News And Features
A Supreme Court judge has blamed Australia's
most widely used antidepressant for causing a 76-year-old man to kill his wife
of 50 years.
Justice Barry O'Keefe said David John Hawkins
strangled his wife, Margaret, as a result of taking 250mg of Zoloft five
times the recommended dose.
``The killing was totally out of character for
the prisoner, inconsistent with the loving, caring relationship which existed
between him and his wife, and with their happy marriage of 50 years,'' Justice
O'Keefe said.
``I am satisfied that but for the Zoloft
he had taken, he would not have strangled his wife.''
Hawkins, a retired mechanic from Tumbarumba,
in southern NSW, pleaded guilty to manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility.
In sentencing him to a minimum two years' jail,
Justice O'Keefe said Hawkins was genuinely remorseful for killing his ``soulmate''
and was unlikely to reoffend.
Hawkins has already spent 22 months in jail
and will be released on July 31 to live with his daughter and son-in-law at Wagga
Wagga.
Yesterday medical experts defended the drug,
saying it was a safe and effective treatment for depression.
The chairman of the national drug initiative,
beyondblue, Professor Ian Hickie, said: ``Generally speaking, [Zoloft]
is extremely safe ... but, like all drugs that work, in some situations they are
associated with unusual reactions.''
Hawkins first took Zoloft in 1996 after
the death of his youngest daughter from breast cancer. He suffered an adverse
effect after taking one tablet.
His depression returned in 1999 and Hawkins
saw a different doctor, who prescribed him Zoloft again.
The doctor told him not to take the medication
until breakfast on Sunday, August 1. But he woke at 2am and took five tablets.
At 7.30am, as his wife prepared to light the fire, Hawkins strangled her.
``I was looking at my wife but I wasn't seeing
her face,'' he told a doctor. Hawkins then attempted to kill himself.
A spokesman for Pfizer, which makes Zoloft,
defended the drug, saying there was no evidence to suggest it had any side effects
of aggression or aggravation.
Dr Bill Ketelbey said: ``It is pure speculation
that aggression is a side effect.
``In a few instances where patients have inadvertently
taken an overdose [of medication], there has been a very wide margin of side effects.''
Pfizer lists more than 30 possible side effects
in boxes of Zoloft, including agitation, anxiety, nervousness, abnormal
thinking, lack of feeling, vomiting and twitching.
Zoloft came under scrutiny in the United
States after the murder-suicide of actor Phil Hartman and his wife, Brynn Omdahl.
Omdahl, 40, shot Hartman, 49, star of the TV
sitcom News Radio and the voice of several characters in The Simpsons, in 1998
after spending an evening drinking with a friend.
Omdahl had then shot herself four hours later.
Her brother launched legal action against Pfizer
Inc and a psychiatrist, claiming she was under the influence of Zoloft.
A civil action lawyer, Mr Peter Semmler, QC,
said that while it was ``theoretically'' possible for a drug manufacturer to be
sued if one of its products was shown to have caused homicidal behaviour, it would
have to be proved that the company had failed to take reasonable care in the manufacture
of the drug or in giving adequate instructions or warnings.
Professor Hickie said the community needed to
be better informed about depression and the drugs used to treat the illness.
``We need to make sure that doctors and pharmacists
provide adequate information and in forms that people can understand.
``That traditionally has not been the case,''
he said.
An Australian Medical Association psychiatrist,
Dr Bill Pring, said there was no reason to ban Zoloft. If used early and
effectively, it could prevent violent behaviour, he said.
A spokeswoman for the Therapeutic Goods Administration
said it would review evidence linking Zoloft to Hawkins's violent behaviour.
It would consult national drug regulatory agencies
and Pfizer about whether they were aware of other reports attributing serious
criminal behaviour to Zoloft.
Chemical reaction
* Sertraline is the essential ingredient in
Zoloft.
* The recommended dose is 50mg, although medical
evidence suggests that 25mg is a safer dose for elderly people.
* It can cause sleeplessness, agitation, confusion,
hallucination and psychosis.
* The Australian Department of Health
and Aged Care says sertraline has been officially recorded as the sole drug
implicated in 20 cases of aggression, 319 cases of agitation, 43 cases of hallucination,
34 cases of manic reaction, 63 cases of confusion, 18 cases of psychosis, eight
cases of delirium and five cases of delusion.
Drug Turned Loving Man Into A Killer, Says Judge [CORRECTED 31-MAY-2001]
Allison Jackson
05/25/2001
Sydney Morning Herald
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Copyright of John Fairfax Group Pty Ltd
(CORRECTION: In a May 25 report Professor Ian Hickie was described as chairman
of the national drug initiative beyondblue. Beyondblue is an organisation concerned
with combating depression, not drugs.)