Jury Awards $6.4 Million in Killings Tied to Drug: ‘A Wyoming jury has awarded $6.4 million to the family of a man who killed three relatives and himself after taking
the antidepressant Paxil.
Though many lawsuits have claimed that antidepressants in the same class of drugs, which includes Prozac and Zoloft,
have caused suicidal or violent behavior, this is the first case a plaintiff has won, lawyers in the case said.
Charles F. Preuss, a lawyer for the manufacturer, GlaxoSmithKline said the verdict on Wednesday was a surprise.
“This issue was raised in the early 90’s, and since that time all the scientific articles have concluded that these
antidepressants do not cause suicide or homicide or suicidal thoughts,” Mr. Preuss said.’ New York Times
When I heard that this suit was going to trial, I wrote here about how ridiculous it seemed. This verdict is just wrongheaded. Without establishing that the agitation was caused by the medication (which he had just begun the previous day) as opposed to the patient’s underlying psychiatric distress, the jury’s sentimental judgment on the pharmaceutical company’s liability seems to revolve around “the company’s failure to sufficiently warn doctors and patients that the effects of
the drug could include agitation and violence,” as the plaintiffs’ attorneys argued. They’re clearly going for the “deep pockets”; I’m no apologist for the pharmaceutical industry but the liability on this account, if any, belongs with the prescribing physician, who has the responsibility to be sufficiently informed about the medications (s)he uses, to provide informed consent to the patient to whom (s)he prescribes, and to adequately assess and followup.
It is one of my pet peeves that, as in this case, internists and other primary care MDs without sufficient mental health subtlety take lives into their hands by prescribing so readily for “depression.” The rest of the medical profession feels that what psychiatrists do is sufficiently arcane that comraderie with them is difficult; IMHO that should be more reason, not less, to refer rather than avoiding referring and trying to irresponsibly manage disorders for which they are ill-equipped and out of their depth (usually, with the usual medical hubris, without even realizing that that is so!) The drug manufacturers’ blame, if any, lies in targeting the primary care MDs so heavily in their marketing. If you promote the SSRI antidepressants as so easy to prescribe that any fool can do it, then any fool will. I emphasize that I know nothing about the specifics of the doctor’s actions in this case; my comments are generic. I’m mostly concerned because of the effect I’m going to see the publicity over this case having in my practice — on patients’ willingness to accept effective, safe and urgently needed treatments.
Juxtapose the above with the tragic mass killing of 1st and 2nd grade schoolchildren in a suburban Japanese elementary school. The “apparently deranged man” responsible for the act had an arrest record for attempting to poison students at another elementary school but had not been prosecuted because he was psychiatrically disturbed. New York Times
