What you are about to read is truly heart wrenching. You, I hope, will be able to see just how SSRi's affect not only those that take them but also family members.
The following article was written straight from the heart from a parent who lost his daughter. It echoes that of Sharise Gatchell and Sara Carlin, both of whom lost their lives as a result of taking SSRi's, a drug that they should never have been given.
I told the author of this article that this should be published. The people mentioned in this document are real, but for legal, and other reasons related to privacy - this man and his family have suffered enough, as have others mentioned in the story - hence the many redactions.
I asked the author why he wanted to use Seroxat Sufferers, they said some complimentary things about this blog and myself before adding:
"Maybe you, by posting the document on your Seroxat Sufferers blog will save some lives. I hope so."
The file can be downloaded in pdf format HERE
I have taken the liberty in re-publishing it in its entirety on this blog.
It's long but well worth the read.
Fid
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Here, below is my submission to the select committee 2004-2005, in it's original form,(now firmly lodged in the House of Lords library) I stressed that it was copyright and taken from notes, this in order the committee could not refuse to take it into evidence, The original documents have long since been lost to PC crashes, etc.
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Reflections on an Obsession.
10/6/04.
On the morning of the sixtieth anniversary of D Day I had a respite from my obsessional research into the events which surrounded my daughter REDACTED death: As for a brief while I thought of the enormity of that assault on Hitler's Atlantic Wall defences.
I wondered at the sheer enormity of the task. At the stark horror and at the courage and determination of those who fought that day. Of those who died. And of what we owe to them and to that battles successful outcome.
I thought of the events which had led to that momentous day. Of the blundering foreign policy and diplomacy of self-interest-orientated nation states, which led to the rise to power of Hitler's Germany, with all that evil regimes monstrous consequences.
The reason that D Day was able to, and did succeed despite the high cost, was that the price of failure would have been immeasurably higher.
I remembered relating these facts to REDACTED. It was the year of her O level examinations, she was given “Hitler's Germany” for her history subject matter, and I recalled the way she quite shamelessly bullied, teased and cajoled me into all but actually writing the text for her examination essay, and it came as no surprise when We received an A grade. I remember the poignant regret in me, as I watched some of the child in her change as she learned how the Nazis came to power and she learned of the atrocities of Hitler’s Third Reich. And I recall the pride I felt, as I saw her develop a personal resolution that such a terrible thing should never happen again.
REDACTED learned of the process of natural justice, from the decision of the Allies to try war criminals, and the resultant Nuremberg Code. And the formation of the United Nations Charter and told me that she was going to be a barrister.
Her further A level studies including law, grammar, history and literature, took her beyond my limited knowledge, yet she still included her family in her further education and I remember her humorous observations on Cider with Rosie reducing her family to helpless tears.
At that point I broke down. Tears induced by other emotions than merriment streamed down my face.
They were the tears of grief. Gradually, although my sense of loss was a tangible knot of choking pain, the grief changed to a sense of outraged indignation and I realised that I had drawn a parallel between my reminiscences and my families current plight.
The War in Europe was the result of a nations schizophrenic support for a madman. The research into REDACTED Death, which I have been engaged in for over three years, was instigated by the corporate schizophrenia of a pharmaceutical company and my thoughts returned to the time of my daughters death and of how it came about.
Having taken two sleeping pills the evening before, I was a little groggy when REDACTED my wife woke me in the early hours of the 21st May 2001. I recall being quite confused by the fact that she was dressed in day attire and as I became more aware, the fact that she was fully clothed. REDACTED told me that REDACTED was being taken to REDACTED, our local hospital, and told me to hurry up and dress.It occurred to me that REDACTED had suffered a relapse into Guillian-Barre-Syndrome (GBS), which she had previously suffered in 1991. But as I was dressing and on the journey to the hospital, REDACTED related to me that REDACTED had collapsed and had gone into respiratory and cardiac arrest. I became fully awake as she related to me the fact that she, and our daughter REDACTED had performed CPR on REDACTED until the Para medics arrived.
The 13 mile journey seemed endless, yet oddly, I don’t recall arriving in the hospital, or the intensive care unit where they had taken REDACTED.
We were allowed into the ward and saw that REDACTED was on a life support respirator. As I stood beside the bed and looked at REDACTED, I somehow knew that we had lost her: But one of the anaesthetists informed us that they believed REDACTED had taken an overdose of the Selective Seretonin Re-Uptake Inhibitor (SSRI) Cipramil, and the treatment regime would be supportive therapy until she woke up. Gastric lavage was mentioned but disregarded as being dangerous.
Over the course of the next few days, and from as far as New Zealand, family members and friends arrived at the hospital. Those few days were a strange and even surreal time for everyone. For my part in the main, trying to be supportive to my wife and children.
During the first morning an Acting Detective Constable giving his name as REDACTED, turned up and questioned family members about what they knew of the events leading to REDACTED admission to hospital. I regarded the timing, his attitude and his persistent harrying of my family as inappropriate. I say the first morning, but time and circumstance, again became relative, sometimes it seemed to slow, and then literally fly away, so I cannot be sure of exactly when the Officer turned up.
I do remember not having a clue of what the Physicians meant when they told us that “REDACTED has taken an SSRI“, but was alarmed when I overheard the term - “half life of 36 hours”, and “16 hours to get information from the poisons unit at REDACTED”
These comments were to have a crucially important bearing on the future of my life and my families lives.
As hours became days, it became very apparent that REDACTED condition was deteriorating. I recall REDACTED husband REDACTED covering her feet with little ankle socks to hide the lividity of congealing blood in her extremities and his constant and passionate attempts to get her back and similar pleas and prayers from all of the family.
But her return to us was not to be, and after one young anaesthetist’s emotional outburst “this all a waste of time” (This was a Dr. who had helped save REDACTED life at the time she developed GBS in 1991.) We gathered around REDACTED bed, to be with her and surround her with love and support. The heart monitor went flat-line and it became unbearable for us to watch the respirator artificially pumping air into REDACTED chest.
REDACTED and the nurse in charge went to the switch. REDACTED our youngest son realised what for, gently covered his mum’s hand and together they turned it off.
As the life left REDACTED body, she gave my hand a gentle squeeze. As I felt that gentle pressure I heard REDACTED last words. In my mind, I heard her! In a calm and gentle but very firm manner, she said, “I didn’t do this dad!”
