Pills gave Plath suicidal feelings, says an AP wire story describing the contents of some of Ted Hughes’ letters recently made public after their acquisition by the British Library.

According to the published extracts, Hughes (said) “the key factor” in Plath’s death was that she mistakenly swallowed the wrong kind of pills, which gave her suicidal feelings.

Hughes did not name the drug, but wrote that Plath had taken it once before while living in America and had suffered an adverse reaction, the newspaper said.

Don’t get me started again on the vilification of antidepressants as the cause of suicide among the severely and, unfortunately sometimes fatally, depressed, about which I wrote most recently when the manufacturer of paroxetine (Paxil) was successfully sued by the family of a depressed murderer taking that medication. As you know, it is usually more accurate to point the finger at the way in which these medications are prescribed and monitored. In fact, in this case “the anti-depressant was sold under a different brand name in Britain and prescribed for Plath by her doctor, who did not know the effect they would have on her, the Sunday Telegraph said.” More to the point, could Hughes be rationalizing about the fact that Plath ended her life within months of his leaving her? Salon