MEDICAL DRUG DEATHS, PROZAC AND MURDER

APRIL 19, 2007. INTRODUCTION----Let?s look at what even conventional medical sources have to say about the effects of pharmaceuticals on the population.

I have posted numbers before. But it?s worth a brief review. I?m now quoting from ?Drug Industry Scandal a ?Crisis,?? written by Ritt Goldstein and published by the Inter Press Service on October 2, 2004:

?The highly respected British medical journal, 'The Lancet', published a 1998 study by University of Toronto researchers showing that adverse drug reactions (ADRs) are ?a leading cause of death.? It noted the study examined ?only ADRs attributed to drugs that were 'properly prescribed and administered'. The study's authors suggested, ?many adverse reactions result from the use of drugs with unavoidably high toxicity,? and that medicine ?cannot expect to reduce this burden until drug-induced illness is actually defined as a problem.?

?In the May 1 2002 issue of the 'Journal of the American Medical Association' (JAMA), five physicians from Harvard Medical School reported adverse drug reactions ?are believed to be a leading cause of death in the United States??

?Lexchin, who consults on pharmaceutical policy for groups such as the World Health Organisation (WHO) and governments including Australia and Canada, estimated that in the last five years, ?biased research, suppression of negative studies, over-publication of positive studies and, all their (the pharmaceutical industry's) promotional activities, which includes their funding of continuing medical education,? has meant, yearly, ?one death per 1,500 people? in the general population. That translates into 6,670 deaths a year for every 10 million of a nation's populace. For perspective, about 3,000 people died in the 9/11 terrorist attacks on New York and the Pentagon.

?In contrast, the 1998 'Lancet' article viewed it likely that adverse drug reactions ?could account for more than 100,000 (in-hospital alone) deaths in the USA each year, making them the fourth commonest cause of death.? The figures are likely ?much the same? throughout the developed world, it added.?

End of Goldstein quotes.

In my last article on the Virginia murders, I traced some of the effects of the antidepressant Paxil. Here are a few descriptions relating to Prozac.

The following summaries of court cases are offered by David Healy, at his site, www.healyprozac.com Healy is a British psycho-pharmacologist and the author of the definitive work on the history of antidepressants. He is also the author of Let Them Eat Prozac.

Fentress et al v Shea Communications et al
This was the trial following the murder spree of Joseph Wesbecker at his place of work in Louisville, Kentucky, which led to the death of 8 employees at the Standard Gravure plant there followed by his own suicide. Wesbecker had been on Prozac. An account of the legal manoeuvrings before, during and after the trial can be found in Chapter 4 of Let Them Eat Prozac.

Forsyth v Eli Lilly and Company
After 10 days on Prozac, William Forsyth stabbed his wife, June, 15 times before impaling himself on a serrated kitchen knife up on a chair. The remaining Forsyth family took out an action against Eli Lilly, the makers of Prozac. See Chapters 5 and 7 of Let Them Eat Prozac.

Tobin v SmithKline Beecham Pharmaceuticals
With a prior history of a poor response to an SSRI, Don Schell was put on Paxil. Forty-eight hours later he put three bullets from two different guns through his wife, Rita?s, head, as well as through his daughter, Deborah?s, head and through his granddaughter, Alyssa?s, head before shooting himself through the head. See Chapter 10 of Let Them Eat Prozac.

End of Healy passage.

I know these are grisly descriptions. But they convey what can happen to people on this drug. As of this writing, we do not know whether the accused Virginia Tech murderer, Cho, was on one of these antidepressants. But if he was---even if only briefly---he could have sustained the kind of damage that eventually made him translate his fantasies into action.

I make this speculation: I believe that right now, in Virginia, hired hands of several drug companies are carrying on their own investigation and mission. They are trying to find out what psychiatric drugs, if any, Cho had been on. They want to minimize fallout. Commercial fallout. I also suspect that, behind the scenes, drug-company operatives are making connections they hope will be able to deflect the police from looking too carefully at this drug issue.

Potentially, billions of dollars are at stake. For drug companies, what do 33 deaths matter, when put up against all that money?

JON RAPPOPORT www.nomorefakenews.com

The news on the left is by Jon Rappoport.

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