There had been many such incidents of, for want of a better term, telepathic communication in my life, and I shall relate one which I had .previously had about REDACTED.
It was 1991 and the year of REDACTED A level examinations. She was excelling and revelling in her work and life in general. REDACTED enjoyed playing hockey for her school, swimming and other extra curricular activities, she also had an active social life and had developed a relationship with a young man.
But then: One day REDACTED became ill, at first we all thought that she had contacted a flu bug, but asked our GP practice if one of the Doctors would attend. One of the junior partner GP.s came out and concurred that REDACTED had influenza. By the next day her symptoms had become worse. Again we asked that a doctor come. And the second junior partner called to see REDACTED. He said that in his opinion REDACTED was a bit depressed (pressure of work, her boyfriend had just left to fight in the Gulf etc.) We were a little unhappy with this and again telephoned the surgery. Dr. REDACTED, the senior partner came to see REDACTED. I recall he took REDACTED history in our kitchen with a proffered tumbler of whiskey in his hand. Dr. REDACTED, now deceased, although an eccentric, with a weakness for a good malt, was a much respected and liked man in our community and a good Physician.
After the almost obligatory libation and a little gossip, he examined REDACTED and came to the conclusion that something was affecting REDACTED nervous system and had her admitted to REDACTED Hospital.
REDACTED was duly processed into a ward and examined. Yet again, flu and depression were the suspects and she was put under a regime of observation. During this period, there were many messages of support and empathy from her school and friends and these were duly reported to REDACTED.
On what was to be her last evening on the general medical ward, I was taking REDACTED and REDACTED to visit REDACTED when I had a “telepathic experience.” It was so overwhelming that I felt bound to relate it to REDACTED, which with some trepidation, I did. “If we don’t do something, we’re going to lose her!” I stated.
As I previously mentioned, the journey to REDACTED is some thirteen miles, and after saying that, I spent near on seven of those miles in something which must be very close to purgatory.
Eventually, an uneasy calm prevailed in the car, after a decision to ask the doctor had been agreed. REDACTED did this soon after greeting REDACTED. And in due course I was asked to see the Registrar, a Dr REDACTED, in his room. “Your wife tells me you are very concerned about REDACTED” He said, gripping my hand with one of his and clapping me on the shoulder with the other. “Well I can tell you that as far as I can tell, REDACTED doing just fine. In fact she’ll probably be home tomorrow boyo.” I mumbled something in excuse, through choked down tears of relief.
If these telepathic experiences are a form of schizophrenia, then thank the gods for inflicting it on me.
REDACTED consultant was called to see her and to cut a very long story short, within two and a half hours, and after an anesthsatists best, but unsuccessful attempts to entubate REDACTED on the ward, REDACTED, REDACTED, I and various members of staff were running through cleared corridors to waiting lifts with REDACTED bed, to a prepared place in the intensive care ward, where she was put on life support. Her Consultant, Dr. REDACTED, explained to us that he suspected that REDACTED was suffering from a syndrome called GBS, (Gillian-Barre-Syndrome) which, in brief, was the bodies immune system acting incorrectly and attacking the myelin, or the nerve sheathing and that the process could, in some cases, lead to total paralysis.
The next day, March 1st 1991 REDACTED was transferred by ambulance, with a REDACTED Police escort, to the Intensive Therapy Unit of REDACTED Hospital, a centre of excellence of treatment for that terrifying disease. And there she stayed for the next six months.
Apart from the movement of one eye REDACTED became completely paralysed. The staff informed us, that although as the name of the ward implied, the treatment would be highly intensive, in the main it would be supportive and that eventually she would regain most, if not all of her movement.
I began to feel totally helpless, superfluous and depressed but with REDACTED and the families help and interaction, fought off the self pity and realised that if REDACTED were to come out of this a sane and whole person, she would need a proactive support system and the act of communication would necessarily be paramount to this process. My brain went into overdrive and I remembered seeing two plastic covered cards in the ICU at REDACTED, each having half the letters of the alphabet on. And improving on this, I made five sets of letters, representing portions for example, A to E being No 1. F to J=2 etc. We put this system into practice and successfully communicated with REDACTED with it until she was, some twelve weeks later, able to talk again. (REDACTED was a lot quicker at this than us.)
At no time during REDACTED disability did she become depressed. I believe the excellent staff of the unit would unreservedly concur with that statement.
The Head of Nursing was Mrs REDACTED, whom REDACTED brothers and sisters, nephews and nieces, would come to know as Aunty REDACTED, and to REDACTED and I as REDACTED. And upon more than one occasion by REDACTED , as Ratbag…. Ratbag! was the first word that REDACTED squawked via the airway access plug, left by the tracheostomy, after she was weaned off the ventilator.
REDACTED has the proverbial heart of gold, but is totally without mercy in administering nursing care to patients, regardless of how manipulatively they are able to communicate their disapproval, via the alphabet; or in any form. And although REDACTED was able to wind members of her family and most members of staff around her paralysed little finger, she couldn’t touch REDACTED sense of duty, but on more than one occasion I saw a tear in her eye, as she and other staff, gently tended my daughter.
In the main, the staff put up with REDACTED family, at first perhaps with an exasperated sigh, but later I dare to believe with a certain enthusiasm. I was even taught, and applied with a very shaky hand, the clean hand principle of using a catheter to clear REDACTED constantly obstructed airways. We were also conversant with most of the procedures and applied medications that became a part of REDACTED treatment.
About ten weeks on, we noted that a new medication had been added to REDACTED chart. It was called Amatriptyline, and consulted the British National Formulary of medicines. To our consternation we discovered that it was an anti-depressant.
It had been scripted by one of her consultant anaesetists,and I asked why he had prescribed it. He explained in very lay terms the process of brain activity and how he hoped to short circuit some of the pain receptors as the extremely painful process of regrowth of the myelin took place and emphasized that he did not script the medication for depression so the psychological side effects which sometimes accompanied this medical application should not apply to REDACTED as she was paralysed and still on intensive life support. She was hardly in a position to commit an act of self harm.
Although REDACTED was to spend many months in hospital, and many more attending as an outpatient. She regained her mobility to a great degree and this continued to improve with physiotherapy and general use until the day of her being prescribed Cipramil.
