Glaxo-Smith-Kline Settles Paxil Suit Out of
Court
http://www.counterpunch.org/giombetti0723.html
July 23, 2002
Glaxo Raises White Flag, Settles Paxil Trial Appeal, and Pays Up
by Rick Giombetti
In a bombshell comparable to the recent belated revelation of the disaster that
hormone replacement therapy has been, I have learned that Paxil manufacturer
Glaxo-Smith-Kline (GSK) has secretly settled its appeal of the ruling in the
Paxil trial last year.
GSK was sued in federal district court in Cheyenne by family members of Donald
Schell, the Gillette, Wyoming man who killed his wife, daughter, granddaughter
and then himself on February 13, 1998 after two days on the pharmaceutical
giant's anti-anxiety/depression drug Paxil. The plaintiff's position was that
Paxil was the primary cause of Donald Schell's actions in the murder-suicide.
The jury agreed and the judge in the trial rejected GSK's challenge of the
validity of the scientific data presented to the jury by the plaintiff's. As a
public service I will be publishing the crucial expert testimony and cross
examination of British psychiatrist and psychiatric historian David Healy soon.
GSK appealed the verdict in the case in Denver, but recently gave up, I have
been told by Healy. The deal in the appeal settlement GSK made with the
plaintiff's calls for the company getting all of its documents back, and a set
of confidentiality statements from the plaintiffs side to not release anymore
details of the case not already in the public domain. This is an important
development in the history of psychiatric medicine. The jury verdict forced GSK
to cave in to the demands of the Medicines Control Agency, the British
government agency that regulates prescription drugs, that it place a suicide
warning on Paxil. GSK has had to place a suicide warning on Paxil in Britain for
about a year now. Now the question remains will this same warning ever make it
over to this side of the Atlantic, with as much publicity as the hormone
replacement story has gotten? Not likely, I believe, but I hope I am wrong.
Even though there isn't a widely publicized suicide warning being given for
Paxil, or any other drug in its class, known as "Selective Serotonin Reuptake
Inhibitors," or "SSRI's," it's not like there is a complete information black
out about these newer generation psychiatric drugs in consumer prescription drug
guides.
For example, in the recently published 10th edition of The Pill Book, it warns
patients taking SSRI's (i.e. Celexa, Luvox, Paxil, Prozac and Zoloft) that "The
possibility of suicide exists in severely depressed patients and may be present
until the condition is significantly improved. Severely depressed people should
be allowed to carry only small quantities of SSRI's to limit the risk of
overdose." The term "overdose" can just as easily be read as "killing
themselves." Also, "As many as 1/3 of people taking an SSRI experience anxiety,
sleepnessness and nervousness." In other words all the symptoms that can push a
depressed person over the edge and into a suicide attempt. Finally, the recently
published 5th edition of The Physicians' Desk Reference Pocket Guide to
Prescription Drugs warns patients consdering taking the SSRI known as Zoloft
"May also cause mental or emotional symptoms such as: Abnormal dreams or
thoughts, aggressiveness, exagerated feeling well-being, depersonalization
("unreal" feeling), hallucinations, impaired concentration, memory loss,
paranoia, rapid mood shifts, SUICIDAL THOUGHTS, tooth-grinding, WORSENED
DEPRESSION (emphasis is the authors)."
Now why on Earth are pharmaceutical companies allowed to get away with marketing
these drugs as "anti-depresants," or "anti-anxiety" agents when they can produce
in patients exactly what they are supposd to treat at such high rates? This is
the deeper question about the mass marketing of these drugs the mass media is
simply avoiding by a combination of cowardice, laziness and just outright
ignorance in reporting on these issues.
Rick Giombetti is a freelance writer who. lives in Seattle. Visit
his website at:
http://rjgiombetti.blogspot.com/. He can be reached at:
rickjgio@speakeasy.net
