Reply #58: Scientologists? [View All]

[Madame X]

Are you serious? Scientologists are not the only people who are criticizing these drugs.

The reason these lawsuits disappeared is that the drug companies wanted them to. They settled out of court, even the high profile cases like Del Shannon and Phil Hartman & his wife.

They finally ran across a family that wouldn't take their money and this forced them to produce documents from the original clinical trials that proved they were aware of the more serious nature of the side effects and chose to manipulate the studies in order to get their drugs approved.

If you would research the topic a little more thoroughly instead of accusing those of us who are a little angry at once again, being endangered by big business in the name of the almighty dollar, then perhaps you might know of the Forsythe case and the internal memos it exposed.

You also might know that the memos also exposed their strategy of ignoring any concerns about possible problems with the drug, to the discomfort of some of the company's own scientist. They basically used lies and subterfuge to get around doing a study the FDA demanded, instead producing their data from a meta-analysis of their previous clinical trials, including data that the FDA had already rejected. They did not mention anything about benzodiazapams they used to counteract the severe anxiety in their clinical trials, nor did they mention the akathisia or the patients who committed suicide.

Sound fair to you?