Drugawareness & Directors Featured in LA Times

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atracyphd2

Thu, 23 Sep 2004 15:39:22 EDT

Drugawareness & Directors Featured in LA Times

 

 

Today's LA Times featured our site and several of our directors who

have dedicated so much time and effort to making sure that what

happened to their children does not happen to others. Without their

tireless efforts many more could have died.

 

I am so proud of them all and the work they have done as they have

fought to let the world know what really happened to their children

and is currently happening to so many other children as a result of

these deadly antidepressants!

 

Dr. Tracy

______________

 

Ann Blake Tracy, Ph.D.,

Executive Director, International Coalition For Drug Awareness

Author: Prozac: Panacea or Pandora? - Our Serotonin Nightmare & audio

tape on safe withdrawal: " Help! I Can't Get Off My Antidepressant! "

Order Number: 800-280-0730

Website: www.drugawareness.org

 

 

 

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-depress23sep23,1,29161=

04.story?coll=la-headlines-nation

 

Parents' Crusade Forces Dangers of Antidepressants Into Spotlight

 

Too many found out too late about suicide and violent behavior risks

in children and demanded a response from the government.

 

By Elizabeth Shogren, Times Staff Writer

 

WASHINGTON ­ Seven years ago, Mark Miller's 13-year-old son, Matt, who

loved to ride bikes and play video games and excelled at making

origami animals, hanged himself in his bedroom closet. His parents

were devastated and mystified.

 

" He had never threatened suicide, " Miller recalled. " The only thing

that had changed that week in his life was the medication. "

 

Seven days before his death, Matt had begun taking Zoloft, a popular

antidepressant prescribed by his doctor.

 

His father, struggling to understand what had happened, dived into the

Internet, where he found books on the risks of antidepressants. He was

soon convinced that the drug had caused Matt's death.

 

Miller helped start a website about the risks of the antidepressants.

He wrote to the Food and Drug Administration and his congressman to

enlist the government's help.

 

At first, no one took him seriously.

 

" I always felt people looked at me and said, 'That poor man, he's a

bereaved father and he wants to blame it on the medication,' " Miller

recalled.

 

But he gradually found other parents with stories like his. What began

as a lonely mission grew into a crusade of about a dozen enraged

parents motivated by the belief that their children were ripped from

them by the drugs that were supposed to help them.

 

Finally, the government listened.

 

Last week, two FDA advisory panels recommended that the agency require

companies to place prominent warnings ­ the kind boxed in dark lines ­

that there is a risk that antidepressants can cause suicidal behavior

in children.

 

Doctors wrote an estimated 15 million prescriptions for nine

antidepressants for children and teenagers last year.

 

Congressional committees are investigating whether the drugs are safe

and whether the drug companies or the FDA improperly disguised or

underestimated the drugs' risks to children. The FDA will also explore

whether the drugs promote suicidal tendencies in adults and violent

behavior in patients of all ages.

 

The FDA recently found that in clinical trials involving nine

antidepressants taken by more than 4,000 children ages 6 to 18,

hundreds experienced suicidal behavior or thoughts, although none

killed themselves.

 

Miller said he and other parents like him had finally received

" vindication and validation of what we've been saying for so long. "

 

For years, as government agencies ignored his pleas, Miller was driven

by guilt ­ he had told his son to take the pills ­ and sustained by his

conversations with people seeking help because their loved ones had

become suicidal or violent while taking antidepressants.

 

" I always thought if I could just reach one more person before his son

or daughter did something tragic, it would be worth it. It has become

a very bittersweet labor of love, " Miller said.

 

Tom Woodward of suburban Philadelphia found Miller's website, but not

until it was too late.

 

When Julie Woodward, 17, was going through a " rough patch " last year,

a psychiatrist urged her to take Zoloft, which he assured the family

was mild, safe and effective. Seven days later, her father found her

body hanging in the garage.

 

The Woodwards' next-door neighbor, Doug Ross, a neuroscientist, turned

to the Internet, where he learned that just a month earlier, the FDA

had issued a warning that Paxil, another popular antidepressant, might

be linked to increased risk of suicidal thoughts and attempts in young

people.

 

It did not take long, Woodward recalled, before he and his wife were

" absolutely convinced that the drug had done this, " referring to

Julie's death.

 

The Woodwards found Miller's website, http://www.drugawareness.org .

They had long talks with Miller and other parents about the similar

circumstances surrounding their children's deaths.

 

The families grew convinced that some drug companies had suppressed

clinical trial data suggesting a link between the drugs and suicidal

behavior. They resolved to make the government do something.

 

Today, they regularly share information about new scientific studies

and plot strategies to push Congress to act.

 

" We've become very, very close to a lot of these other families, " Tom

Woodward said. " We are bound together by a parent's worst nightmare. "

 

Most of the families met for the first time in person in February at a

hotel bar in Bethesda, Md., where one FDA advisory panel was scheduled

to hear their stories the next day.

 

Their accounts helped persuade the panels to urge the agency to warn

doctors and families about the risk of suicide ­ and of the need to

vigilantly monitor patients. But at that point, the FDA stopped short

of suggesting that the drugs caused the suicidal behavior.

 

One of the most tireless members of the parents' group is Lisa Van

Syckel of New Jersey, whose daughter, 15-year-old Michelle, was put on

Paxil after having been misdiagnosed in 2000 as anorexic and

depressed. It turned out that Michelle had Lyme disease.

 

But while on the antidepressant, Michelle, who had never attempted to

harm herself or others, slammed her brother's head into a wall, went

after another teenager with a baseball bat and attempted to take her

own life. Van Syckel came across Miller's drug awareness website in

2002, as she was trying to ease her daughter off Paxil. Soon she was

spending most of her time trying to get someone in power to warn other

parents of the dangers of antidepressants. Most political leaders

ignored her letters; one exception was Sen. Charles E. Schumer

(D-N.Y.), who asked her to join him at a news conference in New York

calling on the FDA to discourage the use of Paxil by children.

 

Then she turned to her own congressman, Rep. Michael Ferguson

(R-N.J.). Ferguson became a major force behind a House subcommittee's

investigation of the safety of the antidepressants and the role of

drug companies and the FDA. " It was [Van Syckel] who really got my

attention and prompted me to take an active and leading role, "

Ferguson said. It was not easy, he said, to get members of

Congress to focus on the issue during an election year, when the

country was already absorbed by terrorism and the war in Iraq.

 

But, he said, " we need to investigate this particular issue and get to

the bottom of why this is having such an enormous impact on our kids.

That cause has been moved forward light-years because of the powerful

personal stories of people like Lisa Van Syckel. "

 

Pressure from the families and members of Congress helped prod the FDA

to have its advisory committees assess data from clinical trials of

children on antidepressants.

 

Even the drug companies were impressed. " The families had an impact on

helping this to move forward, " said Dr. Joseph Camardo, medical

director for Wyeth Pharmaceuticals North America, which makes one of

the popular antidepressants.

" I thought it was a great example of how the public can and should be

heard. "

 

The families were gratified when the advisory panels recommended last

week that the FDA put emphatic warnings on the drugs. Mark Miller, who

launched the crusade seven years earlier, called it " a wonderful first

step. " He added: " I didn't think it would happen in my lifetime. "

 

The parents will continue to press the FDA to extend the warnings to

adults and to add a warning that the drugs cause some people to become

hostile or even homicidal. They also want Congress to hold the FDA and

the drug companies accountable for failing to warn people sooner.

 

" I can't bear to think of the lives that have been lost in the

intervening years, " Miller said.

 

* To visit group on the web, go to:

drugawareness/