Coroners rampant

SSRI's suicide link-again,

Two Coroners strike blows for the truth. One has been hammered by a Minister out to silence him.

South Cumbria coroner Ian Smith will contact drug authorities because he fears people are killing themselves after taking antidepressants.


  Mr Nigel Woodburn drove into a tree just four days after being prescribed
antidepressants. He was killed at the wheel of his car on June 16, minutes after confessing to his wife he’d had suicidal thoughts. He had been prescribed Citalopram after becoming depressed through ill health. His heart-broken family said they were not aware of the suicide risks associated with antidepressants until the issue was highlighted at Mr Woodburn’s inquest this week.

  Mr Smith told Tuesday’s inquest he knew of several other suspected suicides involving the same group of antidepressants, known as selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitors (SSRIs).

  He said: “I have to say this is probably the fifth, if not sixth inquest I’ve heard within a period of three years when somebody either just going on to Citalopram or Seroxat, or coming off it, have killed themselves one way or another, totally out of the blue, totally without expectation, without a history of suicidal thoughts in the past.”


  Mr Smith said “I think what happened to Mr Woodburn was in part as a result of the drugs he was taking. There has been publicity about these drugs recently, particularly relating to younger adults, and it does seem to me it’s something that needs to be highlighted.”

The Wiltshire coroner has stirred the wrath of defence secretary, Des Browne. He has gone to the high court in an attempt to prevent coroners criticizing the Ministry of Defence during military inquests.

Government lawyers yesterday presented papers to the Royal Courts of Justice asking for a court order banning coroners from accusing the MoD of "serious failings" when recording verdicts on service personnel deaths.

The defence secretary claimed the phrase was tantamount to blaming the government for the deaths of servicemen and might be used against the MoD by families seeking to sue for compensation. Des, what are you doing? Who sent the soldiers into a mission impossible in Helmand? Who said he hoped that the Helmand Mission would ‘be over in three years without a shot being fired.’ It was the Government who cannot be exonerated for the blame for their deaths.

Relatives of servicemen and women killed in Iraq and Afghanistan condemned the government for hampering inquests but David Masters, the Wiltshire coroner, said he and his colleagues would not be "deflected from conducting full, frank and fearless inquiries into deaths they are entrusted to investigate – those of people serving their country when they are killed abroad".

"If something needs to be said, I'll say it," he added. While parliament is still reluctant to face the truth on the 89 deaths from SSRI in Afghanistan, coroners are doing our work.

Imposing a gag on them would be an outrage.

Comments

[greg]

Depressed people tend to commit suicide, so establishing cause and effect for anti-depressants is going to be pretty tough, no?

Agree with you however that they tend to be handed out like sweeties to people with only mild depression with probably no benefit.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/10/health/psychology/10depre.html

Incidentally, as an expat Newportonian, I'd like to hear more about the Severn Barrage - it was being talked about when I was a child, seems to have made a comeback in the past few years!

Keep up the good work.

Regards

Greg

[paulflynn]

Thanks Greg, It's a fair point. But there is a universal view that taking SSRIs' makes the problem WORSE in the early stages. Now we know that the drug companies suppressed news of negative results, there is no case for prescribing SSRIs over the wholly safe and benficial alterative of exercise, coping stategies and CBT.

[greg]

To be fair to the drug companies (or at least the pharmacology lecturers in universities I studied in both the early 90's and again from 2005), it was always made clear that there was a 4-6 week increase in risk of suicide during the early stages of therapy.

The 'they don't work on most people' argument is probably more powerful in my opinion!

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn13375-prozac-does-not-work-in-most-depressed-patients.html

Very good blog btw, only discovered recently, shall keep on reading from afar!

Regards

Greg

[paulflynn]

Thanks. there is really hope of using tidal power - something we have in abundance in Newport and the severn Estuary.

[Matt]

The old excuse that people who are in favor of drug treatment for depression, or any other mental phenomenon, like to use is: "well they were depressed (psychotic, bi-polar, schizophrenic, etc) before they started the drug therapy, of course they committed suicide (murder, felonious crimes, ec)." But the truth is the diagnosis of depression, psychosis, etc. is totally subjective and has no basis in reality. The truth is they were taking a drug that was foriegn to the human body. The truth is the side effects of said drugs include homocidal and suicidal throughts and actions.

Anyone can tell someone else they are depressed and suggest he take a pill to handle it. It doesn't take a degree to do it either.

People are killing themselves and others because of the drugs they are taking, or had taken, and people either are seeing the reality of the side effects of those drugs or are excusing them for some arbitrary diagnosis that has no biological or scientific basis.

[Paul Flynn]

Thanks Matt. There has been a dreadful history of bad medicine for mild depression - even though it's an inevitable part of the human experience for all of us. Freud dispensed cocaine, then it was bromide which created its own psychosis, then tranquilisers, benzos, tri-cyclics and now SSRIs.

All were promoted as beneficial and free from risk of dependency. None were.

[Tony]

Spot on with comments on Des Browne - it just smacks of him and the MOD running scared. I notice that the coroner that has made the most 'trouble' has not had his contract renewed and will move on - just what is Des Browne afraid of ?

[Paul Flynn]

Is that is true Tony and a coroner was sacked, it should be exposed. Coroners go one for ever. Glad to see the LibDems took up this at Business Questions yesterday.

[Tony]

No he was not sacked as such, just his contract not renewed.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/oxfordshire/6335701.stm

[JS Via]

We are currently enduring a "dark ages" of scientific misunderstanding of the human mind and brain. It will come to light - as it already is - that these drugs are based on NO science and are a WRONG approach to the address of mental and spiritual travail. These drugs should be banned utterly and the companies heartlessly profiteering - while creating chaos, death and violence (including school shootings)- should be brought to justice under the law.

[paulflynn]

I agree with much of that JS Via. My argument is not withe science which has achieved great things - it's the marketing of he products that is wicked.