Healthy Skepticism Library item: 12813

Warning: This library includes all items relevant to health product marketing that we are aware of regardless of quality. Often we do not agree with all or part of the contents.

Publication type: news

Pringle E.
Lawmakers Catch Glaxo Hiding Paxil Suicide Risks - Again (Part I)
LawyersandSettlements.com 2008 Feb 12
http://www.lawyersandsettlements.com/articles/01960/paxil-suicide-risk.html

Notes:

GlaxoSmithKline recently received greetings from a Congressional Committee, asking the company to explain the findings in a report unsealed last month in a lawsuit which shows that Glaxo knew as early as 1989 that Paxil increased the risk of suicidal behavior in patients by more than 8-fold compared to patients who received a placebo.

In a February 6, 2008 letter, Senator Charles Grassley (R-Iowa), ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee, is asking Glaxo to explain why the American public was never adequately informed of this risk until May 2006 in a “Dear Healthcare Professional” letter which reported a “higher frequency of suicidal behavior” associated with Paxil as compared to placebo.

The report showing the 8-fold suicide risk, by Harvard instructor and psychiatrist Joseph Glenmullen, was unsealed on January 18, 2008, by a federal judge in a US District Court in Sacramento, California in the Paxil suicide case of O’Neal v SmithKline Beecham d/b/a GlaxoSmithKline, filed by the surviving family members of 13-year-old Benjamin Bratt…