Let Them Eat Prozac: The Unhealthy Relationship Between the Pharmaceutical Industry and Depression 9780814790915

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LETTHEM EAT PROZAC

MEDICINE, CULTURE, AND HISTORY Series Editor: Andrea Tone Let Them Eat Prozac The Unhealthy Relationship between the Pharmaceutical Industry and Depression David Healy

DAVID HEALY

LET THEM EAT PROZAC The Unhealthy Relationship between the Pharmaceutical Industry and Depression

New York University Press

•

NewYork and London

NEWYORK UNIVERSITY PRESS

New York and London www.nyupress.org © 2004 by New York University All rights reserved

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Healy, David, MRC Psych. Let them eat Prozac : the unhealthy relationship between the pharmaceutical industry and depression I David Healy. p. em. -(Medicine, Culture, and History) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-8147-3669-6 (cloth: alk. paper) 1. Serotonin uptake inhibitors. 2. Fluoxetine. 3. Depression, Mental-Chemotherapy. 4. Psychotropic drugs industry. [DNLM: 1. Fluoxetine-adverse effects. 2. Depressive Disorderdrug therapy. 3. Drug Industry-ethics. 4. Fluoxetine-therapeutic use. QV77.5 H434L 2004] I. Title. II. Series. 2004 RM332.H423 616.85'27061-dc22 2004002297 New York University Press books are printed on acid-free paper, and their binding materials are chosen for strength and durability.

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

For Justin Whose ability to get to the heart of the matter I've tried to copy

Carpenter's Boat The new wood as old as carpentry Rounding the Jar buoy, wild Steel fighting in the sea, carpenter, Carpenter, Carpenter and other things, the monstrous welded seams Plunge and drip in the seas, carpenter, Carpenter, how wild the planet is. -George Oppen, 1962

Contents

Acknowledgments

ix

Preface: Under the Thundercloud of a Common Experience

xi

1

Introduction: Before Prozac

40

Take One 2 Events in Kentucky

64

3 Down the Barrel of a Lawyer

87

4 Market Force

103

5 A Pacific Fault Line

129

6 Kafka's Castle

150

7 Experiment at the End of the Millennium

174

8 The Plots Thicken

194

9 The Tort Wars

224 254

10 Let Them Eat Prozac

Epilogue: Anecdotal Deaths

284

Notes

289

Index

341

About the Author

351 vii

Acknowledgments

I have always tried to fit my acknowledgments into a transport metaphor. At one point it looked as if the only metaphor that would do for this book was a solo skiff on a whitewater river, or a battered raft complete with bewildered souls who had lost children, parents, partners, or friends. But things changed, and this book now owes more to the efforts of others than anything else I've written. These have not been efforts to check the grammar or the facts but rather real risk-taking by many people. Among the thousands whose lives have been torn apart by SSRI antidepressants were Tim Tobin, Bill and Susan Forsyth, Linda Hurcombe, and Fiona Lindsay. Of the many who have learned what academic freedom really means, those on the same bit of river as I included Nancy Olivieri, Brenda Callie, Helen Chan, Alison Hudgins, Rhonda Love, Peter Durie, and John Dick. While most of us floundered, a few who had been there before knew what to do. These included Cindy Hall, Karen Barth, Skip Murgatroyd, Andy Vickery, Rhonda Hawkins, Nancy Zettler, Jim Turk, Rosemary Morgan, Peter Rosenthal, Kike and Charlie Roach. There were others, but these stood out. Downriver-when the going got really wild, and no one should have even thought about helping out-Tom Ban, Ned Shorter, Cyril Greenland, Trudo Lemmens, Mona Gupta, Bruce Charlton, and Charles Medawar not only thought about helping but also came on board, and without their contributions the journey would have ended far earlier. Many people managed to throw lines to the raft at critical points, keeping it on course. These included Julie Axelrod, Ross Baldessarini, Raymond Battegay, Per Bech, German Berrios, Tom Bolwig, Arvid Carlsson, Gaston Castellanos, Jonathan Cole, Leon Eisenberg, Joel Elkes, Giovanni Fava, Max Fink, Alfred Freedman, Peter Gaszner, Abraham Halpern, Turan ltil, Gordon Johnson, Joseph Knoll, Toshihiro Kobayakawa, Brian Leonard, Isaac Marks, Robin Murray, David Nutt, ix

x

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Merton Sandler, Mogens Schou, Pierre Simon, Solomon Snyder, Costas Stefanis, Fridolin Sulser, Gabor Ungvari, and Herman van Praag. I also got huge amounts of help from Carl Elliott, David Antonuccio, Elizabeth Young, Richard Tranter, Fran