"Never before Prozac has a medication been so misrepresented by so many people for so long in the absence of adequate data." Drs. Dewan and Masand

As our latest panacea, Prozac and its analogues are being prescribed for everything from headaches and flu to acne and home sickness. Yet, according to FDA spokespersons, there have been more adverse reaction reports on Prozac than any other medical product. As of October, 1993, a total of 28,623 complaints of adverse side effects had been filed with the FDA, including 1,885 suicide attempts and 1349 deaths. The FDA's general rule of thumb for estimating the true figures is that these reports represent only one to ten percent of the actual figures. This would indicate the staggering amount of 286,230 - 2,862,300 actual adverse reactions, 18,850 - 188,500 actual suicide attempts and 13,490 - 134,900 actual deaths attributed to Prozac by the end of 1993. We are being told these new mind-altering chemicals have a large margin of safety. Will time prove otherwise or has it already? Considering the widespread use of these products, we have no time to waste in learning the answer.

In 1956 Eli Lilly patented LSD and in 1987 they gave us Prozac. Has Lilly turned the 90's upside down for us to relive the 60's with their latest miracle drug, Prozac? LSD, the most notorious of the psychedelic drugs, was first marketed by Sandoz in Europe with the suggestion that it be used to chemically induce insanity in "normal subjects." The reason was to discover how mental illness is produced. Yet in December 1955, two months before Lilly obtained their patent on LSD in America, TIME featured the drug, declaring that LSD "may actually help psychiatrists clear up mental illness." It was also promoted as a cure for alcoholism and as an "aid in facilitating psychoanalysis". It was even considered a safe medication for pregnant women. How many are aware that the finest physicians once recommended LSD as a miracle cure?

Now, a generation later, many of the same marketing claims are being made for Prozac that were once made for LSD. Just how similar in action are these two drugs? How much evidence is there that those who feel they cannot live without Prozac, Zoloft, Paxil, etc. are addicted to these drugs or dependent upon them?