Let Them Eat Prozac

John H. Gryfe is an oral and maxillofacial surgeon practising in
Toronto.

Prozac, Paxil, Zoloft, and Celexa are as familiar to the 21st century as
Valium and Aspirin were to the previous one. According to Dr. David
Healy, data concerning their possible relationship to increased suicidal
tendencies have been artfully suppressed to protect the bottom line of
the companies that produce them.

In this book, Dr. Healy, who was recently hired and subsequently
released by the University of Toronto because of his outspoken
condemnation of numerous medications, presents an intelligent critique
of the pharmaceutical industry. Although the book’s first 100 pages
are far too technical for the book’s target audience,

the remainder of the text is a better-than-average court drama, pitting
pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly against the estate of a family that was
decimated by a murder-suicide purportedly influenced by Prozac.

The justice system comes under the author’s scrutiny as well. His
observations that one juror “slept a good deal of the way through [the
trial]” while another “had a bad memory, but took no notes” are
hardly reassuring. Equally damning is his assessment of the legal firm
that retained his expert service: “they knew little about me, which
seemed extraordinary. Lots of their money might hang in my hands; my
very career might hang in theirs.” If there’s one overarching
message in Dr. Healy’s critique of big pharma, it would have to be
caveat emptor.