Talking Back to Prozac: What Doctors Won't Tell You About Prozac and the Newer Antidepressants

297 Pages·2014·1.37 MB·English

by  Peter R. Breggin MD

Talking Back to Prozac
What Doctor Won’t Tell You About Today's Most
Controversial Drug
Peter R. Breggin, M.D. and Ginger Ross Breggin
To Phil and Jean Ross,
Our Loving Parents
Acknowledgments

Our assistant, Melissa Magruder, has been indispensable in copyediting and
maintaining and retrieving the complex materials required for the completion of
this book and in handling innumerable daily activities around the office. She has
made this project run smoothly. Chad Alden joined us as an intern at precisely
the moment we needed research assistance and we appreciate his generous help.
We are grateful to our friends who read portions of the manuscript,
especially Kevin McCready and David Cohen, who reviewed it cover to cover,
and offered many valuable suggestions. Helpful comments were made by Robert
Grimm on neurological aspects and David Whitford on statistical issues. We also
thank Paul Sleven for his untiring, admirable legal vetting. We, of course, remain
wholly and exclusively responsible for the final product.
We wish to thank the more than one hundred members of the Board of
Directors and the Advisory Council of the Center for the Study of Psychiatry.
Founded more than twenty years ago by Peter Breggin, this network of medical
and mental health professionals, attorneys, patient advocates, and members of
Congress continues to provide enormous moral and professional support. More
than two dozen board and advisory council members are psychiatrists, and
another dozen are drawn from other medical specialties, including internal
medicine, neurology, and pediatrics. We especially wish to acknowledge John
George and Michael Valentine, co-directors of the Center's new membership
division, Children First!
We are grateful for the mutual support we have shared with groups and
individuals who identify themselves as survivors of psychiatry and psychiatric
drugs. In areas related to this book, we have worked particularly closely with
Guy McConnell, national director of the Prozac Survivors Support Group, Inc.,
and state directors Bonnie Leitsch (Kentucky), Ann Tracy (Utah), and Dwight
Harlor III (Ohio).
This is the third book of ours published by St. Martin's Press, the first two
being Toxic Psychiatry (1991) and Beyond Conflict (1992) by Peter Breggin. It
will be followed by a fourth, The War Against Children (fall 1994), coauthored
by Peter and Ginger Breggin. Barbara Anderson is the very competent,
congenial editor of this book and we look forward to a long relationship with
her.
Our agent, Richard Curtis, supported us from the beginning when it was as
yet difficult to get published. Richard, thanks for your continued help!
This book is co-created, but Peter Breggin did the actual writing, and he
alone is responsible for any observations or opinions on medicine, psychiatry,
the FDA, psychiatric drugs, and pharmaceutical company practices. Ginger
Breggin provided important concepts and directions, edited the entire manuscript
several times, and organized and supervised the vast amount of activity required
to develop the research and background material, to maintain the files, and to
work with resource persons.
The awkward problem of how to refer to the authors in the text has been
resolved by using "I" to refer to Peter Breggin, since it is to his activities as a
physician and psychiatrist that the text most frequently refers. The word "we"
will be used to designate both authors. Ginger Breggin will be referred to by
name when describing her specific activities.
Acronyms of Organizations

AAAS —American Association for the Advancement of Science ADAMHA —
Alcohol, Drug Abuse, and Mental Health Administration (now absorbed into
NIH) AMA—American Medical Association
APA—American Psychiatric Association or American Psychological
Association CH.A.D.D.—Children with Attention-Deficit Disorders DHHS—
Department of Health and Human Services (includes the FDA, the NIH, and the
CDC) FAES—Foundation for Advanced Education in the Sciences FDA—Food
and Drug Administration
GAO-U.S. General Accounting Office HHS-same as DHHS
NAMI—National Alliance for the Mentally 111
NAS—National Academy of Sciences (also see NRC) NIH—National Institutes
of Health NIAA—National Institute of Alcoholism and Alcohol Abuse (formerly
part of ADAMHA; now part of the NIH) NIDA —National Institute of Drug
Abuse (formerly part of ADAMHA; now part of the NIH) NIMH —National
Institute of Mental Health (formerly part of ADAMHA; now part of the NIH)
NRC—National Research Council (part of NAS) NSF—National Science
Foundation
PHS-U.S. Public Health Service
How to Use This Book

First, an important warning:

When trying to withdraw from many psychiatric drugs, patients can develop
serious and even life-threatening emotional and physical reactions. In short,
it is dangerous not only to start taking psychiatric drugs but also can be
hazardous to stop taking them. Therefore, withdrawal from psychiatric
drugs should be done under medical and clinical supervision.