It was obvious to us that no person could go through an experience like REDACTED and not be affected by it, and she was affected. REDACTED had suffered a near death experience and twelve months of her life had been if not wasted, then delayed. She had suffered many necessary but never-the-less, humiliating events and in a very paradoxical way it changed her attitude and outlook on life. Although for a short while REDACTED attended college to catch up on her schoolwork, she no longer had the incentive or the ambition to help her fellow man, and soon left it behind.
REDACTED now thought that it was more important for her to live and enjoy her life and to that end concentrated her efforts. I for one didn’t blame her. I don’t mean that REDACTED didn’t care, in fact if anything she became more caring. She became more involved with family life, and in particular with the upbringing of her nieces and nephews. I doubt they will ever forget their Aunty REDACTED. She became more orientated towards friends and having a good time. Her intellect channelled itself into humour and laughter.
REDACTED would no longer suffer a fool gladly and her sharp and sometimes acerbic wit served that purpose well. REDACTED had always had a very stubborn personality and if anything her encounter with disability made this more so. She was always quick to take offence and that didn’t change, but she now seemed to find it easier to forgive and forget.
I’ll give you two examples of this different philosophy that my child had developed … The clichés: “Life’s to Short” … and … “Your cup’s always half full.” These were the new tenets of REDACTED life.
As a child, REDACTED had undergone one of the most distressing and debilitating experiences that it is possible for a young person to suffer and she came through with a wiser and more developed personality.
Although REDACTED would suffer from a permanently damaged peripheral nervous system and would suffer two further, but very minor episodes of GBS, she led a normal, indeed in some respects better than normal, life. The most apparent symptom of the Post GBS being pain and numbness in her feet, and to a lesser degree her hands. Sometimes she also suffered from fine tremor, which would become more apparent if she became ill or upset.
As time passed REDACTED developed a permanent relationship, as things turned out, with her husband to be, REDACTED, a part retained fireman with the REDACTED Fire Service, and her social life orientated itself more toward that relationship and fire service functions and events. I have to admit that at the time I didn’t approve of this young man. I didn’t believe that he could support her or look after her properly. But even had I voiced this disapproval, REDACTED, being REDACTED, would not have cared less. And of course she could always change her mind. Couldn’t she? And she was off to New Zealand for three months to visit her elder brother REDACTED and his wife REDACTED . REDACTED family and their mutual friends. REDACTED had a great time for the three months visit to Kiwi and was involved in many adventures whilst there backpacking North Island, including of all things, a freefall parachute jump. She had a great Christmas and New Year, but she missed her family, her home and REDACTED very much.
When REDACTED returned, they married. On the 18th of January, they got in his little car went, to REDACTED , and in her words “We just didn’t want any fuss, so we grabbed two very surprised, but happily pleased people off the street, for witnesses. Got married, shook hands all round and left” That was REDACTED and REDACTED wedding. “Sorted!” She says smiling and radiantly happy.
In the course of time, my reservations about REDACTED were dispelled and I came to like and then respect him. All the family became involved with his efforts to join the REDACTED Fire Brigade and took pleasure and pride in his success at achieving this aim. REDACTED travelled to REDACTED for his passing out parade, which because of all the hours they had spent together revising for the entrance examination and her ongoing support for him during his initial training, she regarded as being a joint honour. “All he had to do was wear his uniform and look pretty!” She complained to me with a smile. “I did all the hard work, getting him to up to par.” They adored and doted on each other but in the September of 2000, REDACTED went for a night out with the boys, got drunk and committed an act of infidelity. Being drunk is no excuse for what occurred that night. But at least it’s a reason for an insanity. Believe me, I know! (Not the infidelity, I hasten to include … I mean the alcohol-related insanity) REDACTED did an even more stupid thing when REDACTED spotted sand in his undies and becoming suspicious, asked him about it. He admitted his infidelity. REDACTED was incensed, and insisted that REDACTED should tell her who he had been with. But sometimes REDACTED ideas of natural justice were not concurrent with the laws of the land, and knowing this, REDACTED baulked and invented a cock and bull story of some stranger having come down for a holiday, presumably, in the mistaken hope that REDACTED wouldn’t find out and would not get put in jail for grievous bodily harm, or worse.
He didn’t know REDACTED as well as I did. Had he of asked me I could have told him that she would find out. That’s my single minded, stubborn daughter. However, she forgave him and in due course, he received a conditional discharge, But she didn’t forget the matter of who? and, as will become apparent, was not going to forgive that one!
So life went on. In this, the narrative of my obsession, one would imagine that there was nothing else in my life apart from REDACTED, which was obviously not the case, and whilst REDACTED needed her mum REDACTED, me and other family members. It was not to the exclusion of other things and people, and of course we also had other things to do and interacted as a family does. There was also the inter-relationships with other people from many walks of life and circumstances.
But this is about my obsession so to that I’ll return. To that monster and it’s mixed memories and emotions.
REDACTED returned to New Zealand in February of 2001 after a telephone call from REDACTED on the 6th of that month announcing the joy of the birth of his and REDACTED daughter REDACTED.
REDACTED booked her ticket that day, and was in Auckland to greet her new niece and REDACTED when they arrived home from the hospital a few days later. Again, REDACTED had a nice time in Kiwi but apart from almost sedate visits to tourist sites, she spent the majority of her time getting to know the baby. Whilst there, REDACTED was given the honour of being made REDACTED Godmother. When she returned home she her mum, her sisters and her sister in law, were absolutely full of baby talk, nappies, feeds baths, etc. I found it amusingly touching but a little nauseating. I believe that experience convinced REDACTED that she wanted to become a midwife, but I’m afraid I couldn’t help her much with that one. Visions of legs of screaming mums-to be in stirrups, and newborn infants squealing does nothing good for my constitution.
She and her mum and sisters talked about the matter!
REDACTED was one of those people who can’t pass a beggar without putting her last coin in the bowl, and has been known to drive out of her way to give a lift to someone who lives half a mile from where she’d picked them up.
I’m happy to say she has that in common with the rest of her family.
That was the case with one REDACTED . REDACTED did, on many occasions give this woman and her child a lift home from REDACTED to the little council house where she lives.
