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Stupid Pills
May 20, 2002
SO-CALLED NON-ADDICTIVE ANTIDEPRESSANTS, INCLUDING PAXIL
http://www.redflagsweekly.com/elliot/2002_may20.htmlBy Mark Elliot
Did you ever take a psychiatric medication? If yes, then, like me, you were
probably perplexed by the feeling of indifference and apathy that comes with
taking an effective antidepressant drug.
In 1968, when I was 14, I was far from a normal teenager. I suffered from severe
depression and was given the miracle antidepressant drug of the day - Valium.
The doctors told me and my parents there was nothing to fear because it was
non-addictive and had no severe side effects. I was told it was so safe to use
that I could take as much as I wanted without fear of overdose. And if the
doctor told you something, it had to be true, didn't it?
Of course, I now know that Valium and other benzodiazepine tranquilizers are
horribly addictive drugs. "Stupid pills" are what one survivor of psychiatric
abuse called her medications. She was taking drugs prescribed by court order
following her divorce - related to continued visitation rights with her
children. "My husband got an order that I had to take the pills to see the
kids," she says. "They made it impossible for me to think clearly. But to keep
the visitation rights, I have to keep taking them."
Nowadays, it's unusual to find someone in a crisis who is not taking
antidepressants. Court orders are common in divorces and child custody cases.
But, you also hear about them in criminal trials - even before verdicts are
announced. Judges seem to be placated by those magic words: The defendant is on
prescribed antidepressant medication.
I've learned to be a skeptic about so-called non-addictive antidepressants. And
it's good to be skeptical. Five class action lawsuits were announced last week
against GlaxoSmithKline, the manufacturer of the best selling antidepressant
drug Paxil. Bonnie North of Barrie, Ontario is the representative claimant in
one of the lawsuits alleging that the manufacturer failed to adequately notify
the medical community, the public, and the consuming public that there were
severe withdrawal effects upon discontinuing Paxil. There are further
allegations that the medication, contrary to advertising claims, is actually
addictive. "Insomuch as you go through withdrawal effects" she says, "that is to
me implicit that there is some addictive propensity to the medication."
North describes herself as a person who has chronic depression. "I have suffered
from depression for my entire adult life and for the last twelve years have been
on an antidepressant medication of some kind." She says she started taking Paxil
in November of 1998 and started discontinuing it in July 2001. "Because I had
been on antidepressant medication for all of these years I had put off having a
second child. The only time I had been antidepressant-free was when I was
pregnant with my first child, and my doctors kept telling me there was no rush.
By the time I reached my early forties I decided that If I was going to try to
have another baby I wasn't going to be on medication."
(New research released at a pediatric meeting in Baltimore last week by Toronto
researchers suggests Paxil in pregnancy is linked to complications. According to
the study, Paxil did not increase the risk of birth defects when taken during
any trimester. However, 12 infants born to 55 women who took the drug late in
pregnancy had complications that required prolonged hospitalization. Nine of the
babies had respiratory distress, two had hypoglycemia (abnormally low blood
sugar) and one had jaundice--a yellowing of the skin due to reduced liver
function. Symptoms which are similar to what Bonnie North and others detail in
their lawsuits).
North says when she went to her family doctor he explained how she should taper
Paxil. "I asked him specifically if there were any side-effects that I should be
aware of. He told me that as long as I was tapering the medication I had nothing
to worry about."
North says she was never told that Paxil was addictive. "Quite the contrary, I
was told it was non-habit forming." She says, "I didn't get a high' from the
drug: it wasn't like a hallucinogenic or anything where I would crave more of
the medication. But, what happened in my case was that whatever beneficial
effects I had from the medication eventually wore off and then I would go to my
doctor and ask for an increase in the dosage. So gradually over a period of
three years I went from 20 milligrams to forty milligrams. And I'm aware of
people who are on much higher doses of Paxil than that."
According to North, "the drug wore off, which to me says that there is some kind
of habituation going on there."
She says she expects the suit to drag on in the courts for years and she's
probably right. Paxil is currently the best selling antidepressant in North
America making billions for the company and this past week it's gotten another
endorsement in Canada as a treatment for Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).
PTSD, by one definition is : a psychiatric disorder characterized by an
impending sense of fear or hopelessness.
Sounds remarkably like what Bonnie North and others say about the feelings they
experienced when they tried to quit Paxil, doesn't it?
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