Word: prozac
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...just another weed. It has attracted a huge following in Europe, and is now catching on in the U.S. According to Dr. Harold Bloomfield, author of Hypericum & Depression (Prelude Press; $7.95), this pretty yellow-flowered plant is nature's own antidepressant--almost as potent as the prescription drug Prozac but without Prozac's troubling side effects. St. John's wort may not work for everyone, acknowledges Bloomfield, a psychiatrist in Del Mar, Calif. "But to those for whom it does work, it's like a godsend...
...Walters spoke on ABC's 20/20 about the "simple herb that could change the lives of millions of Americans who suffer from depression," and last week the New York Times ran two stories in as many days calling St. John's wort "a gentle remedy" and "a rival to Prozac." Pills and potions containing extracts of hypericum are selling briskly in supermarkets and health-store chains from New York to California. "We are stunned and pleased," says Karl-Heinz Siewert, managing director of Lichtwer Pharma, a Berlin-based company that markets hypericum under the brands Kira and Jarsin...
...hoopla over hypericum began in Germany, where Jarsin, not Prozac, is the No. 1 antidepressant. This isn't as surprising as it may sound. German physicians are far more willing than their American counterparts to recommend herbal medications to patients. And a string of studies by German scientists, many of them sponsored by Lichtwer, have built a tantalizing if tentative case for hypericum's effectiveness as a treatment for mild and moderate depression. The result: so many German psychiatrists and general practitioners now recommend hypericum preparations that sales have soared from $23 million in 1994 to $66 million last year...
Still, the German experience suggests that St. John's wort is relatively harmless. "Millions of people have taken, or are now taking, hypericum," observes Jerry Cott, a Maryland-based pharmacologist, "and none of the side effects reported have been anything like those we've seen with drugs like Prozac. That's kind of exciting." Indeed, just as aspirin (whose active ingredient was first isolated from the bark of the willow tree) has spurred the development of a new generation of anti-inflammatories, so hypericum may eventually stimulate the creation of safer, more powerful, antidepressant drugs...
...sure, but he is also a fast-talking, spirited wheeler-dealer, famous for his cunning. The creators might have had fun with that aspect of his character. Instead, they have conjured up a guy who seems to be on a very long journey to find his missing Prozac, even when he is rolling around in the sand sweating and staring lustfully at the goddess Calypso (Vanessa Williams) as if this were an episode of Baywatch: The B.C. Years...