Violence & Suicide Attempt Paxil 05/01/1999 Michigan 11 Year Old Boy is Violent & Suicidal on Paxil
Summary:
http://www.fda.gov/ohrms/dockets/AC/04/transcripts/4006T1.doc
DR. RUDORFER: Thank you.
We will move on now to Number 18, please.
Todd Shivak
MR. SHIVAK: Good morning. We are Todd
and Eileen Shivak. We do not have any financial
relationship to anyone here.
Our story is much like the cases everyone
else here today is bringing forward to you.
Our son Michael was 11 when he was
prescribed Paxil for what was diagnosed as
depression. The consequences of this still live
with us today. Thank God he is alive and with us
today, but Michael is afraid of his doctors, how
can he trust what they will give him next.
He is afraid of the police. He has been
wrestled down, handcuffed and taken to jail. The
police are supposed to protect us and look what
they have done to him.
It is difficult for him to trust his
teachers. They still look at Michael as a
troublemaker even though he currently is an A/B
student with much improving grades. His peers
still think of him as a freak, the kid who tried to
slash his wrists while in class.
As parents, our most important job is to
protect our kids. We thought we were doing the
right thing. The doctors convinced us that taking
these drugs was the only thing that we could do for
Michael. Now, Michael wonders whether we are going
to have him arrested, sentenced, physically
restrained and punished again. If he can't trust
his parents, who can he trust?
Our daughter, Catherine, was 5 years old
at the time. She witnessed firsthand some of the
most terrifying sights that I have ever had to deal
with. Our family is finally getting back to the
loving family we once were, but the fear of what
happened still haunts us.
Worse yet, how could all the doctors not
recognize what was happening? Michael saw three
different social workers, two different
psychiatrists, and went through at least four
different emergency room psychological evaluations
in two different hospitals.
We are here to plead that you do something
to stop the prescriptions of these drugs, so that
no one else has to go what we are all going
through. It is impossible to describe the pain and
utter helplessness we all felt watching Michael
suffer, watch him cry, take up weapons against us,
and beg us to let him die. How do you erase the
picture of your child trying to run in front of a
moving car?
Please save our children from this drug.
DR. RUDORFER: Thank you.