Zantac Lawsuit


Researching drug company and regulatory malfeasance for over 16 years
Humanist, humorist

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Reflections On An Obsession... Part III - The Emperors Clothes




Reflections On An Obsession... Part I - The Eulogy

Reflections of an Obsession - Part II - Unredacted

Reflections On An Obsession... Part III - The Emporers Clothes

The story of Sheryl Tilbrook, as written by her father, Stuart Jones.


24th July 2004 A visit from DS Sean Johnson

Sean called today to tell us that Mr Thomas of the CPS had decided they would not take the matter of Sheryl’s death any further.

Rather surprisingly, the news was a disappointment, and awoke the monster of my obsession. (Read the document - Reflections On An Obsession)

I think the monster again became wakeful when the rare gems of Claudette’s scrupulously guarded hoard of tears dropped carelessly from her eyes, after she’d read the letter of refusal to prosecute Lundbeck A/S, which had been dutifully delivered to us by Sean.

I had expected a negative decision from the day that Claudette first telephoned Aberystwyth Police Station and in a conversational manner registered a complaint of Unlawful Death, to what I have ever since imagined to be, a somewhat bewildered and slightly amused officer. I could only imagine his part of the conversation …“Yes Mrs Jones … you say your daughter … was killed? … I see. … And which sort of pills did her Doctor prescribe for her? … Cipramil! … Made by Lundbeck, you said?…and these pills are an SSRI? And that is … just let me write that down. Cipramil is a Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitor. Umm! … Well I’ll get someone to contact you”

I temporised the officers’ responses as I watched Claudette’s dispassionate expression, whilst she calmly related to him the facts of our daughter Sheryl’s death.

If that officer has stayed conversant with the complaint and the emergent evidence, I wonder whether he is still just tolerantly bemused.

Since then, many high profile media articles and television programs have questioned the safety and effectiveness of all SSRIs, and as a result of these investigations and ongoing disclosures by interested parties and whistle blowers, the issue of drug emergent suicidality and violence is now an established fact … To the extent that the MHRA has banned SSRI use in under 18yr olds and a suicide emergence warning has been issued to GP.s about their use in the 18 to 29yr old patient group and patient information will shortly include an SSRI drug-induced suicidality warning.

Meta-analysis of all known trials into SSRIs have also shown that in many instances, the drug is not as effective as a placebo (Sugar Pill.) for the treatment of depression.

The drug industry knew of these issues since the late nineteen eighties. Companies knew about the serious side effects of their SSRIs prior to their application for a licence to market them … but chose not to include these facts, because disclosure of such facts would have seriously affected their profits.

The Pharmaceutical Companies sold the medical profession, and thereby their patients, The Emperors Clothes.

The Emperors Clothes is a fairytale and a cautionary anecdote, and the only ones to suffer lasting harm, as a result of the story characters gullibility, were the villainous tailors who convinced the emperors advisors that the illusion which they displayed was the most fashionable and excellent of garments, and had it not been for the naïve young boy who exclaimed “The kings got no clothes on!, the Emperor would still be promenading in his nudity.

The Emperors advisors had always espoused their great knowledge in all affairs pertinent to the Empires well-being and safety… So … when the world famous tailors presented the suit of clothes, (about which, they’d convinced the court advisors that madmen and the illiterate wouldn’t be enlightened enough to see) the Emperors advisors enthused over the non-existent apparel, which the conmen had so elaborately presented to them.

It’s also more than a possibility that the tailors paid some of the kings advisors to test the suit of clothes for their effectiveness and safety, and return positive comments.

The drug companies continually try to blind us with the esoteric chemical properties of their products and are constantly reinforcing the transparency of the fact that SSRIs work and if we can’t see their good effects, it’s because we’re mentally ill, depressed or illiterate.

They are more greedy than the tailors in the Emperors Clothes and their products can be dangerous.

They pay some eminent medical professionals to endorse their products.

The FDA has only recently and reluctantly admitted there are grave problems where SSRIs are concerned but have been aware of the dangers since the late eighties.

Dr Keith Jones of the MCA assured a colleague, Dr David Healy, that the MCA were going to issue a warning of induced suicidality, including a warning for families of patients, in the year 2000. Had they issued that warning Sheryl would still be alive.

