Word: prozac
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...money in politics. While Martinez staged $1,500-a-plate fund-raising dinners, Chiles set a $100 limit on contributions and threw $1.50-a-guest hot-dog feasts. Chiles, who dropped out of the Senate citing "burnout," held on despite revelations that he takes the antidepressant drug Prozac. In the end, voters trusted Chiles more than they did Martinez. Exulted the victor: "People have not been as excited since the '60s, when Jack Kennedy was running...
...surprise candidacy has since died down, and Nelson, who began running TV ads this spring, has sliced Chiles' early 34-point lead in the polls to just 12 points. In April Chiles defused a crisis by dealing openly with a disclosure that he had taken the common antidepressant drug Prozac for four months to combat moods he called the "blacks." But last week Chiles confirmed that he has resumed taking the drug, leading Nelson's running mate for lieutenant governor to suggest publicly that Chiles might be a "suicide" risk as Governor...
...there were several confounding factors, as Teicher is quick to admit. Four of the patients were on other medications as well as Prozac. Five of the patients had contemplated suicide or attempted it at some point in their past. That raises the question of whether the preoccupation with self-destruction resulted from Prozac or from the depressive disease itself. Teicher suspects the drug in part because none of the patients were actively suicidal at the time they began therapy with Prozac. "Moreover," he observes, "the nature of their suicidal thoughts was qualitatively different than it had been in the past...
Both Eli Lilly and the Food and Drug Administration point out that Prozac was extensively tested on more than 5,600 patients and that at least 2 million people worldwide have taken the drug. The FDA, which monitors reports of adverse reactions to drugs, sees no worrisome pattern to date. "Even if we got several hundred reports involving suicide and Prozac, we wouldn't be alarmed, given how many people use the drug and the nature of the disease," notes Dr. Paul Leber, director of the FDA's division of neuropharmacological drug products. "Depressed people commit suicide." Nonetheless, the agency...
There is no need for everyone to be scared away from Prozac, since it has proved safe and effective for many people. But some doctors fear that Prozac has been overprescribed. In the initial excitement after its introduction, the drug was given to patients to help them lose weight and stop smoking, despite a lack of solid evidence that it is effective for those purposes. The experience with Prozac underscores the truth about drugs in general: they all carry risks and should be used with care and restraint...