Drug blamed for suicide

As reported in the Intelligencer, a Philadelphia suburb newspaper, with a tip of the hat to the PseudoScience in Psych Blog

Julie Woodward had big plans. She wanted to "work really hard to get good grades." College in the city would be next. Marriage would wait until she was 26. And kids? Julie wanted at least two, "close in age like she and her sister were," her mom said.

Kathy Woodward doesn't have to read the hand-written list her daughter titled "Plan for life." She knows it by heart. The words, the ambition, the thirst for life, fit with the image of the girl the Woodwards knew. Not a death ended by suicide.

"Julie was so open to experiences, wanting to live," said Woodward, sitting in the sunroom of her North Wales home, where photos of Julie embracing her three younger siblings dominate the room. "This was a kid who had plans and hope, not a kid who would do something like this."

The 17-year-old North Penn High School student hung herself in the detached garage of her home on July 22, 2003. Kathy and her husband, Tom, believe her death was linked to side effects from Zoloft, an antidepressant Julie started that week - a drug they were told was safe and needed for Julie's treatment.

Why did she need to be on this drug?