When REDACTED found out it was her that REDACTED had been with, she went to REDACTED house and confronted her. The woman brazenly and without apology admitted the offence, and at about this point, REDACTED lost her temper, not only had the trollop seduced her drunken husband, she’d added insult to injury by accepting offers of lifts from REDACTED.
My daughter hit that woman so hard, she broke her hand doing it.
Of course, there is a price for all that we do in life and when REDACTED saw the damaged face of that pathetic woman, she was quite contrite. There is no doubt the thought of retribution from the law played some part in her contrition.
And when REDACTED realised that her hand was broken, REDACTED injuries increased in REDACTED imagination, proportionately relative to the pain from her damaged hand, which was indeed, very painful.
REDACTED attended REDACTED General Hospital and after being administered an opiate, her offending limb was put into a plaster cast. REDACTED sported this cast to her family with mixed emotions. “That should put a stop to her (REDACTED) trying to take other women’s husbands. But: Oh mum what about the police?” and “I’ll never get to be a midwife, if I have a criminal record.” Her mum reassured her about her future and fussed, with open admiration, over her plaster cast.
I will add here that the woman in question had previously been held responsible for the dissolution of at least one marriage. The husband having been unfaithful with REDACTED, left his wife and two children to live with her. He died some time later of cancer. I don’t believe any of REDACTED family or friends had a great deal of sympathy for any injuries which that woman suffered. For that matter, I doubt if the police did either.
But … A whisper rippled through the community that the local bobbies wished to contact REDACTED. To this day, I don’t know if the police actually did inquire as to REDACTED whereabouts, but such is the nature of gossip in a place like REDACTED, that REDACTED was quickly made aware that this was apparently the case.
REDACTED and REDACTED telephoned the local police station and were informed that a complaint had been laid by REDACTED and an officer would like to see REDACTED regarding that matter. An appointment was made for them to meet the local officer on the following Sunday. I don’t know which officer saw them that day but the result was that REDACTED agreed to receive a police caution, which satisfied everyone, except REDACTED. Whose opinion no one cared about, under the circumstances.
This is a short history of my daughters life and the escapades which led her into attending our local GP.s surgery on the following Friday evening, with the fatal consequence which resulted from that visit.
Why did REDACTED go to the doctor on that fateful Friday evening? Maybe we’ll never really know. However, I have made certain assumptions based upon the fact that I knew my daughter and knew of the previously mentioned facts.
With absolute certitude, I can state that my daughter was not clinically depressed. Any attack of conscience which may have bothered REDACTED, would have been mitigated and mediated by her sense of right. She had satisfactorily resolved her anger over REDACTED aberration, some time previously and they were doing fine.
REDACTED says in evidence to the inquest: “REDACTED had a down day” And we know she was still in pain from the broken hand. We have to remember the post GBS symptom of pain in the extremities and the fact that her hand was still in plaster. Her GP must surely have asked about that before she wrote the script for the SSRI Cipramil, which after all was a medication designed to treat the severe effects of Clinical Depression, and even in it’s own prescribing notes at that time, warned of possible side effects.
The opiate which had been administered, prior to the application of the cast, was still present in trace quantity at the subsequent post mortem. But it added to a media myth of “a cocktail of drugs and alcohol” In truth Cipramil (Lundbeck AS’s main source of income, and advertised as safe in overdose) killed REDACTED.
REDACTED had that cast on when she died and now I know some of the rules about death and medical treatments and appliances going with the body to post. I often wander why the pathologist Dr C G B REDACTED didn’t include that fact in his evidence to Mr P REDACTED. Her Majesty’s’ Coroner. He did, for some unknown reason, include this damaging statement in his written conclusions: “This hypoxic episode was clearly due to the deceased’s having deliberately taken a cocktail of drugs at home prior to admission to REDACTED.” This piece of fiction, was sensational in nature, inaccurate and detrimental to our cause, so we instructed our, Then, solicitor, subsequently fired, Ms REDACTED of the firm, REDACTED, to have the statement removed from evidence. The offensive and inaccurate statement was withdrawn, but was still reported as fact by the media.
Earlier in this record, I mentioned overhearing the terms “SSRI and half life” This and the complete and utter conviction that REDACTED did not, deliberately, take her own life, led me to the family Personal Computer and enter the keyword search SSRI. It returned a catalogue of Severe Adverse Reactions. Including for suicide ideation, completed suicide and many Pharmaceutical Company adverts for the drug, anecdotal stories about the beneficial, and the not so beneficial effects of taking the drug, offers to sell me the drug on-line, a story of a man who had slaughtered his family and himself, after being administered the drug, (Now known to me as the Tobin case.) cases of complaint that the drug had caused dependence. (Some of which appeared true, whilst others seemed to me to be a transparent example of our ever increasingly litigious society.) And reports for and against the use of the drug, and some research data by eminent researchers, psychiatrists, physicians and various institutions and universities.
Thus it was that I took a bite of the apple of knowledge of clinical research into the safety and efficacy of SSRI’s And; thus it was that the monster of my obsession came into being.
Almost from the very beginning I realised that it was wholly unacceptable to prescribe such an invasive psychotropical application to people such as my daughter, but in the naivety of my early research I believed the drug’s properties might have a therapeutic value for clinically depressed patients. Consequently, I trod if not softly then with great care, for who was I to take a viable treatment away from a profession which did great good for those afflicted by that terrible disease which is known as depression? (And it is terrible and it is sometimes horribly disabling Who was I to contradict the evidence presented by the great and good of the Pharmaceutical Industry and what was at that time that most August of bodies the MCA? (The Medicines Control Agency.) Prior of course to the dissolution of that body, after a public outcry of internal corruption. And SSRI’s were safer than the older types of medication, remember Amatriptyline? That’s one, in the older, and according to the drug companies, less safe, class of antidepressants known as tri cyclics.
Those I’ll leave to the academics to continue their argument about.
For you see. That is the irony of what has happened to the ongoing saga of the Safety and Efficacy of all SSRI’s. It became an academic’s argument, and that argument is based on a false precept. That precept being that the drug worked. It never did. The science behind the drugs clinical application was tainted with the corruption of the corporate schizophrenia of the pharmaceutical companies research and development, and sales and marketing departments. And the lack of science behind the billions gained in revenues, has only recently come to public attention.
