Steve Cole — (FDA 2004 PSYCHOPHARMACOLOGIC DRUGS ADVISORY COMMITTEE WITH THE PEDIATRIC SUBCOMMITTEE OF THE ANTI-INFECTIVE DRUGS ADVISORY COMMITTEE)

DR. RUDORFER:  Thank you very much.  We are going to move along to speaker 51. Steve Cole

MR. COLE:  I am Steve Cole.  I am here at my own expense.  My father committed suicide after 13 days on Prozac.  He has absolutely no history of mental illness, in fact, quite the contrary.  He and my mom had just built a new house, a lot of the work he did himself.  He and I and a friend built a cabin out of raw lumber.

These are not the type of things that you do if you are planning on dying.  Let me repeat that.  You do not do that.

He was looking forward to his new house. He was planning many activities.  He was upbeat, he didn’t drink or gamble, and he did not have any recognized prerequisites for suicide unless you want to consider all 70-year-old men suicidal, and I just don’t buy that.  Generally, he was in very good health.

Next slide.  He experienced some chest pains about a month and a half after moving into the new house.  As a precaution,  he went to his cardiologist.  His heart tested perfectly well.  He was upbeat and had a new grandbaby on the way.

He was prescribed Prozac off label for the chest pain.  The doctor, who is an outstanding, wonderful man, stood behind us on this, and stated that he has no doubt that it was Prozac induced.

Eleven days after he started, he demonstrated symptoms of akathisia, he was jittery.  His fingers and his skin felt odd, he was easily agitated.

He told me, “I cannot stand the way this drug makes me feel.”  Two days later he committed suicide.

Growing up, he watched a lot of westerns. He loved westerns, but he would turn the channel if a man was hung or lynched.  This is the way my father died.  He hung himself.  It was completely out of character.  He died by means of his own nightmare.

Thank you very much.

DR. RUDORFER:  Thank you.