Eli Lilley, Traci Johnson and God

[donsu]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=2026&ncid=2026&e=1&u=/latimests/20040402/ts_latimes/agodsendtillalifeunravels

(saw this article at www.bartcop.com)

Traci Johnson believed it was God's plan for her to leave home to attend a tiny Bible college here — and she prayed every day for the Lord to provide for her tuition.

-snip-

Eli Lilly & Co., the pharmaceutical giant headquartered a few miles from Indiana Bible College, was seeking healthy subjects for a live-in clinical drug trial. The 19-year-old freshman told her friends back home in Pennsylvania that the study was her best hope to stay in school.

-snip-

But the students at the Bible college knew all about the trials. They made perfect subjects for studies requiring healthy people — and they were used often, receiving hundreds, even thousands of dollars for a few weeks work.


If accepted into the study, she could make $150 a day for 49 days — more than a year's worth of her school expenses — for taking a drug known as duloxetine, an antidepressant that had already been given to thousands of people and was on the verge of approval by the Food and Drug Administration (news - web sites).

-snip-

In 1972, a Lilly biochemist discovered that a patented chemical, fluoxetine, enhanced the action of the brain chemical serotonin, which affects mood. More testing showed the chemical could dissolve feelings of despair and sadness.

-snip-

And there she hung, feet dangling close to the floor, until a nurse found her body shortly after 8:30 p.m.
-snip-
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this is a long article full of info on Lilley and Traci, the tests and what happened.

bottom line: don't take those mood pills!

[Dogmudgeon]

1. Another L. Ron Hubbard moment?

"Mood pills" have saved millions of people from suicide.

Morphine has addicted millions of people, brought misery and despair and ruin -- and has also delivered millions more from the agony of bodily injury, surgical recovery, and intractible pain.

The fact that SSRIs have suicide as a side-effect is unfortunate; if Eli Lilly knew about it and covered it up, there should be several long prison terms meted out.

Sure, depressed people should have better social networks and a loving society. But if you get three office visits in a three-month period, and the patient has few or no friends, what do you do?

--bkl

[buddy22600]

2. Didn't the FDA recently release a statement

that anti-depressents brought on suicidal urges in many people?

[Az]

3. Basically what happens

Is antidepressants lower resistance to urges. Normally depression causes inaction. Thus reacting to urges is generally considered a good thing. But individuals with recurring thoughts of suicide may decided to act on their particular urge.

[prodigal_green]

4. they can uninhibit a person

SSRIs can suppress inhibitions to a certain degree, which is why they are useful in treating social anxiety. If the suicidal impulse is being inhibited (ironically) by the depression, it can make it easier for the person to go through with it. I do not think SSRIs put suicidal thoughts in an otherwise healthy person. If a person is severely depressed, then he or she needs to be taking the medication under close medical supervision.

Unfortunately, our healthcare system insists on magic bullets, so they only include half of the equation. SSRIs have saved thousands of lives, but patients must be supervised closely and engage in therapy at least at the beginning.