coleah

Interesting.....
The article sites horrid situations that happened
within just a couple of weeks of people
beginning to take these drugs.

Noting that these people were given the drug for depression
(which can exhibit itself in very irritable and destructive
ways).....
along with the fact that the effectiveness doesn't even
kick in
until after two weeks.....it doesn't surprise me that a
legal firm
were going after the big bucks to blame the manufacturers.
Unfortunately.
Sigh.....


: Prozac, Zoloft, and Paxil Antidepressant Users v Eli
Lilly, Pfizer,
: and GlaxoSmithKline (anti-depressant manufacturers)
: Date Added to Site: 9/19/2001 Category: Drugs /
Medical
: Amount At Issue: No amount specified Stage: Filing
:
: Commonly-Prescribed Antidepressants Are Extremely
Dangerous for Some
: The Kahn Gauthier Law Group is investigating possible
legal actions
: against Eli Lilly, Pfizer, and GlaxoSmithKline, the
manufacturers of
: Prozac (fluoxetine), Zoloft (sertraline), and Paxil
(paroxetine),
: respectively, to recover for suicides or homicides--some
completed,
: some only attempted--by patients in the first few days or
weeks after
: they were prescribed one of these drugs. These three
medications are
: in the same family, called SSRIs, for selective serotonin
reuptake
: inhibitors. They are commonly prescribed for depression,
and they work
: by increasing the amount of a chemical called serotonin
in the brain.
:
: The actions against the drug companies claim that the
companies
: knew--but failed to warn physicians and patients--that a
small number
: of patients will experience a condition called akathisia,
an
: overwhelming physical and mental restlessness, shortly
after they
: begin taking these drugs. Other patients may, after
beginning one of
: these medications, find themselves sufficiently energized
to harm
: themselves, but not yet helped enough by the drug to
control their
: destructive thoughts. Attorneys representing the patients
or their
: survivors have discovered documents the companies
hid--documents
: showing that these risks exist for all three
antidepressants.
:
: Some of the patients who have suffered an akathisia
reaction have been
: driven to horrible deeds. Matthew Miller was a
13-year-old who
: committed suicide less than a week after starting to take
Zoloft.
: Donald Schell, 60, took two Paxil tablets before
experiencing
: hallucinations and then shooting himself, his wife, their
daughter,
: and their granddaughter to death on Feb. 13, 1998. On
March 4, 1993,
: two weeks after starting to take Prozac, William Forsyth
stabbed his
: wife 15 times as she lay in bed, and then leaned on the
knife to kill
: himself. Reginald Payne, 63, a teacher in Great Britain,
suffocated
: his wife and threw himself off a cliff in March 1996,
after having
: taking Prozac for just 11 days.
:
: In July, 2001, a federal jury in Cheyenne, Wyoming
ordered
: GlaxoSmithKline to pay $6.4 million to Donald Schell's
relatives. In
: that case, the relatives found internal GlaxoSmithKline
documents
: showing the company was aware that a small number of
people could
: become agitated or violent from Paxil. Despite this
knowledge, Paxil
: packaging does not include a warning about suicide,
violence or
: aggression.
:
: Documents Are Damning
:
: The documents discovered about Prozac are particularly
revealing:
:
: 1. In 1990, Eli Lilly scientists were pressured by
corporate
: executives to alter records on physicians' experiences
with Prozac,
: changing mentions of suicide attempts to "overdose" and
suicidal
: thoughts to "depression."
:
: 2. Three years before Prozac received approval by the
U.S. Food and
: Drug Administration (FDA), a similar agency in Germany
had such
: serious reservations about Prozac's safety that it
refused to approve
: the antidepressant. Eli Lilly's studies showed that
previously
: nonsuicidal patients who took the drug had a five-fold
higher rate of
: suicide and suicide attempts than those on older
antidepressants, and
: a three-fold higher rate than those taking placebos.
:
: 3. Lilly's own figures indicate that one in 100
previously nonsuicidal
: patients who took the drug in early clinical trials
developed
: akathisia, causing them to attempt or commit suicide
during the
: studies.
:
: It has also been discovered that the patent for a new
version of
: Prozac, which Eli Lilly paid $90 million to acquire,
states that the
: new formulation would reduce "the usual adverse effects"
of the
: original Prozac, including "nervousness, anxiety,
insomnia, inner
: restlessness (akathisia), suicidal thoughts,
self-mutilation, manic
: behavior."
:
: Prozac was introduced by Eli Lilly to the U.S. market in
January,
: 1988. Zoloft and Paxil followed in December, 1991, and
December, 1992,
: respectively. Some 45,000 reports of adverse reactions to
Prozac have
: been filed with the FDA. These include reports of about
2500 deaths,
: with the large majority linked to suicide or violence.
:
: Physicians Report Suicidal Reactions
:
: Dr. Martin Teicher of Harvard Medical School reported in
1990 that he
: and his colleagues had observed suicidal thoughts in six
patients who
: were taking Prozac. More recently, Dr. David Healy, an
expert on the
: brain's serotonin system and the director of the North
Wales
: Department of Psychological Medicine at the University of
Wales,
: estimated that "probably 50,000 people have committed
suicide on
: Prozac since its launch, over and above the number who
would have done
: so if left untreated."
:
: Meanwhile, the drug companies continue to rely on a 1991
finding from
: an FDA advisory panel that "there is no credible evidence
of a causal
: link between the use of antidepressant drugs, including
Prozac, and
: suicidality or violent behaviour."
:
:
:
https://www.classactionamerica.com/cases/goldInfo.asp?cid=1087