[IMC-Editorial] NY Times echoes Abuse Your Illusions

[The Disinformation Company]

New York Times Article Echoes ABUSE YOUR ILLUSIONS Report:
SSRI Antidepressant Use Resulting in Violence, Suicide

New York, NY — The New York Times yesterday announced that regulators from
the British Committee on Safety of Medicines have issued a warning on the
use of Paxil among children, drawing a clear correlation between
GlaxoSmithKline’s most popular drug and exacerbated levels of suicidal
depression.

The news is an endorsement of charges made by Richard Degrandpre, author
of the book RITALIN NATION and contributor to Disinformation’s recent
anthology, ABUSE YOUR ILLUSIONS (May 2003).

Degrandpre’s essay, “The Lilly Suicides”, delivers a damning collection of
research, evidence, and case histories that inspire doubt of
antidepressant manufacturers GSK, Pfizer, and Eli Lilly’s claims of
efficacy for drugs known collectively as Selective Serotonin Reuptake
Inhibitors. In ABUSE YOUR ILLUSIONS, Degrandpre argues these drug
manufacturers possessed studies showing SSRIs elicited little more
beneficial effect than sugar pills and often supplant patients’ feelings
of depression with waves of self-destructive anxiety and violent impulse.

Among Degrandpre’s most critical assertions, collected from doctors’
psychiatric records, court histories, and internal memos at Eli Lilly and
GSK:

* The rate of suicide for patients treated with Prozac is 5.6 times higher
than that for patients treated with a non-SSRI medication, imipramine;

* The use of SSRIs is not proven to address brain chemistry imbalances
suspected of leading to depression. Eli Lilly’s original market focus for
the drug Prozac had been patients of high blood pressure;

* Among a range of withdrawal symptoms, as many as 85 percent of members
of a healthy volunteer study of Paxil reported agitation, bizarre dreams,
insomnia, and sexual dysfunction;

* In lawsuits filed against the drug company, Eli Lilly has secretly
settled with plaintiffs, offering massive awards in exchange for opposing
counsels’ silence on damaging evidence—circumventing process to secure
favorable verdicts and maintain clean public appearances.

Beyond eliciting unwanted physical and withdrawal symptoms, Degrandpre
argues that SSRI’s most dangerous side effects are the feelings of rage
and violence suffered by its users, often resulting in the suicides of
patients and murders of patients’ family. As reported in the Times, a
Wyoming jury in 2001 awarded $6.4 million dollars to the family of a Paxil
patient who had shot to death his wife, daughter, and granddaughter. In
May 2001, an Australian Supreme Court judge acquitted a 74 year-old man
who had strangled his wife and attempted suicide two days after starting
Zoloft. “The Lilly Suicides” chronicles dozens of similar cases, many of
whom experienced violent urges only days after starting the drug, many of
whom felt these urges subside within days after quitting the drug.

The British regulators’ warning exposes only a piece of the danger and
deception behind pharmaceutical companies’ empires. Degrandpre
demonstrates how Eli Lilly, GSK, and Pfizer sold consumers a tenuous
correlation between serotonin levels and depression, hid evidence of
terrible side effects rather than modify their drugs or pull them from the
market, and silenced detracting researchers with money and publicity
campaigning. Degrandpre claims drug manufacturers ignored signs that their
medicines may be making people more ill while users of Prozac, Paxil, and
Zoloft continued their regimens. To the depression sufferers who may be
exacerbating their conditions to dangerous extents and children inspired
to suicide by SSRI’s unwanted effects, GSK offers a misleading allure:
“Millions suffer from chronic anxiety. Millions could be helped by Paxil.”

Richard Degrandpre, a visiting professor at St. Michael’s College in
Vermont, is the author of RITALIN NATION and DIGITOPIA. For more
information on Richard Degrandpre or The Disinformation Company, please
contact Ralph Bernardo at 212-691-1605 (tel), 212-473-8096 (fax) or
books at disinfo.com.

“The Lilly Suicides” is part of The Disinformation Company’s
ABUSE YOUR ILLUSIONS: THE DISINFORMATION GUIDE TO MEDIA MIRAGES AND
ESTABLISHMENT LIES.
Russ Kick, Editor.
Published by The Disinformation Company.
Oversized softcover (8.5” x 11”) * 352pp * US$24.95 * ISBN 0-9713942-4-5
Release date: May 15, 2003.
Distributed to the Trade in the US & Canada by Consortium Book Sales &
Distribution; in the UK & Europe by Turnaround Publisher Services.

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