The anti-depressant medication Paxil® was and is a tremendous cash cow for giant drug firm
GlaxoSmithKline (GSK). Paxil even has its own separate Internet domain and
web site.
During 2004, a number of troubling questions were raised about Paxil, and about the similar anti-depressant product
Zoloft®, a product of
Pfizer, which, in its own words, "boasts the industry's largest pharmaceutical R & D organization: Pfizer Global Research and Development."
To cover this story,
Etopia Media Medical News Network conducted extensive interviews with the lead attorney in the massive class action lawsuit against Paxil, with a woman whose husband allegedly killed himself after taking Zoloft for a short time, and with a reporter who covered a case in South Carolina of a young boy who allegedly killed his grandparents due to the effects of both Paxil and Zoloft.
You can read about these cases and listen to these interviews below.
Also included here (since it involves Zoloft-maker Pfizer) is a link to an article detailing the $430 million settlement to which Pfizer agreed in order to resolve charges that it too-enthusiastically marketed Neurontin®, a prescription drug explicitly approved by the Food & Drug Administration (FDA), according to
a press release from the National Association of Attorneys General (NAAG) "only for secondary treatment of epilepsy and for treatment of pain associated with shingles," but not "for various “off-label” indications – including various psychiatric disorders, back pain, and headache – even though the scientific evidence supporting the use of Neurontin for these conditions was lacking," as Pfizer was alleged to have done..
7-20-04: South Carolina Reporter Discusses the Christopher Pittman Case and Related Subjects (Etopia Media Medical News Network #9)
6-16-04: Karen Barth Menzies, of Baum Hedlund, Discusses Pending Drug Litigation and Related Matters (Etopia Media Medical News Network #6)
6-11-04: Evidence is mounting that the bloom is off the selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitors and the corporations that make and sell them
6-7-04: Pfizer settles multi-state Neurontin "off-label" marketing suit for $430 million
5-25-04: Zoloft Widow Explains How She Became One (Etopia Media Medical News #2)
