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10-05-2015 10:14 AM |
Murder, suicide. A bitter aftertaste for the 'wonder' depression drug
Antidepressant Seroxat under scrutiny as firm pays out $6.4m
Thousands of people in the UK and around the world could be physically hooked on the antidepressant drug Seroxat, the British sister of Prozac, without knowing it, according to a psychiatrist who was allowed access to the archives of its manufacturers, GlaxoSmithKline.
David Healy, director of the North Wales department of psychological medicine and the UK's foremost expert in antidepressants, found studies in archives in Harlow, Essex, which show that the company, then SmithKline Beecham, realised in the 80s that healthy volunteers were suffering withdrawal symptoms when they stopped taking the drug after only a couple of weeks.
Yet the company has failed to warn patients or doctors, he says, and it has argued that people suffering problems when they stop taking the drug have suffered a recurrence of depression and need to go back on the medication.
Warnings of physical dependency follow the increasing credence given to allegations that the Prozac class of drugs can cause a small minority of people to become violent and kill themselves or others.
Last week a jury in the US ordered GlaxoSmithKline to pay $6.4m (£4.6m) to the family of Donald Schell, 60, who killed his wife, daughter and granddaughter then himself after two days on Seroxat. Two weeks earlier, an Australian judge ruled that another drug in the class, Sertraline, caused David Hawkins to murder his wife and attempt to kill himself.
Dr Healy was given access to the archives during the Schell case and found what he considered alarming evidence of withdrawal problems. One study showed that as many as 85% of the volunteers - who were company employees with no hint of depression - suffered agitation, abnormal dreams, insomnia and other adverse effects.
On average about half the volunteers taking part in a group of studies specifically designed to detect withdrawal problems suffered symptoms which suggest they had become physically dependent on the drug.
Continued Murder, suicide. A bitter aftertaste for the 'wonder' depression drug | UK news | The Guardian
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