Prozac blamed for suicide, again

As reported in many Newspapers

A woman who blames her husband's suicide on Prozac has filed a lawsuit claiming that Eli Lilly & Co. should have warned patients that some people's bodies cannot metabolize the drug's active ingredient. The lawsuit filed against the Indianapolis-based drugmaker Thursday in Marion County Superior Court is the second to make such a claim. Lilly, which contends the drug is safe, settled a similar case in Georgia this spring.

But Houston attorney Andy Vickery, who has filed more than 20 lawsuits against the drugmaker including the Georgia suit, said this case is different. "This is the first case involving Lilly that we have hard scientific proof that our client had a hard time metabolizing Prozac," he said. A blood test found high levels of fluoxetine, Prozac's active ingredient, in the body of Clarkston, Mich., police officer Daren Alli following his May 23, 2001 suicide, alleges the lawsuit.

Alli had taken Prozac for three days to alleviate a "mild" case of depression, but threw the pills in the toilet after they made him "jumpy" and "jittery," said his widow, Michele.

Four days later, the SWAT team captain shot himself in the head with a .38-caliber revolver.