Shipko Statement

STUART SHIPKO, M.D.

Psychiatry

97 W. Bellevue Dr., Pasadena, CA 91105
phone: 626-577-8290 fax: 626-795-3527 e-mail: shipko@ix.netcom.com

February 12, 2011

Christopher King, J.D. 131 Boston Street, Suite 3 Boston, MA 02115

RE: Kevin Tolliver

Dear Mr. King,
I am responding to your letter of January 4, 2011. Regarding information provided to defense counsel, I did do a review of information provided to me by public defender Ken Spiert, and I attach a copy of my report, which is dated 11/6/06.

As you will find in the attached report, my opinion is that within a reasonable medical certainty, Paxil withdrawal significantly contributed to Claire Schneider engaging in an impulsive suicidal gesture that resulted in herdeath. The report provides a summary of the documentation reviewed as well as my reasons for my opinions.

You asked if there are any new developments that might shed light on the state of the research on the subject. I assume that you mean the subject of suicide occurring after stopping an antidepressant.

In this regard, I want to refer to an analysis of raw data concerning Paxil clinical trials. The raw data were provided by GlaxoSmithKline to Dr. Peter Breggin for his analysis, as part of his expert testimony in the Lacuzong matter. Dr. Breggin found two individuals who completed suicide within seven to ten days of stopping Paxil (p.80 of the attached article by Dr. Breggin). The data drops these two suicides and does not acknowledge theses suicides in the data released to the public. Reasoning for exclusion was that the subjects were not on Paxil at the time of the suicides. This suggests that GlaxoSmithKline is trying to hide the phenomenon of suicide related to Paxil withdrawal.

There are almost no scientific data available in which suicide after stopping an antidepressant has been studied, and in this regard, we must rely on the information provided in Dr. Breggin’s analysis of the data. It is notable that the raw data from drug trials are not routinely released to physicians, even to the FDA and that Dr. Breggin’s analysis of these raw data represents the only scientific analysis of the phenomenon of an individual committing suicide shortly after stopping an antidepressant.

It is clear from Dr. Breggin’s independent analysis of the GlaxoSmithKline data that the company has been withholding information from physicians concerning suicide that occurs shortly after stopping an antidepressant.

While there has been no formal scientific inquiry into the phenomenon of suicide that occurs shortly after stopping antidepressants, it is a phenomenon which does occur frequently, and there are numerous case reports of individuals committing suicide shortly after stopping Paxil and other serotonin based antidepressants. These sorts of cases are summarized in the book by Dr. Peter Breggin called “Medication Madness.” In this book, he documents numerous cases indicating that withdrawal from psychiatric drugs is often associated with violence to self or others.

Sincerely,

Stuart Shipko, M.D.
Diplomate of the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology