Adverse Reactions Prozac 13/09/1991 Utah Woman Has Liver Damage: Other Side Effects
Summary:
http://www.fda.gov/OHRMS/DOCKETS/AC/prozac/2443T1.PDF
DR. CASEY: Thank you. Shirley Jarrott?
MS. TRACY: Hello. I am speaking for Shirley
Jarrott. She had an emergency in her family and could not
make it from Oregon. My name is Ann Tracy from Salt Lake
City, Utah.
DR. CASEY: Excuse me, please. Mr. Bernstein, do we
have any record of the representation?
MR. BERNSTEIN: No, we do not.
DR. CASEY: Ma?am, do you know if Miss Jarrott
contacted the agency?
MS. TRACY: As far as I know, she completed
all the forms that she faxed to the agency.
Dr. Casey: Could you submit that to the agency
after your presentation?
MS. TRACY : Certainly.
I?m the Utah Director for the Prozac Survivors
Support Group and have been in constant contact with Shirley
and know of her case and the problems that she has had and, I am
representing her, I that she has had in
directly related to
would like to discuss the severe problems
her health in the use of Prozac which was
severe liver damage.
The suicidal tendencies, of course, were there as
well, but her concern is the damage to her liver that she has
to live with constantly. This is something that I have been
extremely concerned with. I?m alarmed at the high incidence
of liver impairment that seems to be being reported to you,
and the biggest reason I am concerned
directly what regulates the amount of
is because that is
Prozac within the body.
If we have the Prozac rising to higher levels, of course,
we?re going to have some very severe problems, and I think
that that might be one reason why we're seeing what we're
seeing.
Prozac has directly affected my life. I was engaged
last year to a young man who was on Prozac. He was put on
Prozac in early 1989, prescribed for stress and some
depression related to business failure. The personality
changes came quickly. I couldn?t even begin to describe the
horror that happened to him for the next two-and-a-half years
of his life.
He looks back now, after being off three months --
he would have come, but he?s too sick -- after three months of
being off, he looks back at the last two-and-a-half years and
cannot remember much. He doesn?t know what was dream and what
was real. There's no detection there of reality.
I would like to encourage your committee to start
looking at brain-wave patterns in the use of antidepressants.
When you look at brain-wave patterns of somebody on Prozac I
see a total anesthetic sleep state with eyes open. That, to
me, is frightening. I think that is why so many families are
describing their loved ones as being gone, just completely
gone. They?re no longer there. There?s really no other way
. to describe someone that you?ve loved so much who's changed so
much.
I believe that this is also one reason why the
patients are unaware of what is happening to them and unaware
of the effects, and that is why families tend to be the ones
that notice the effects rather than the patients themselves.
Prozac works on the mood center of the brain to
remove depression, but in doing so I believe that it also
removes other feelings that are extremely vital to life. So
many people are saying that they cannot feel guilt, they have
no conscience, they cannot love, they cannot feel empathy or
compassion. To me, that?s alarming. To have individuals
walking around that cannot feel guilt? Of course, we would
have more violent behavior.
Another thing that really alarms me in what I have
seen with so many patients -- and Utah has got some very
severe problems with this particular drug, it?s very widely
used -- is the fact that so many people that tend to have a
tendency toward alcoholism are reverting to alcoholism with
the use of Prozac. I would like that investigated. I would
like to know why people who have worked for years to overcome
this particular addiction in their lives are reverting to
this. Dr. Teicher noted that in one of his cases. To me,
that is really frightening.
I would like you please to take another look at
Prozac. Consider all the shattered lives and shattered
families that are out there and, believe me, they are
everywhere. All you have to do is start asking. Thank you.