June 18, 2005
Two years ago Woody Witzak hanged himself in his garage only days
after starting on the Prozac clone, Zoloft, for insomnia. His wife,
Kim, has filed a wrongful death suit against Pfizer for her husband's
senseless death and has fought a very valiant and tireless battle in
raising awareness about Woody's death and the dangers of
SSRI antidepressants.
Karen Barth Menzies of the Los Angeles law firm, Baum Hedlund,
filed a suit on Kim's behalf against Pfizer in May 2004.
A motion by Pfizer is pending to dismiss the lawsuit on the
grounds that Minnesota state law cannot supersede the FDA's authority
to regulate drug safety. Witczak, with the court assistance of
state Attorney General Mike Hatch, contends that Pfizer failed to
sufficiently warn users of Zoloft about the suicide connection.
A 1991 Pfizer document, for example, reported how a 52-year-old
patient "became acutely suicidal" 13 days after he started
taking sertraline (Zoloft) and that his condition improved once he
stopped taking the drug.
But Pfizer, and all of these SSRI manufacturers, had to have known
about the suicide connection to their drugs LONG before this. My book,
Prozac: Panacea or Pandora? – Our Serotonin Nightmare,
is packed full of studies indicating that when you impair a patient's
ability to metabolize serotonin, thus allowing serotonin to build to
higher levels (the precise so called "therapeutic effect" of
antidepressants), you produce impulsive murder and/or suicide along
with a whole host of horrific and deadly side effects. That research
goes back over fifty years!! When is the FDA going to pay attention
to all of that research?
The article also states: "Among the Zoloft cases handled by
the Baum Hedlund firm and Barth Menzies was the 1998 murder of
comedian Phil Hartman by his wife, Brynn, who then committed suicide.
Tests later showed she had ingested Zoloft, cocaine and alcohol on the
day of the shootings."
Sean Hartman's birthday was just this past Friday and the least I
can do for Sean is to clarify the misinformation stated here about his
parents and the cause of their deaths. In my opinion it is despicable
that in Brynn Hartman's home state an article would appear containing
all of the misinformation put out about her by Pfizer since this tragedy
happened so many years ago. Perhaps my upcoming book on their deaths
will help the world to know what really happened in this case.
As the leading expert in Phil Harman's case I would like to make it
very clear that the evidence showed his wife had consumed cocaine AFTER
she shot her husband and not before. Brynn was not in her right mind
when she took the cocaine. It was a drug she was deathly afraid of and
fought hard to stay away from for many, many years after a problem
with it early on in her life.
It is clear that Brynn Hartman was suffering from Serotonin Syndrome
and a REM Sleep Behavior Disorder at the time Phil was shot. She was so
completely unaware of what was real when this happened that she went to
get friends to come with her to tell her if Phil had been shot or if it
was a nightmare she was having. And when they confirmed he had been shot
she became hysterical, laid down next to Phil, and then shot herself.
And the most important piece of information this article left out is
that Pfizer has settled the wrongful death case filed by the
Hartman children. For anyone who was born just yesterday let me
point out that these drug companies do not settle cases because they
are "benevolent."
In the article Dr. Paul Goering, medical director for the
psychiatry department at St. Paul's United Hospital, is quoted as
stating that, "If we didn't have them [antidepressants], I don't
know what I'd do."
Might I suggest he go out and get a real job where he could
actually produce something beneficial for society and stop torturing
people with mind altering drugs that can drive them to suicide just
to escape the drug-induced hell they suffer as a result?
Dr. Ann Blake Tracy
Executive Director
International Coalition for Drug Awareness
(800) 280-0730
To read the article referred to above, click here.
