Zoloft: grieving parents mourn

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> StopTheInsanity

> Mon, 2 Aug 2004 19:22:35 -0400

> [sSRI-Research] Zoloft: grieving parents

> mourn

>

>

http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/news/local/9299841.htm?ERIGHTS=-5287220694205\

161873philly::gm1000 (AT) prodigy (DOT) net & KRD_RM=7oqwuwtutvnoqnvtprnnnnnnnn|Rosie|N

>

>

> The garage where Julie Woodward took her life is

> gone now, bulldozed by her grieving parents, as

> though that could erase what happened there.

>

> Just over a year ago, on July 22, 2003, the

> 17-year-old North Penn High School junior hanged

> herself in the garage behind the family's house in

> North Wales. Her father found her body the next

> morning.

>

> No parent can understand a child's suicide, but

> Julie's death was particularly puzzling. A bookworm

> who studied Latin, Julie had always been cautious

> and reserved and never impulsive. " She had no

> history whatsoever of self-harm or suicide, " her

> father, Tom Woodward, said last week.

>

> Julie was planning to leave on a college-hunting

> trip with her family later that week. In her

> journal, found after her death, she dreamed of a

> happy future of marriage and babies.

>

> " She was just a very bright, self-preserving kid, "

> her mother, Kathy, said.

>

> What could lead such a child to kill herself? The

> day after Julie's death, the Woodwards got a

> possible clue. Their neighbor, North Wales Mayor

> Douglas Ross, shared information he had spent the

> night gleaning off the Internet. It linked a class

> of antidepressant drugs known as selective serotonin

> reuptake inhibitors (SSRI) with suicidal impulses in

> children.

>

> A difficult transition

>

> Julie, a pretty girl with sand-blonde hair that fell

> to her shoulders, had been not only a child model

> but, as her parents describe her, a model child.

>

> But the year before her death, she transferred from

> a small all-girls school to sprawling North Penn

> High, where she struggled to fit in. She became

> unhappy, withdrawn and irritable. Her parents took

> her to a psychiatrist, who diagnosed depression and

> prescribed the antidepressant Zoloft.

>

> Tom Woodward said doctors assured him that Zoloft

> was " mild, very safe, and essential to her

> treatment. "

>

> Seven days after she began the medication, Julie

> killed herself. Her parents are convinced there's a

> link. " If Julie had never taken Zoloft, she would be

> alive today, " Tom Woodward said. " I am 100 percent

> sure of that. "

>

> They found a champion in U.S. Rep. James Greenwood,

> a Bucks County Republican and longtime children's

> advocate. As chairman of the subcommittee on

> oversight and investigations, Greenwood had led

> high-profile probes into Enron, Martha Stewart and

> human cloning.

>

> Six months after Julie's death, Greenwood announced

> that his committee would investigate the link

> between antidepressants and youth suicide.

>

> The hearing was scheduled for July 20, and the

> Woodwards planned to attend. " We were looking at

> this as a watershed moment, " Tom Woodward said.

>

> An abrupt change of plans

>

> But the day before the hearing, Greenwood informed

> the Woodwards that the hearing was being postponed

> for unspecified reasons.

>

> Only later would they learn that, a few days

> earlier, Greenwood had quietly decided to leave

> Congress to accept a $650,000-a-year job - that's

> more than four times his congressional salary - as

> president of the Biotechnology Industry

> Organization, a trade group that represents numerous

> pharmaceutical companies, including Pfizer, maker of

> Zoloft, the drug Julie took before her death. A

> Pfizer vice president serves on the group's

> 46-member board of directors, which selected

> Greenwood.

>

> The Woodwards felt betrayed and called the job offer

> on the eve of the hearing " very suspicious. "

>

> In a telephone conversation with Greenwood on the

> anniversary of Julie's death, Kathy Woodward accused

> Greenwood of allowing the pharmaceutical industry to

> buy his silence. " I think he sold out all the

> victims and future victims, " she said.

>

> Greenwood, in a 90-minute interview with me Friday,

> strongly denied any nefarious undertones to his new

> career choice. He defended his actions as ethical

> and said the Woodwards' accusations are based on a

> groundless conspiracy theory that began circulating

> on the Internet after he announced his new job.

>

> Besides, he added, the hearing was merely postponed

> until after the August recess. In tomorrow's column,

> I will let Greenwood explain in detail.

>

> As for the Woodwards, they believe every day

> Congress delays is a day another Julie could end up

> dead.

> N

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