I learned that for the year 2001 (and this is from Lundbeck’s 2001 Annual report.) “Lundbecks revenue in 2001 was DKK 7.656 million, up 36% on 2000. The increase was driven by the continued growth in sales of Citalopram in Europe, Canada and Australia and in the USA in particular where Citalopram is marketed by Forest Laboratories, Inc.”
But I still tried very hard to gain information from the elegantly constructed mathematical charts and graphs, from which experts extrapolate and disseminate research data, and to some degree did indeed get some useful data. Should you be interested, read Dr David Healy’s work, and the Meta-Analysis of all published and unpublished studies into the safety of SSRI’s by Jureidini and colleagues. There are many others.
But the real evidence was there for me to see from the beginning. It was the evidence given to me by my daughter’s death. It is true that REDACTED shouldn’t have been scripted the SSRI. Cipramil. But the obvious having been stated again. It should have been safe. And it was the duty of the MCA to ensure that it was safe for her GP to prescribe, and for REDACTED to take.
To the academics, I say. Get away from your charts, graphs and the tainted non- evidence of the drugs industry. They are after all, profit orientated companies. Get your evidence from a real life source, the people who have been prescribed it and some who suffered as a result and the people left bereft by grief.
Extrapolate some data from the Inquests where Accidental Death, Suicide and Open Verdicts have been returned, and a so called therapeutic dose of an SSRI would certainly look there for evidence of the psycho-active properties of alcohol and THC (cannabis) I contend you’ll get similar results of SSRI-substance related death.
Of course it’s possible that pathologists/toxicologists do not record such therapeutic levels of SSRI. I say to the MHRA. (Medicines and Health Regulatory Authority. The Phoenix of the MCA ) Make it mandatory that they do so in future!
Do not grant licences to new drug applications, particularly psychotropic/active application, where the pharmaceutical industry has not included all data, regardless of that industries alleged fear of “Proprietary data and industrial espionage.” It is not the Industry or the professions that you work for, or have a duty to. It is the people, and the Government that the people have elected. They are the source of your income, The people are also the only source of income of the Pharmaceutical Company Giants.
It is to the people that the MHRA, have a duty of care.
However, I’ve again strayed from the monster of my obsession and it calls me back.
So I have to return.
When I had first tasked the family PC with that simple keyword search SSRI, Cipramil, many of the results which appeared on the screen were testaments to the Danish pharmaceutical Co. Lundbeck. This was a firm I wanted to learn a lot more about!
Lundbeck A/S of Denmark was the original manufacturer and licensee of Cipramil, (Citalopram) the version of SSRI which had been administered to REDACTED: Three days prior to her collapse and subsequent death.
I came to know a great deal about this company, it’s marketing strategies and it’s collaboration with the US firm, Forest Laboratories Inc, which led to Cipramil obtaining an FDA Marketing licence in the US, and as a result, acceptance by most of the rest of the worlds prescribing and licensing authorities.
After employing Erik Sprunk-Jansen, and a lot of infighting amongst Executive Officers, (“At the beginning I was called the Butcher from Greenland” he Quotes) H Lundbeck sold off their antibiotic market share to bankroll the sale of Cipramil, and went from a Net profit of 21 million Danish Kroner, to a multi-national Multi Million Dollar Co. “By the year 2000 sales of Cipramil/Celexa amounted to 86% of the Companies total turnover.”
In Lundbeck’s web-site, amongst a panoply of self-congratulatory advertising literature, I found “A profile of Erik Sprunk-Jansen,” who at the time of discovery was Lundbeck’s chief executive officer. an ex mining engineer. His employment as managing director with Greenex AS, having come to an end when their mine in Greenland ran out of ore, or so his profile says, but paradoxically, a Swedish company called Boliden bought Greenex and continued operations for some years.
In the same remarkable document I found, and this is verbatim. “Cipramil - or the “happy pill”, as it is popularly known (an expression that is strongly disapproved of at Lundbeck) - is an outstanding drug. First of all it works and is easy to take. But equally important is the fact that it has no side effects, even if it is taken together with other medicines,”
The simple fact is that no SSRI works as an effective treatment for depression. All! And there have been many, (Independent of pharmaceutical industry.) research studies report that SSRI’s do not work better than placebo - Sugar pill - for that distressing condition, and there can be very serious reactions with concomitant medications.
There are also many serious and even fatal side effects, including for some, Akesthesia, a horrible condition itself, dependence, confusion, aggression and increase in suicidal thoughts. The incidence of completed suicide where an SSRI has been applied is as great as five times more than an applied placebo.
But, oh how Cipramil changed Forests’ fortunes, when that Co. gained a marketing licence to sell it. On it’s back, they employed 200 sales staff and trained them up to sell Cipramil/Celexa to the American Public. (In the States, direct marketing is legal) It now accounts for 70% of Forests Gross income, which at March of this year stood at 1.6 Billion US Dollars.
The head of Forest Labs. Inc. is Howard Solomon, who suffered a tragic loss when his wife committed suicide. She took forty seconal. Understandably, Howard’s son Andrew was a severely depressed young man.
The thing that I found odd, and indeed still do, is that Howard Solomon purports to have come across Lundbecks’ Cipramil in his quest for a treatment for Andrew, and he discovered this wonder drug (Cipramil) in the mid nineties, but even though his company marketed it in 1998 and he implies that he was looking after Andrew, Andrew has never taken Cipramil/Celexa, yet Andrew certainly suffered another bout of depression in 1999, and Cipramil was available to Andrew from the mid nineties and Celexa was manufactured by the family business, since pre 1998.
Part of the pre-market application for licence reports to the FDA that 20000 patients had been treated with Cipramil, but only two fatalities occurred whilst taking only Cipramil. But when I read the report into the meta-analysis of all studies into the safety of SSRI.s for children. Jureidini and colleagues. I found that approximately 1 in 500 of the group of 7 to 17 year old children who had taken Cipramil died by suicide. By the way, no SSRI has been licensed for children by the MCA, (as was), the MHRA or the FDA: But, because it has been licensed for use for over 18 years, they can be used “Off Licence” for children, and is, by some physicians.
Cipramil is now banned for children to 18 yrs. ( But of course, not off licence.) But what of 18 yrs and 1 day? If that were not so potentially tragic, it would be laughable!
