Healthy Skepticism Library item: 1276

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Publication type: news

Boseley S.
Prozac made librarian kill herself, says psychiatrist
The Guardian 2003 Jun 5
http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/2003/jun/05/medicineandhealth

Full text:

Prozac caused the wife of one of the UK’s leading chemical weapons experts to kill herself, a psychiatrist and expert on antidepressant drugs told an inquest yesterday.

The inquest into the death of Wendy Hay, a librarian who committed suicide aged 52 last September, heard David Healy, director of the north Wales department of psychological medicine, say that it was now well accepted among European experts that antidepressants can cause a small minority of people who are depressed to want to kill themselves.

“There is a preponderant body of medical opinion throughout Europe that antidepressants can cause people to commit suicide. In the United States it might be a bit contentious, but in Europe it is not,” said Dr Healy, who has been an expert witness in the US in litigation against the companies that manufacture drugs of the Prozac class (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors or SSRIs).

The West Yorkshire coroner, David Hinchliffe, sitting in Leeds where Mrs Hay’s husband Alastair is a professor in environmental toxicology at the university, heard that Mrs Hay suffered depression four years ago from which she recovered, only to fall ill again last year. Her GP prescribed Prozac.

Three weeks later, Mrs Hay tried to drown herself in the River Wharfe. Two weeks after that attempt, she hanged herself in the garage. Professor Hay told the inquest that he deeply regretted telling nobody about the first incident. “We operated on the basis of trust throughout our relationship and for me it would have been a major breach of trust to have gone behind her back.”

Dr Healy said he believed that, on the balance of probabilities, if she had not been on Prozac or those caring for her had known about the risk it posed for a few people, “she would not have taken her own life”.

Prozac could be a miracle cure for some, he said, but more than warnings in fine print were now needed to minimise the risk to others.

The inquest continues.