The drug companies have tried to convince us that one suit (The antidepressant SSRI.s) fit most conditions of life and the mind, and if we catch a fatal pneumonia as a result of wearing the nothing of their product … their response is … you had to wear our suit because you had a cold anyway, whether we did or not.

And if wearing their suit of nothing, (taking an SSRI) initiates a feeling which is uncomfortable or embarrassing and makes us ill, or worse … the drug industry will maintain the position that our pre-existing condition, even where there was none, caused such unwanted effects.

Even if we‘re only window shopping for something which might enable us to cope a little more easily with life, we could be prescribed their, one suits all, SSRI and become ill, act aggressively, or end our lives prematurely, through the side effects of their products.

Unfortunately, the reality of the SSRI scandal is that the villains, (the pharmaceutical industry) have not only gotten away with their ill-gotten billions in profits, they are still allowed to market them and any other suits of clothes, (drugs for the mind) they carefully present to our advisors.

Unless, like the tailors in the Emperors Clothes they are taken to task, they will never learn that they must not market unsafe and or ineffective products.
GSK (GlaxoSmithKline) recently made an out of court settlement of 2.5 million dollars, to prevent Eliot Spitzer, The State Attorney General For New York, from taking that company to court for withholding data, which proved their version of an SSRI caused people to feel suicidal, and that their SSRI was not an effective treatment for patients.

All SSRIs work more or less in the same way and have the same side effects.
GSK has a slush fund set aside against legal actions, the 2.5 million they paid to settle Mr Spitzer’s suit was a negligible amount, and a spokesperson for GSK then stated that as the matter didn’t go to a court, their drug was vindicated.
Out of court settlements will not deter companies from selling ineffective or unsafe products, but company directors being hauled before courts for manslaughter, mayhem and fraud, may well do.

I have put the CPS on notice that I intend to take the matter of Sheryl’s death further.

The word “selective” was applied to Seroxat, a serotonin reuptake inhibitor manufactured by GSK, it was used as a marketing device, the term worked so well for sales it was then used by all drug makers to describe their SSRI products, and subsequently gained a pseudo application in medicine, as did all the SSRI group of drugs.

And SSRIs probably do increase serotonin in the brain, along with increasing thoughts and acts of suicide, self-harm, aggression, psychomotor malfunction, akathisia and dependence, but SSRIs don’t work for depression any better than a placebo. (sugar pill)

Our daughter Sheryl is dead! She did not die in an accident. Her death was not an act of God. She died because of the greed of a pharmaceutical company and their suit of clothes.

If Sheryl had purchased an ineffective, or unsafe appliance and that appliance had caused her death, it’s makers would have been pursued by the Criminal Justice system and punished.

I accused Lundbeck A/S of Denmark of being her killer. My wife Claudette registered that fact to the police. The police took the evidence we had and sent the matter to the CPS. They should have applied for a warrant of search and seizure, to obtain more evidence, and take Sheryl’s case further.

It is my sincere opinion that they have chosen not to do so, not because Lundbeck is not guilty, and certainly not for a lack of evidence, Eliot Spitzer’s investigators have recently proved such evidence exists.

Forest Laboratories Incorporated, Lundbeck’s partner, and the manufacturer and seller of Cipramil, called Celexa in the USA, have also been invited to present their trial data for the SSRI that killed Sheryl, to Mr Spitzer’s office … for his investigators perusal.

So I am left trying to sort out why the CPS haven‘t acted and at least brought Lundbeck A/S.s Corporate officers before a Criminal Court? and as Sher’s dad, how I will manage to obtain Justice for Sheryl and her family?

I shall do my best to succeed in doing that, and if I do, I might prevent further bad medicine from being marketed by the tailors of the pharmaceutical industry?

In pursuit of Sheryl’s and my families “Right to Justice”, I will try.

In the public interest, I will try. That’s all I can do.

S A Jones 19th September 2004


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Fid

ORDER THE PAPERBACK
'THE EVIDENCE, HOWEVER, IS CLEAR...THE SEROXAT SCANDAL' By Bob Fiddaman
SIGNED COPIES HERE OR UNSIGNED FROM CHIPMUNKA PUBLISHING

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