Most books about psychiatric drugs provide the kind of information that
drug advocates and pharmaceutical companies want the public to have. At best,
they offer a watered-down version of information that is at the fingertips of most
physicians and other professionals.
This book is different. It provides information not readily available, even to
most experts in the field. Much of it, in fact, has been systematically withheld
from physicians and patients alike. Nonetheless, this book cannot be used as a
treatment handbook. We suggest instead that you share it with your personal
physician or mental health professional. Almost certainly, he or she will be
unfamiliar with some if not much of what it contains.
We have provided an extensive bibliography that lists every author, article,
or project mentioned in the book. If the reference cannot be located easily by the
name of the author, the numbered chapter note will help you find the source in
the bibliography. The appendix to the book contains information on psychiatric
reform organizations, self-help support groups, therapy resources, legal
resources, and standard sources of drug information.
In most cases we have provided identifying information about the
professionals whose work we cite in the book. Psychiatrists are physicians; they
have medical degrees. As medical doctors, they have the right to prescribe
medications. Some psychiatrists are also trained in psychotherapy or "talking
therapy," but many of them lack these skills. While psychiatrists take leadership
roles in promoting psychiatric drugs, many family physicians and other medical
specialists also prescribe these medications. Psychologists are trained in a
variety of disciplines, including research, psychological testing, and
psychotherapy. They have Ph.D., rather than M.D., degrees and cannot prescribe
medications.
Many biologically oriented psychiatrists argue that medication is the best or
only approach to the problems they diagnose and treat, but there is a great
diversity of opinion about this in the field of mental health and within the public.
While some psychologists are lobbying for the right to prescribe medication,
they have not as yet obtained this dubious power. Like many mental health
professionals, however, some psychologists support the pharmacological
approach that we criticize, while many others do not. In seeking help from
mental health professionals—including psychiatrists, psychologists, clinical
social workers, counselors, and family therapists—it is best to inquire in advance
about their views on psychiatric drugs.
Introduction:1
Science and the FDA Have Confirmed the Findings of this Book;
Even the Drug Companies Have Uncovered No Errors

By Peter R. Breggin, M.D.

How good is the science in this book? How valid and convincing is it—even to
the drug companies that I am criticizing?
I have now been a medical expert in dozens of product liability suits against
pharmaceutical companies, including the manufacturers of drugs examined in
this book: Prozac, Paxil and Zoloft. Most of the lawsuits have centered on the
main issues in this book: antidepressant-induced violence, suicide and mania. In
most of these cases, the plaintiffs or the plaintiffs’ families have hired me after
individuals have committed suicide, perpetrated crimes, or otherwise ruined their
lives while under the influence of an antidepressant.
Most of the antidepressant cases in which I have been an expert have been
settled to the satisfaction of the people who brought the suit against the drug
company. Sometimes the drug companies have given a million, or even many
millions of dollars, to the plaintiffs—of course, always without admitting guilt.
Except for one case that was settled for millions of dollars during the trial2, in no
case has an antidepressant manufacturer chosen to go to court in a case in which
I have been a medical expert. The reason, I believe, is that the science I have
presented is solid and even incontrovertible. The drug companies don’t want the
evidence coming out in open court and they don’t want to risk losing a high-
profile case.
As a result of my work as a medical expert against the drug companies, teams
of opposing lawyers and opposing medical experts have scrutinized my medical
opinions and this book in particular. This high-powered critical assault has been
going on for years and it has turned up no errors in this book. None of the
original book needs correction. It would be difficult to exaggerate how much
financial investment and manpower the drug companies have devoted to
examining Talking Back to Prozac without finding any scientific or factual
errors.
In addition to its unsullied record as a scientific work, Talking Back to Prozac
remains worthwhile reading as a demonstration that objective analyses—i.e.,
analyses done by a scientist independent of the Psychopharmaceutical Complex
—can come to clear conclusions years ahead of the medical establishment with
its ties to the drug companies.
Talking Back to Prozac continues to provide a model for how to go about
examining the actual adverse effects and efficacy of psychiatric drugs, or the
risk/benefit ratio. The rich detail in this book remains relevant and useful to a
variety of researchers as well as to medical experts and attorneys involved in
product liability litigation against pharmaceutical companies.
If you were to read this book by itself, you would know more about the risks of
the newer antidepressants than most physicians. Ideally, you should also read my
two most recent books, Brain-Disabling Treatments in Psychiatry, the Second
Edition (2008) and Medication Madness: A Psychiatrist Exposes the Dangers of
Mood Altering Drugs (2008).
This introduction is based on Chapter 6 of the second edition of Brain-
Disabling Treatments in Psychiatry (2008) and examines the evolution of the
drug labels for SSRI antidepressants including Prozac, Paxil and Zoloft. The
evolution of the drug label allows an in-depth look at the FDA’s acknowledged
hazards of the newer antidepressants. A more detailed analysis of the
background scientific literature can be found in Chapter 7 of Brain-Disabling
Treatments in Psychiatry (2008).
My most recent book, Medication Madness: A Psychiatrist Exposes the
Dangers of Mood-Altering Drugs (2008), presents dozens of new cases of
individuals driven to take out-of-character and sometimes horrendously
destructive actions while under the influence of the newer antidepressants. It
introduces the concept of medication spellbinding which helps to explain how
people fail to appreciate the negative emotional and psychological effects of
psychoactive agents while they are taking them; how they can feel better than
ever when they are in reality doing worse than ever; and how they will
sometimes commit harmful actions that they would never have perpetrated
except for the spellbinding drug effect.

A Huge Market

In recent years, the market for antidepressants has become huge. In the United
States in 2001, an estimated 24.5 million patient visits were made for depression,
with 69% of these visits resulting in prescriptions for SSRIs (Fergusson et al.,