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Mon, 20 Sep 2004 18:04:08 -0400

 

 

Subject:[sSRI-Research] SSRIs: " In America: Stories that should scare you "

 

 

This article states: " One with her eyes on the ball for the last 15

years is Dr. Ann Blake Tracy, the executive director of the

International Coalition for Drug Awareness " .

 

" Research on serotonin has been clear from the very beginning

that the most damaging thing that could be done to the serotonin

system would be to impair one's ability to metabolize serotonin. Yet

that is exactly how SSRI antidepressants exert their effects, " Tracy

told the FDA panel " .

 

" The author of " Prozac, Panacea or Pandora: Our Seratonin

Nightmare, " Tracy said that for decades research has shown that

impairing serotonin metabolism will produce numerous health problems

including " pains around the heart, difficulty breathing, tension and

anxiety which appear from out of nowhere, depression, suicide --

especially very violent suicide, hostility, violent crime, arson,

substance abuse, psychosis, mania, " and the list goes on and on " .

______________________________\

__

 

 

 

In America: Stories that should scare you

By Miryam Wiley

Saturday, September 18, 2004

 

As I arrived Monday morning at the hotel in Bethesda, Md., where the

FDA hearings on " anti-depressants and suicidality " were scheduled to

happen, I started reading an article about a boy who had killed both

his grandparents and set their house on fire.

 

The clipped story, posted prominently for all to see, seemed too

unreal and shocking for a first reading of the day. I opted to have

breakfast instead, maybe read it later.

 

I first sat down by myself, but soon was joined by Mark Taylor,

the boy whose celebrity status comes from his horrifying experience of

being shot at Columbine High School. Soon thereafter, a tall,

good-looking man, sat down by my right side and told me why he was there.

 

" My son killed my parents and then set their house on fire, " said

Joe Pittman.

 

The story I had tried to avoid followed me as a real fact with no

major headlines but a real person. This encounter became for me the

symbol of this country's moment in history.

 

We each may avoid the stories of anti-depressants or dismiss them

as something that happens only once in while, to other people, but the

victims are all around us. From people who shut themselves out of the

world suddenly suffering from agoraphobia -- a fear of situations that

may cause anxiety -- to the stories of " road rage, " " going postal " or

" school shootings, " and reports of teenagers cutting themselves, plus

repeated cases of extreme violence toward self and others, there is a

strange thread that has become all too familiar for those paying

attention.

 

One with her eyes on the ball for the last 15 years is Dr. Ann

Blake Tracy, the executive director of the International Coalition for

Drug Awareness.

 

" Research on serotonin has been clear from the very beginning

that the most damaging thing that could be done to the serotonin

system would be to impair one's ability to metabolize serotonin. Yet

that is exactly how SSRI antidepressants exert their effects, " Tracy

told the FDA panel.

 

The author of " Prozac, Panacea or Pandora: Our Seratonin

Nightmare, " Tracy said that for decades research has shown that

impairing serotonin metabolism will produce numerous health problems

including " pains around the heart, difficulty breathing, tension and

anxiety which appear from out of nowhere, depression, suicide --

especially very violent suicide, hostility, violent crime, arson,

substance abuse, psychosis, mania, " and the list goes on and on.

 

" How anyone ever thought it would be 'therapeutic' to chemically

induce these reactions is beyond me, " she said.

 

Pittman, who lives in Florida, told me his son was a nice boy who

started suffering from a situational depression when he and his wife

had problems and she left. The boy was taken to a doctor who

prescribed Paxil, an anti-depressant that belongs in the class of

Selective Seratonin Reuptake Inhibitors, or SSRIs.

 

Soon thereafter, the boy went to spend some time with his

grandparents in South Carolina, where he loved to go fishing with

grandpa. The caring grandma tried to get him more support by taking

him to see the family doctor who then prescribed Zoloft, another SSRI

-- some 200 mg to a boy who weighed 80 pounds, Pittman said.

 

Like this boy, now age 15 and free of drugs, trying to understand

what happened to him that day, thousands of others in modern America

are living through personal tragedies because of behaviors they don't

understand in themselves or members of their families. Misinformed

doctors are being blamed, so are the FDA and the pharmaceutical

companies, that don't make it clear to anyone the risks associated

with these drugs.

 

Dr. Tracy said that people who take these drugs often suffer from

REM sleep disorder, in which they start acting their worst nightmares.

A mother present at the hearings, Sarah Bostock, told of her daughter

who stabbed herself after two weeks on Zoloft. When her body was

found, the apartment lights were turned off, leading those who found

her to believe that she was indeed, in a sleep-induced behavior.

 

Scores of parents used their allotted three minutes to share with

the FDA committee and a large crowded room the terrifying tragedies

that are now part of their lives. Suicide or murder became commonplace

among them and yet " this was completely out of character, " many said.

 

One mother who is a nurse, spoke on behalf of her son, now

incarcerated after killing his best friend.

 

" These drugs change kind, gentle children into monsters, " Sue

Furlough told the committee members after reading her son's letter.

" Please listen now before it happens to your family. "

 

The FDA decision to put black warning labels on these drugs is

indeed, a victory, albeit a late one. Still, true victory would be to

schedule a recall of everything while helping those who are now using

the drugs to wean themselves off of them.

 

" When a fire erupts, the fire department doesn't wait for

absolute causality, " said Vera Sharav, the president of the Alliance

for Human Research Protection.

 

I couldn't agree more, but would urge anyone to go very, very

slowly with it. Check www.drugawareness.org, where there is also

information about alternatives.

 

( (To reach Miryam Wiley, e-mail inamericacolumn or write to

33 New York Ave., Framingham, MA 01702) )

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