The monster of my obsession has driven me to the limits of human endurance and into the deepest of depression and a great deal of debt: One gratuitous example of which, is a subscription to the New York Times Online. I shall relate part of an alert sent by that excellent journal to me on the 21st of June written by Barry Meier. He writes that the American Journal of Psychiatry reported to it’s 37000 readers test results for Celexa/Cipramil indicating it could help children and teenagers. The studies authors had been asked to divulge any financial ties to the marketer, Forest Laboratories Incorporated, which sponsored the trial. And the report was sent to reviewers who checked to make sure that the article reflected other relevant research about the use of anti-depressants for youngsters. Three of the authors were employed by Forest. The study did not report or include for a study run by Lundbeck from 1996 to 2002 which although not reported, was eventually discovered last year on Page 96 of a textbook, in of course, Danish, and found that Celexa did not help depressed adolescents anymore than a placebo.
(It seems to me that at this point it becomes a case of the devil take the hindmost. profits aside, or that Lundbeck and Forest‘s spokespersons didn‘t synchronise, as it were)
When questioned, a spokesman for Lundbeck said the company reported the trials to Forest, although he couldn’t say when. And Forest executives did not respond to written enquiries from the Times seeking that information. (You can’t blame them really. The State Attorney General for New York is currently pursuing GlaxoSmithKline, another pharmaceutical company for not disclosing negative data about their SSRI. In relation to a matter of massive fraud.)
My monster demands that I relate another thing which I learned, about yet another pharmaceutical company in the course of researching the matter of REDACTED death. That household name Astra (Now Astra/Zeneca was the first company to successfully market an SSRI. Yes! there was an SSRI before GSK.s Seroxat! It was called Zimeledine, and that one was a wonderful cure for depression as well, but don’t tax yourself trying to find out where you can get it prescribed. It was withdrawn because it killed people. And it had a most peculiar side effect. It caused Guillian Barre-Syndrome!
REDACTED had that devastating illness in 1991 didn’t she.
When I look back on the media coverage of matters pertaining to REDACTED death, (and indeed the scarcity of same, at least on our part and despite our best efforts.) in the main they oozed sympathy towards us but didn’t address the question of whether Cipramil could have killed REDACTED.
At the time of the Inquest into REDACTED death, which was held on the REDACTED April 2002 and at which an Open Verdict was recorded, the media did report some of our complaints against the way that SSRI.s were being so freely prescribed. A local paper even went as far as to print my intent to have prescribing notes changed, but in my opinion, as “A cocktail of alcohol and drugs.” was mentioned, ( Which although not true, was mentioned at inquest, and therefore, could be and was reported in the media.) anything positive which may have resulted, was negated by that sensationalist statement, so there was no general outcry. SSRI.s were still good, efficacious and safe medicine.
At the time of the launch of our action group at the offices of REDACTED in June 2000, BBC and HTV news, on a share basis, filmed the proceedings for 2 hours. Most of the safety reservations, side effects and pecuniary interests of the usual suspects were gone into in some detail and were recorded on camera.
However, all they showed that evening was a short clip of REDACTED giving a warning not to stop taking an SSRI because that could be dangerous, and an interview with one Dr REDACTED, who at the time of being filmed, was in his surgery writing a script, ostensibly for Cipramil, whilst nattering on about how good SSRI.s in general, and Cipramil in particular were
.
Two years on and what do REDACTED and I see on BBC REDACTED news? REDACTED, Spokesman for the REDACTED in REDACTED, lamenting to the camera that GP.s are in the sad position that they “feel that they have to prescribe SSRI.s to patients, because the waiting list for specialist therapy is 6 weeks.” But this of course, was after the warning from the MHRA regarding the use of SSRI.s in young people.
I lament something about that too. Why didn’t the man do a little research at the time of the inception of the action group? and as he must surely have at least known about the ongoing controversy, why didn’t he keep his mouth shut?
A lot of people were probably prescribed SSRI.s on the back of that interview. And a little information for you personally Dr REDACTED. Do not prescribe an antidepressant to any patient, other than for moderate to severe depression, using at least one of the appropriate depression scales, and then, only with the greatest of circumspection! And only then, if you are prepared to give a lot of follow-up care.
For those patients whose illness permits them to attend a surgery, it will take about half an hour for an average person to fill out a depression scale inquiry form and some time for an experienced medical practitioner to evaluate same.
On the day of the inception of the action group, some enterprising person had informed Lundbeck UK, and asked them for their response. Their spokesperson was duly sympathetic with the families grief. Then added, this unfortunate young lady (REDACTED) had committed suicide. She was depressed and suffering from an STD. Sexually Transmitted Disease. REDACTED publicity dept had ensured that the action groups inception got in the news. It did. Their advert and Lundbecks response went out on the hour every hour until the evening news.
Of course none of this was true! REDACTED GP said in evidence at the inquest, that REDACTED was not suffering from a STD and that REDACTED had not presented to her as being suicidal.
In Dr David Healy’s evidence to the court, he states that in his opinion, REDACTED would not have been depressed, and had she presented to him as a trial subject, she would have been classed as a healthy volunteer. He also made the damming statement, That as a healthy volunteer REDACTED was at a two to tenfold greater risk of suicide after being prescribed Cipramil.
That sympathetic statement from Lundbeck grievously hurt four generations of REDACTED family, her husband, and her close friends, but that is the usual measured response from a pharmaceutical company, to a concern voiced about one of it’s products.
In my obsessional search for why my daughter died, I constantly trawled through English versions of international news media and in time came across an article in the Copenhagen Post dated the 4th February 1999, which reported the following … In a Danish Radio documentary, the Special Consultant Carl Hugod lodged a complaint to the Danish National Board of Health. According to the article he did this after examining the research material which Lundbeck had submitted to Denmark’s Licensing Authority, for Cipramil’s first licence application, and then finding a large percentage of the necessary material missing. The Post quotes him as stating. “In my opinion the National Board of Health should never have been satisfied with this utterly disgraceful lack of scientific documentation concerning the drug’s effectiveness.”
Lundbeck’s Claus Braestrup, was unwilling to discuss Dr Hugod’s complaint but in quotes, in the Article, he stated. “Health authorities in 60 countries have approved Cipramil. They have had material available for evaluation with information on every patient, and they have had the opportunity to read the same material as Hugod has, the result being that they have approved Cipramil as a safe product.”
