Kelly Posner Gerstenhaber - Incredulous!

 Kelly Posner Gerstenhaber

Dr. Kelly Posner Gerstenhaber is a visionary scientist, humanitarian, and philanthropist with a long-standing commitment to saving lives. Her focus on preventing death by suicide.

At least these are the claims of her bio found here.

For simplicity I will just refer to her as Posner.

Posner caused quite a stir earlier today when she was a guest on a radio show broadcast by WBUR.

She claimed that science shows prescription drugs 'Don't cause people to be suicidal.'

Posner, presumably from the area of Idontgiveadamn, which is situated on the planet Zog, obviously has some sort of delusions of grandeur, at least that's what her bio would suggest.

A humanitarian?

A long-standing commitment to saving lives?

What the program-makers, and, indeed, Posner, failed to mention was her ties to the industry. Back in 2009 Posner added her name to a study published in the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. (JAACAP)

The JAACAP is infamous for the ghostwritten Paxil 329 study and despite many calls for it's retraction the journal are steadfast in not removing the fraudulant 329 study.

In 2009 Posner listed her following interests after adding her name to the Depressive Symptoms and Clinical Status During the Treatment of Adolescent Suicide Attempters (TASA) Study.

Here we get to see the reasoning behind her claims on WBUR.

"Dr. Posner has received research support from the following pharmaceutical companies, as part of an effort to help execute the FDA suicidality mandates/requests: Amgen, AstraZeneca Pharmaceuticals, Forest Laboratories, GlaxoSmithKline, i3 Research, Eli Lilly, Johnson & Johnson, H. Lundbeck A/S, Medtronic, Merck & Co., Next Wave Pharmaceuticals, Novo Nordisk A/S, Orexigen Therapeutics, Otsuka Pharmaceuticals, Pfizer, Roche, Sanofi-Aventis, Schering-Plough Corporation, Schwarz Biosciences/UCB, Sepracor, Takeda Pharmaceutical Company, Valeant Pharmaceuticals, Vivus, and Wyeth Research."

Furthermore, the Columbia Lighthouse Project at Columbia University, of which Posner is the founder and director, receives funding from pharmaceutical companies. Again, this was not mentioned by the program-makers at WBUR or, indeed, Posner herself.

The interview is unbelievable, nae incredulous.

Give this a listen, the usual 'underlying illnesses' is rolled out.

She also claims that suicides have risen since black box warnings in the US, Another fallacy that has been debunked many times.

On anecdotal reports of people dying by antidepressant induced suicide she said, "the greatest risk of suicide is a month before starting treatment, what is causing the risk is the medication not having  chance to work yet." Posner also claimed that she worked alongside the FDA and stated that there was not one suicide reported.

Hmm, she's either lying or the FDA didn't feel that she was important enough to give that information to.

Strange because I was present at the recent trial in Chicago where Paxil was implicated in the death of Stewart Dolin. The  jury heard about the following suicides during Paxil clinical trials. All the subjects were taking Paxil at the time of their death. (See Plaintiff's Exhibit 347)

Female, 56 - Suicide.
Unknown gender - 50 - Suicide by hanging.
Female, 42 - Suicide by overdose of doxepin.
Female, 18 -  Suicide.
Female, 58 - Suicide by hanging.
Male, 24 - Unknown if it was suicide - Patient was hit by a train and killed
Male, 34 - Suicide
Female, 48 - Suicide
Female, 46 - Suicide by hanging.
Male, 54 - Suicide, jumped under a train.
Female, 67 - Suicide - on the fourth day of the study she threw herself out of a window.
Female, 32 - Suffocation due to vomiting.
Female, 33 - Suicide, jumped from 4th floor balcony.
Male, 65 - Suicide by an unknown method.
Male, 23 - Suicide.
Female, 31 - Suicide.
Unknown gender , 86 - Suicide by hanging.
Male, 46 - Suicide/Homicide - on December 14, 1998, the patient went to the home he shared with his estranged wife and shot her, he then turned the gun on himself.
Male, 40 - Suicide.
Male, 35 - Suicide (Shot himself)
Male, 19 - Suicide (Shot himself)
Female, 58 - Suicide by hanging.

80% of these suicides were carried out by patients over the age of 30. (Back story)

Plaintiff's Exhibit 347

This is gut-wrenching to listen to as I know, and have met, many parents, husbands and wives who have lost loved ones to antidepressant-induced suicide.

WBUR need to either add Posner's conflict of interests or invite parents onto their show to rebut the outlandish claims you are about to listen to.

PLAY

Feel free to leave a comment beneath this post or on the WBUR website here.


Bob Fiddaman