Turning agony into advocacy

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http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/news/local/9708627.htm?1c

 

Posted on Mon, Sep. 20, 2004

 

Turning agony into advocacy

 

By John Grogan

 

Inquirer Columnist

 

Since their daughter's suicide 14 months ago, Kathy and Tom Woodward

have had little to celebrate.

 

Devastated by the loss of 17-year-old Julie, the North Wales couple

turned their grief into advocacy, speaking passionately to anyone who

would listen about what they are convinced pushed their daughter to

take her own life: antidepressant medication.

 

Last Monday Tom Woodward took Julie's story to Washington, testifying

before an advisory panel to the Food and Drug Administration.

 

The next day, the expert panel, composed of psychiatrists and

pediatricians, issued a stinging ruling that found a direct link

between certain antidepressants and increased suicide risk in young

people.

 

It was what the Woodwards had been saying all along, even as the FDA

maintained its long-held position that youth suicide was the result of

depression, not medication.

 

The panel cited studies showing teenagers who took the

antidepressants, known as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors,

were twice as likely to become suicidal as teens who took a placebo.

It concluded that two or three out of every 100 youths taking SSRI

drugs would become suicidal as a result of the medication.

 

That number might sound small until you consider that doctors wrote

about 11 million antidepressant prescriptions to minors last year.

 

Raising a red flag

 

The panel urged the FDA to require that the drugs, which include brand

names such as Prozac, Zoloft, Paxil and Effexor, carry prominent

warnings of suicide risk in minors. The " black box warning " would

appear at the top of drug-package inserts and in advertisements for

the drugs.

 

If the FDA accepts the recommendation as expected, it would be the

strongest action it could take short of banning the drugs for youngsters.

 

The Woodwards consider the panel's findings a bittersweet victory.

 

Sweet because the couple believe the warning will save the lives of

other children. Bitter because it came too late to save their own.

 

Julie, who was about to begin her senior year at North Penn High

School, hanged herself on July 22, 2003, seven days after she began

taking Zoloft.

 

No one will ever know whether it was an adverse reaction to the

medication or her depression that spurred Julie's final act. But her

parents have no doubts.

 

Julie had been unhappy and withdrawn after transferring from a small

private school to sprawling North Penn High. " She was going through a

rough patch, but she was sorting through it, " Tom Woodward told me.

 

But after the parents took her to a mental-health clinic where Zoloft

was prescribed, Julie's personality changed abruptly, they said.

 

No dots to connect

 

Having received no warning of increased suicide risk, the Woodwards

missed signs in Julie's final days. " We did not know to collect the

dots, much less connect them, " the father said.

 

Now he and his wife are convinced the drug killed their daughter. And

the FDA panel's ruling adds significant weight to their contention.

The panel not only found the link between SSRI drugs and suicide real

- a " fatal side effect " one panelist called it - but that the drugs

can be largely ineffective in treating young people.

 

The Woodwards are angry at revelations that some drug companies buried

studies pointing to increased suicide risk. " Tell me how that isn't

criminal. " Tom Woodward asked. " This is a classic example of putting

profits above the lives of children. "

 

Kathy Woodward said last week's ruling won't bring Julie back, but it

helps her deal with her own feelings of inadequacy as a mother.

 

" I've been feeling extreme guilt this whole year because I was the one

who suggested she go for help, and I believed the doctors when they

said the drug was safe and mild, " the mother said. " I felt, why

couldn't I have been more careful with my child? "

 

Now she realizes she could not protect against what she did not know.

 

" It's like backing out of your driveway after someone tells you the

road is all clear, and then you run over your own child, " she

explained. " It's just a terrible, terrible thing to live with. "

Contact John Grogan at 610-313-8132 or jgrogan. Read

his recent work at http://go.philly.com/grogan.