A Killer Cocktail

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http://www.counterpunch.org/gardner04212007.html

A Killer Cocktail

Prozac Madness

By FRED GARDNER

The lard-assed cops at Virginia Tech spent two hours interrogating

the wrong suspect and failed to prevent the massacre. Now

they're " investigating. " What is there to investigate - which brand

or brands of anti-depressant Seung Hui Cho was taking?

A lonely, picked-on boy was given Prozac (or one of its chemical

analogs) like Kip Kinkel in Oregon, like in Colorado

This is not a scoop, America: Prozac causes horrible, bizarre flip-

outs. It is a fact that has been known for 20 years and that Eli

Lilly and the other manufacturers of " selective " serotonin reuptake

inhibitors (SSRIs) have relentlessly denied and are still trying to

suppress.

On the very day after the shootings at Virginia Tech, the Journal of

the American Medical Association published a study challenging

the " black box " warning that the Food and Drug Administration had

finally attached to Prozac in October, 2004. " Antidepressants Get a

Boost For Use in Teens " read the Wall St. Journal headline. " Despite

Warnings on Labels, Study says Benefits Outweigh Risk of Suicidal

Tendencies. "

The New York Times ran its account of the new pro-Prozac study on

the page facing the obituaries of students and faculty members

killed at Virginia Tech! " Scales Said to Tip in Favor of

Antidepressant Use in Children -A risk of suicidal thoughts is found

to be more than offset. " You'd think that 33 deaths would more than

offset it back.

Evidence that Prozac induces suicidal ideation and actions emerged

when the drug was in clinical trials in Germany in the mid-1980s.

The German findings were misrepresented to the FDA by a Lilly

employee named Joachim Wernicke. U.S. marketing approval was granted

in December, 1988, with no warning required. After a drug is

marketed here in Guinea Pig Nation, only a very small fraction of

the adverse events brought on by the drug get reported. Patients

have to tell their doctors who then have to file paperwork with the

manufacturers who then have to voluntarily tell the FDA that their

products are dangerous.

Among the adverse events brought on by Prozac soon after it hit the

market were numerous suicides and homicides, some of which resulted

in legal action by the victims or survivors. Lilly's strategy was to

conceal the trend by settling every case out of court. One of the

first to capture national attention involved ph Wesbecker, a

Louisville, Kentucky printing press operator who, on Sept. 14, 1989,

killed eight co-workers with an AK-47 and injured a dozen others

before committing suicide. Wesbecker had been prescribed Prozac five

weeks before and his psychiatrist, noting that Wesbecker had

become " very, very agitated, " told him to stop taking it on Sept.

11. Victims who survived the shooting, relatives of those who died,

and members of Wesbecker's family subsequently sued Eli Lilly,

charging that the company " knew or should have known that users of

Prozac can experience intense agitation and preoccupation with

suicide, and can harm themselves or others. "

In February, 1990 psychiatrists Teicher and Cole and

nurse Carol Glod published " Emergence of intense suicidal

preoccupations during fluoxetine treatment " American Journal of

Psychiatry, It described six patients who developed " intense,

violent suicidal preoccupations " within two to seven weeks of

starting treatment with Prozac. The authors estimated that between

1.9 and 7.7 percent of Prozac users would develop suicidal

obsessions. Teicher and his co-workers subsequently reported that

Prozac patients were " at least three-fold more likely to develop new

suicidal ideation " than patients treated with the older

antidepressants, and that patients were also more likely to develop

suicidal thoughts for the first time ever while taking Prozac.

Lilly responded, " Our experience does not show a cause and effect

relationship between our products and suicidal or violent thoughts

or acts. Unfortunately, these thoughts and acts are part of the

disease of depression. " But the company made its first small

concession, noting on the Prozac label in May, 1990, that " suicidal

ideation " and " violent behavior " had been reported (as had

pancreatitis) as side-effects. This reference appeared in

the " Postintroduction Reports " section towards the bottom of the

label. No mention of suicidal ideation was added to

the " Precautions " section.

The FDA held a hearing in September 1990 at which its Psychotropic

Drugs Advisory Committee (most of whose members got funding from

antidepressant manufacturers) considered whether SSRIs can induce

violent and suicidal thoughts. They voted 9-0 not to recommend a

more prominent warning and 6-3 not to recommend a warning in small

type that would have read, " In a small number of patients,

depressive symptoms have worsened during therapy, including the

emergence of suicidal thoughts and attempts. Surveillance throughout

treatment is recommended. "

Lilly and the other antidepressant manufacturers made more finite,

begrudging concessions in the years ahead as evidence linking SSRIs

to suicide kept mounting. A turning point came in April 2004, when

the British Medical Journal reported that GlaxoKline had

concealed data showing that Paxil more than quadrupled suicidal

ideation among teenagers. A few months later the FDA acknowledged a

study showing that SSRI use induced suicidal thoughts in two out of

100 adolescents and ordered a black box warning. Prozac sales dipped

as a result and Lilly et al commissioned the study that JAMA

published April 18, showing that SSRI use induces suicidal ideation

in only one in 100. Suicidal ideation, " " Suicide gesture, " " Suicide

attempt, " and other such terms do not accurately characterize the

extremely bizarre flip-outs induced by SSRIs. Carefully planning to

annihilate the student body fits the profile. Biting your mother 57

times. Driving your car around in circles until you smash into a

tree... Years ago, at a meeting of the Prozac Survivors Support

group, I heard Bonnie Leitsch, a flamboyant redhead from Louisville

who sounded like Minnie Pearl, try to explain what Prozac did to her

thinking:

" It's hard for people to understand. They say 'you must know what

you're doing,' but you do not. You cannot distinguish reality. I

could never tell if I was awake or asleep. That was the hardest

thing for me to determine. I would lay down in bed and I would

think 'Now am I dreaming this or am I awake and doing this? " My mind

constantly ran, it never would stop. I could be having this

conversation with you and the whole time if I was drinking coffee, I

could be thinking about running it on my hand and wondering what it

would feel like. Thinking irrational thoughts. And yet still able to

communicate at what would appear to be a rational level. That's why

I think psychiatrists and psychologists and doctors who are dealing

with people on Prozac are totally oblivious to what's going on.

These people are the best liars in the whole world in terms of being

able to come to you and say 'I'm fine.' But the whole time they

might be thinking 'I wonder what it would feel like to stick this

knife in my hand?' And, 'I can take on a motorcycyle gang and

kill 'em all.' Most of these people on Prozac like myself lose all

natural ability to love. It becomes a spiritual dullness. You cease

to know right from wrong. Because there's no wrong and you're right

100 percent and the hell with the rest of you. "

The media just can't fathom Seung Hui Cho's lethal outburst, but

Bonnie Leitsch -may she still be going strong- can fathom it all too

well.

Fred Gardner edits O'Shaughnessy's, the Journal of Cannabis in

Clinical Practice (soon to have a presence on the web). He can be

reached at fred@...