http://www.telegram.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060814/NEWS/608140335
Two-thirds of children and even more adults did not see a mental health specialist within a month of beginning any antidepressant drug treatment like Paxil, says a new study.
This is not “news”. In fact, in 2004, the FDA recommended that new antidepressant users see a doctor once a week for the first month and three more times in the following two months. Because of restricted healthcare plans, this recommendation is not being followed. Also more than half of antidepressant prescriptions are written by family doctors not psychiatrists. The cost of healthcare simply does not allow for follow up care in the mental health field.

A Houston woman’s 9-year-old son is on life support. She said her doctor should’ve warned her about the dangers of Paxil. She stopped taking the antidepressant a few months before the FDA and GlaxoSmithKline issued a warning for pregnant women. She now has a Paxil lawyer and has filed a lawsuit against her doctor and GlaxoSmithKline. (Read More about this Paxil Heart Defect)

The father was a respected member of the community and a loving father who grew depressed. Rather than see a doctor, he started taking an old prescription for Paxil. His wife said at that point he became harder to deal with. In his mind he killed his son out of an act of love and protection. (Canada)

GlaxoSmithKline now faces a lawsuit alleging that an infant who was born with a heart defect because his mother took Paxil during the first trimester of her pregnancy is entitled to damages from GlaxoSmithKline. This lawsuit is consistent with the fat that the FDA has recently upped the warning from a category C to a category D, warning pregnant mothers that taking Paxil more than doubles the risk of a heart defect in babies. http://www.marketwatch.com

GlaxoSmithKline and the FDA advised doctors that there has been a change to the Pregnancy/PRECAUTIONS section of the Prescribing Information for Paxil and Paxil CR Controlled-Release Tablets. The possibility of Paxil birth defects may be more significant than previously believed.
The letter described the results of a GlaxoSmithKline retrospective epidemiologic study of major congenital malformations in infants born to women taking antidepressants during the first trimester of pregnancy. This study of 3,481 pregnant women suggested an increase in the risk of overall major congenital malformations for paroxetine (generic for Paxil) as compared to other antidepressants. Healthcare professionals are advised to carefully weigh the potential risks and benefits of using paroxetine therapy in women during pregnancy and to discuss these findings as well as treatment alternatives with their patients.

Paxil’s manufacturer, GlaxoSmithKline, has recently lost a number of lawsuits because it knowingly concealed many years of negative study data about the unsafe adverse reactions to Paxil. Glaxo’s hidden study data existed before many of the drugs were FDA approved. This reveals that pharmaceutical companies knew about all the problems and only allowed findings from positive clinical trials to become public. Yet a pamphlet, “Is Paxil addictive?” geared for doctors and patients reads, “Paxil has been studied both long and short term use and is not associated with dependence or addiction.”