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.