It is patently apparent that 60 countries couldn’t have, and didn’t approve Cipramil prior to it’s first licence application in Denmark, which Dr Hugod’s complaint refers to. It is also apparent that either Dr Hugod and or the 60 countries did not have that data. Dr Hugod’s complaint was after all a “disgraceful lack of scientific documentation.” and the ramification of Dr Hugod’s statement are horrendous! I have drawn three possible conclusions from it.
1. If that data was missing from Lundbecks licence application because they didn’t do the research and they deliberately lied by omission. Then an ongoing “in life” experiment took place, which by it’s nature would have been a breach of the Nuremberg Code, and other laws and international conventions. This would certainly apply to the “20000 patients referred to in Forest’s application to the FDA.
2. If they did the research and stripped out negative data pertaining to Cipramil’s effectiveness, they are guilty of a massive fraud, which same is ongoing.
3. If they did the research and stripped out negative data pertaining to side effects, they are guilty of different crimes, up to and possibly including murder. Remember? I taught REDACTED about the Nuremberg Code for her O Level history exam on Hitler’s Germany. The Code came into being as a result of the discovery of the Crimes Against Humanity, which took place in the Nazi Extermination Camps, and the pseudo-medical trials that took place in them. That laudable and historic document was adopted into the United Nations Charter and subsequently, although modified, into the European Charter of Human Rights paramount in both of which, is the Right to Life.
In the clause of the Code pertaining to Clinical Trials, the sub-clauses read
1. The voluntary consent of the human subject is absolutely essential. (and further on those who initiate Trials) ….It is a personal duty and responsibility which may not be delegated to another with impunity. (And further)
4. The experiment should be so conducted as to avoid all unnecessary physical and mental suffering and injury, (And further)
10. During the course of the experiment, the scientist in charge must be prepared to terminate the experiment at any stage, if he has probable cause to believe, in the exercise of the good faith, superior skill and careful judgement required of him, that a continuation of the experiment is likely to result in injury, disability, or death to the experimental subject.
If any of my conclusions about the “lack of scientific documentation” and or the stripping out of detrimental raw data, or their non-inclusion, are true. Lundbeck, Forest and their subsidiaries and partners are possibly guilty of breaching the Code and subsequent amendments and articles of the Charters of both the United Nations and European Charters.
It follows that they could, and should also be held responsible in law, by responsible nation states and or by any person where consequential harm has occurred as a result of an application of Cipramil.
My monster has taken me to many dark and previously unknown scenes. Places where I have witnessed the basest of deeds and actions: But for the main part, these deeds have not been perpetrated by individual human beings, rather by their inaction, self importance and even the good intentions of the ill informed. These are some of the fodder of the beast that I call Corporate Schizophrenia. These were also the things that empowered Hitler and his underlings.
It has also taken me to places where courage, hope and goodness reside. There are people who recognise the beast for what it is and fight it. Even in the knowledge that they may never defeat it, they fight, and they are at least modifying it’s behaviour.
They are teaching it that it cannot be all powerful, and in order to exist in a civilised society, it has to curb it’s appetite.
I hope that maybe and because of these people, that in the near future, clinical trials of new drugs will be more closely scrutinised, and where appropriate will be stopped. and that if a drug is licensed as a medical application, it will be monitored and if necessary, it will be withdrawn.
We the people, need good medicine, it follows that we need a pharmaceutical industry, and we need good science. But … It is absolutely essential that empowered and informed human beings of high integrity and good intent oversee that industry and the science behind it’s products, and hold in check the beast of corporate schizophrenia!
It is my hope that by leading me to write this article, my monster has laid itself to rest, and will to some degree leave me and my family in peace. Peace to grieve over REDACTED and maybe even come to some kind of terms with her death. But you never know. It may come across another beast ………
Correction. In my reference to the evidence presented at REDACTED inquest, I imply that Dr David Healy stated in verbal evidence that REDACTED would have been in the classification of a healthy volunteer.
This is incorrect. However, Dr Healy did submit a written report to the court dated the REDACTED March 2002 which states …REDACTED was at a very low risk of suicide from her nervous problem. The risk of suicide that stemmed from the treatment she was put lies somewhere between 2 and 10-fold higher than the risk from the underlying nervous problems she had.
That risk factor is the same as the Healy-Boardman Study into SSRI effects on healthy volunteers.
WARNING ADVICE. Should you read this and be taking an SSRI and wonder whether you or your prescriber made a mistake; DO NOT JUST STOP TAKING IT. Consult your G.P. or specialist. Discontinuation events can be distressing and for a minority of people DANGEROUS.
Ask your physician to consult the “Healy Protocol.”
This advice may seem an anomaly to the obvious content of this document, but it is a sad fact that once someone is prescribed an antidepressant, whether appropriate or not, and is taking antidepressant medication, discontinuation is best carried out with professional help
Updated and amended (Not Proofed) 10th July 2004 REDACTED
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Reflections On An Obsession. My monster Wakes
24th July 2004 A visit from DS REDACTED
REDACTED called today to tell us that Mr REDACTED of the CPS had decided they would not take the matter of REDACTED death any further.
Rather surprisingly, the news was a disappointment, and awoke the monster of my obsession. (Read the document - Reflections On An Obsession)
I think the monster again became wakeful when the rare gems of REDACTED scrupulously guarded hoard of tears dropped carelessly from her eyes, after she’d read the letter of refusal to prosecute Lundbeck A/S, which had been dutifully delivered to us by REDACTED.
I had expected a negative decision from the day that REDACTED first telephoned REDACTED Police Station and in a conversational manner registered a complaint of Unlawful Death, to what I have ever since imagined to be, a somewhat bewildered and slightly amused officer. I could only imagine his part of the conversation …“Yes Mrs REDACTED… you say your daughter … was killed? … I see. … And which sort of pills did her Doctor prescribe for her? … Cipramil! … Made by Lundbeck, you said?…and these pills are an SSRI? And that is … just let me write that down. Cipramil is a Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitor. Umm! … Well I’ll get someone to contact you”
I temporised the officers’ responses as I watched REDACTED dispassionate expression, whilst she calmly related to him the facts of our daughter REDACTED death.
If that officer has stayed conversant with the complaint and the emergent evidence, I wonder whether he is still just tolerantly bemused.
