Mind Games : Week In Week Out

[Guest guest]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/wales/weekinweekout/prozac.shtml

 

 

Week In Week Out

Mind Games

 

An eminent psychiatrist from Wales has risked his reputation to take on major

drug companies over his belief that a group of anti-depressants can provoke

suicidal tendencies in a minority of patients.

 

 

Watch the full Week In Week Out programme

You'll need to install Real's free players for Windows 98/XP/2000 or

Mac/Windows'95 to watch this clip. There's help on downloading and installing

RealPlayer, and watching audio and video online.

 

 

 

On their introduction, Selective Serotonin Re-Uptake Inhibitors, or SSRIs, were

heralded as a so-called 'magic bullet' solution to depression. Prescriptions of

SSRIs such as Prozac and Seroxat have increased considerably in the UK since the

mid-1990s, to around 18,000 prescriptions last year.

 

BBC Wales' award-winning current affairs programme Week In Week Out highlights

concern that, although these drugs have proved beneficial for many patients, a

small sub-group of patients may be susceptible to severe withdrawal symptoms

after they stop taking one type of drug, and intense agitation leading to

suicidal ideation when taking others.

 

Pharmaceutical companies strenuously deny the claims and insist that the drugs

are a safe, effective treatment.

 

However Doctor David Healy, of the University of Wales College of Medicine,

claims his own clinical research into one of the SSRI group of drugs, Lustral -

or Zoloft as it is known in the US - shows that it can cause suicidal thoughts

in some patients.

 

Dr Healy, who is director of the North Wales department of psychological

medicine at Bangor, was offered a top research job in the Canadian city of

Toronto, which was withdrawn after he delivered a lecture in which he claimed

that SSRIs could cause a minority of patients to feel suicidal. After a lengthy

dispute, he has now reached an out-of-court settlement with his prospective

Canadian employers.

 

Dr Healy conducted his own clinical research study on Lustral two years ago,

using a group of colleagues who were not suffering depression. Two of the

volunteers became severely agitated and disturbed, and one even developed

suicidal thoughts.

 

This volunteer, Isobel Logan, tells the programme, " I really thought, 'I just

want to hang myself.' I felt so low, so depressed. "

 

Dr Healy, who has given expert testimony in a number of high-profile medical

negligence cases associated with SSRIs in the US, says, " The extraordinary

finding was that when you give these drugs to people who aren't suited to them,

you can make healthy volunteers agitated and suicidal on these drugs, within a

week or two of them being on the drug. "

 

However, Dr Healy’s research has been criticised in some quarters.

 

Meanwhile, a Cardiff firm of solicitors is considering launching a possible

class action against the makers of Seroxat, GlaxoSmithKline. Medical negligence

lawyer Mark Harvey, of Hugh James Solicitors, has been contacted by around 150

people from across the UK who claim to have experienced problems with Seroxat,

including severe withdrawal symptoms when they tried to stop taking the drug.

 

Mother-of-two Paula Boddington tells the programme that she suffered

electric-shock type sensations in her head and an irrational compulsion to harm

herself when she tried to come off the drug.

 

Mark Harvey tells the programme, " People have often gone into their doctors,

either feeling stressed or having mild panic attacks, and the doctor says, this

tablet will give you a nice pick-you-up, and they feel good ... then they find

that, when they go to come off the drug, the doctor understandably thinks that

(the withdrawal symptoms) are the original condition, so they re-prescribe, and

then they get into this vicious circle where they are taking the tablets more

and more, feeling worse and worse. "

 

But GlaxoSmithKline, manufacturers of Seroxat, deny that the drug is addictive.

 

 

 

 

Gettingwell- / Vitamins, Herbs, Aminos, etc.

 

To , e-mail to: Gettingwell-

Or, go to our group site: Gettingwell

 

 

 

 

Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now