharmaceutical company, later created a " prosecutor's manual " for the

same

purpose.

The Zoloft manual itself is a closely held secret -- and Pfizer has

fought

hard to keep it that way. In 2001, a widow sued Pfizer because her

husband

shot and killed himself after six days on Zoloft. Her lawyers discovered

in

Pfizer's records a reference to a document called " prosecutor's manual, "

and

requested a copy.

Pfizer fought the request, claiming it was privileged information

between

the company and its attorneys. The judge allowed the manual to be

introduced -- noting it was designed to prevent " harm to Pfizer's

reputation " if a defendant successfully raised " a Zoloft causation

defense " -- but he agreed to thereafter seal the manual and keep it out

of

the public record.

Hooper, an attorney for Pfizer, says that " in rare cases " the

company'

s attorneys have provided the manual to prosecutors if a defendant " is

attempting to blame some sort of criminal behavior on the medicine. It's

important for the prosecutor to have accurate information. We're trying

to

make sure the truth gets told. " He declined to provide a copy of the

manual

to Mother .

GlaxoKline, the maker of the antidepressant Paxil -- which

also took briefly -- also supplied information to the Pitt- man

prosecution.

At a court hearing in June, prosecutor Justice said he'd received a

manual from GlaxoKline, and that Pfizer representatives had given

him

documents and information on a defense psychiatric expert,

Breggin. " I

have been given advice on how to cross [examine] Breggin ... and have

been

schooled on how these drugs are supposed to work, " Justice told the

court.

Until recently, defendants who've blamed violent episodes on

antidepressants

have rarely succeeded. But as information comes to light that

manufacturers

have long had indications that the drugs might trigger suicidal or

violent

urges in some people, the legal argument is gaining traction.

.. In 2001, a Wyoming jury found that Paxil had caused 60-year-old

Schell to kill his wife, daughter, granddaughter, and himself, and

ordered

GlaxoKline to pay $6.4 million to surviving family members. Three

hours

before the killings, Schell took his first two sample tablets of Paxil.

.. In April of this year, a jury in Santa Cruz, California, acquitted

Meyers of attempted murder. He had struck a friend with a spiked,

brass-knuckles-like weapon, opening a gash in his head. A

neuropsychiatrist

testified that Zoloft eliminated Meyers' inhibitions and impulse

control, so

that he expressed a fleeting emotion -- anger -- with sudden violence.

.. And in Florida, the trial of Demeniuk, accused of killing her

four-year-old twin sons in 2001, is on hold while prosecutors appeal a

judge

's ruling that two defense experts could testify that Demeniuk was

" involuntarily intoxicated " and " psychotic " as a result of taking Zoloft

and

then Paxil.

One of the prosecutors in the Demeniuk case, Assistant State Attorney

Norma

Wendt, told Mother that Pfizer lawyers have provided her with

advice

and documents from other court battles. " I can pick up the line and call

Jim

Hooper or another Pfizer lawyer, " she said. " They hope like heck we

prevail. "

Back in South Carolina, Pittman could face life in prison.

It

will be another ordeal in a life that was troubled from the start. His

mother, Hazel, left him when he was six weeks old. In the following

years,

he lived with Hazel's mother, his father Joe alone, and with Joe and his

second and third wives. But mostly, he lived with Joe's parents.

" My mom and dad -- his Pop-pop and Nanna -- were like parents to him, "

says

Joe. " He worshiped the ground Pop-pop walked on. "

The trouble began when 's grandparents retired and moved to

South

Carolina, leaving and his sister in Florida with Joe. Soon

after, 's mother briefly initiated, then cut off, contact

with

her long-estranged children. threatened to kill himself and

was

placed in a psychiatric hospital, where he was put on Paxil.

's grandparents convinced Joe that they should take the boy

to

South Carolina, where they enrolled him in school, brought him to

church,

and took him to a doctor, who switched his prescription to Zoloft.

says the doctor told him to take 100 milligrams a day, but a

week later increased the dosage to 200 milligrams.

When visited Joe at Thanksgiving, he initially seemed " more

upbeat, " Joe recalls. " But now I look back at it, it was almost like an

adrenaline rush. He was shaking his hands and feet like he was nervous. "

Back in South Carolina, got into a fight on the school bus

and

hurt a younger boy. His grandparents told school officials they would

discipline him. In the evening, they took him to church choir practice,

and

then went home. That night, tragedy struck.

" 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, " the boy

wrote

in a letter his father read early this year to an FDA committee. " I got

up,

got the gun, and I went upstairs and I pulled the trigger. Through the

whole

thing, it was like watching your favorite TV show. You know what is

going to

happen, but you can't do anything to stop it. "

Civil attorneys who have joined Pittman's defense team want Pfizer to

turn

over sealed confidential documents they've been allowed to see in civil

cases that they say show Zoloft can trigger acts of suicide and

violence.

Pfizer has resisted releasing the documents, and the two sides continue

to

skirmish. At stake is the reputation of the top-selling antidepressant

in

the United States, its $3 billion in annual sales -- and the future of a

15-year-old boy.

The K(a-ching!) Street Congressman

At least 90 former members of Congress are now active lobbyists, and

their

ranks keep on swelling. The latest congressman to pass through the

revolving

door between K Street and the Capitol is Rep. Greenwood (R-Pa.).

He

has chaired a subcommittee that regulates the biotech and drug

industries;

so it should come as no surprise that Greenwood will now take the reins

at

the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO), a lobbying group with a

million annual budget and clients that include the pharmaceutical giants

Pfizer, Eli Lilly, GlaxoKline, Wyeth, and Bristol-Myers Squibb.

More and more, legislators are cashing in with the very lobby shops that

sought to influence them while they were in office. " It calls into

question

whether the lawmakers gave special treatment to issues in return for a

job

offer, " says Weiss of the Center for Responsive Politics. " It

certainly creates that appearance. "

In Greenwood's case, he accepted the BIO job in July, just days before

he

was to lead an investigation into the link between child suicide and

antidepressants (including Pfizer's drug Zoloft), which postponed the

hearings for two months. " I understand how this could raise an eyebrow, "

Greenwood told the Philadelphia Inquirer, while denying any conflict of

interest. " B following A does not mean that A caused B, " the congressman

said.

BIO, whose board also includes a Pfizer vice president, will pay

Greenwood

0,000 a year-plus as much as 0,000 in bonuses-for his help in

" encouraging a

regulatory climate in Washington that will help our industry. " The

congressman reports for duty the first week of January, right after

leaving

office.

-- Gettelman