Since then, many high profile media articles and television programs have questioned the safety and effectiveness of all SSRIs, and as a result of these investigations and ongoing disclosures by interested parties and whistle blowers, the issue of drug emergent suicidality and violence is now an established fact … To the extent that the MHRA has banned SSRI use in under 18yr olds and a suicide emergence warning has been issued to GP.s about their use in the 18 to 29yr old patient group and patient information will shortly include an SSRI drug-induced suicidality warning.
Meta-analysis of all known trials into SSRIs have also shown that in many instances, the drug is not as effective as a placebo (Sugar Pill.) for the treatment of depression.
The drug industry knew of these issues since the late nineteen eighties. Companies knew about the serious side effects of their SSRIs prior to their application for a licence to market them … but chose not to include these facts, because disclosure of such facts would have seriously affected their profits.
The Pharmaceutical Companies sold the medical profession, and thereby theirm patients, The Emperors Clothes.
The Emperors Clothes is a fairytale and a cautionary anecdote, and the only ones to suffer lasting harm, as a result of the story characters gullibility, were the villainous tailors who convinced the emperors advisors that the illusion which they displayed was the most fashionable and excellent of garments, and had it not been for the naïve young boy who exclaimed “The kings got no clothes on!", the Emperor would still be promenading in his nudity.
The Emperors advisors had always espoused their great knowledge in all affairs pertinent to the Empires well-being and safety… So … when the world famous tailors presented the suit of clothes, (about which, they’d convinced the court advisors that madmen and the illiterate wouldn’t be enlightened enough to see) the Emperors advisors enthused over the non-existent apparel, which the conmen had so elaborately presented to them.
It’s also more than a possibility that the tailors paid some of the kings advisors to test the suit of clothes for their effectiveness and safety, and return positive comments.
The drug companies continually try to blind us with the esoteric chemical properties of their products and are constantly reinforcing the transparency of the fact that SSRIs work and if we can’t see their good effects, it’s because we’re mentally ill, depressed or illiterate.
They are more greedy than the tailors in the Emperors Clothes and their products can be dangerous.
They pay some eminent medical professionals to endorse their products.
The FDA has only recently and reluctantly admitted there are grave problems where SSRIs are concerned but have been aware of the dangers since the late eighties.
Dr Keith Jones of the MCA assured a colleague, Dr David Healy, that the MCA were going to issue a warning of induced suicidality, including a warning for families of patients, in the year 2000. Had they issued that warning REDACTED would still be alive.
The drug companies have tried to convince us that one suit (The antidepressant SSRI.s) fit most conditions of life and the mind, and if we catch a fatal pneumonia as a result of wearing the nothing of their product … their response is … you had to wear our suit because you had a cold anyway, whether we did or not.
And if wearing their suit of nothing, (taking an SSRI) initiates a feeling which is uncomfortable or embarrassing and makes us ill, or worse … the drug industry will maintain the position that our pre-existing condition, even where there was none, caused such unwanted effects.
Even if we‘re only window shopping for something which might enable us to cope a little more easily with life, we could be prescribed their, one suits all, SSRI and become ill, act aggressively, or end our lives prematurely, through the side effects of their products.
Unfortunately, the reality of the SSRI scandal is that the villains, (the pharmaceutical industry) have not only gotten away with their ill-gotten billions in profits, they are still allowed to market them and any other suits of clothes, (drugs for the mind) they carefully present to our advisors.
Unless, like the tailors in the Emperors Clothes they are taken to task, they will never learn that they must not market unsafe and or ineffective products.
GSK (GlaxoSmithKline) recently made an out of court settlement of 2.5 million dollars, to prevent Eliot Spitzer, The State Attorney General For New York, from taking that company to court for withholding data, which proved their version of an SSRI caused people to feel suicidal, and that their SSRI was not an effective treatment for patients.
All SSRIs work more or less in the same way and have the same side effects.
GSK has a slush fund set aside against legal actions, the 2.5 million they paid to settle Mr Spitzer’s suit was a negligible amount, and a spokesperson for GSK then stated that as the matter didn’t go to a court, their drug was vindicated.
Out of court settlements will not deter companies from selling ineffective or unsafe products, but company directors being hauled before courts for manslaughter, mayhem and fraud, may well do.
I have put the CPS on notice that I intend to take the matter of REDACTED death further.
The word “selective” was applied to Seroxat, a serotonin reuptake inhibitor manufactured by GSK, it was used as a marketing device, the term worked so well for sales it was then used by all drug makers to describe their SSRI products, and subsequently gained a pseudo application in medicine, as did all the SSRI group of drugs.
And SSRIs probably do increase serotonin in the brain, along with increasing thoughts and acts of suicide, self-harm, aggression, psychomotor malfunction, akathisia and dependence, but SSRIs don’t work for depression any better than a placebo. (sugar pill)
Our daughter REDACTED is dead! (See the document Reflections … ) She did not die in an accident. Her death was not an act of God. She died because of the greed of a pharmaceutical company and their suit of clothes.
If REDACTED had purchased an ineffective, or unsafe appliance and that appliance had caused her death, it’s makers would have been pursued by the Criminal Justice system and punished.
I accused Lundbeck A/S of Denmark of being her killer. My wife REDACTED registered that fact to the police. The police took the evidence we had and sent the matter to the CPS. They should have applied for a warrant of search and seizure, to obtain more evidence, and take REDACTED case further.
It is my sincere opinion that they have chosen not to do so, but not because Lundbeck is not guilty, and certainly not for a lack of evidence, Eliot Spitzer’s investigators have recently proved such evidence exists.
Forest Laboratories Incorporated, Lundbeck’s partner, and the manufacturer and seller of Cipramil, called Celexa in the USA, have also been invited to present their trial data for the SSRI that killed REDACTED, to Mr Spitzer’s office … for his investigators perusal, with reference to a matter of fraud and withheld safety data for children.
So I am left trying to sort out why the CPS haven‘t acted and at least brought Lundbeck A/S.s Corporate officers before a Criminal Court? and as REDACTED dad, how I will manage to obtain Justice for REDACTED and her family?
I shall do my best to succeed in doing that, and if I do, I might prevent further bad medicine from being marketed by the tailors of the pharmaceutical industry?
In pursuit of REDACTED and my families “Right to Justice”, I will try.
In the public interest, I will try. That’s all I can do.
REDACTED 19th September 2004
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