NEWS
October 5, 2012 | By Melissa Healy, Los Angeles Times, For the Booster Shots Blog
The Food and Drug Administration took a highly unusual step this week: It acknowledged that a widely used generic drug -- a copycat of the antidepressant Wellbutrin XL -- was not the equivalent of the original drug produced by GlaxoSmithKline since 2003. The move prompted the world's largest manufacturer of generic drugs, Israel-based Teva Pharmaceuticals, to stop shipping its generic extended-release bupropion -- marketed as Budeprion 300 mg XL-- and to remove it from U.S. shelves.
CALIFORNIA | LOCAL
June 27, 2012 | By Phil Willon, Los Angeles Times
A former Westminster police detective may face life in prison after a San Bernardino County jury Tuesday rejected his defense that he was in an antidepressant-induced blackout, and legally insane, when he kidnapped and raped a waitress. Anthony Orban testified that he had no memory of the 2010 attack and blamed his psychotic break on a powerful dose of the popular antidepressant Zoloft, which he said had triggered hallucinations and suicidal and homicidal fantasies in the days before the abduction.
CALIFORNIA | LOCAL
June 20, 2012 | By Phil Willon, Los Angeles Times
A former Westminster police detective convicted of raping a waitress in Fontana took the witness stand for the first time Tuesday in his attempt to persuade a San Bernardino County jury that the antidepressant Zoloft turned him insane at the time of the attack. A New York psychiatrist, a key witness for the defense, also testified that in the days before the rape, defendant Anthony Orban believed he was possessed by demons and thought of killing himself, his wife and their dog. Orban, dressed in a trim, dark suit with his hair neatly brushed, told the jury that he was "falling apart" in the months leading up to the attack.
CALIFORNIA | LOCAL
June 12, 2012 | By Phil Willon, Los Angeles Times
A San Bernardino County prosecutor Tuesday urged a jury not to be swayed by testimony that the antidepressant Zoloft put a former Westminster police detective in a fog that made him not responsible for kidnapping and raping a waitress in 2010. Deputy Dist. Atty. Debbie Ploghaus called the so-called Zoloft defense, backed by a psychiatrist's testimony, "a bunch of baloney" and a desperate attempt by Anthony Nicholas Orban to sidestep overwhelming evidence against him. Orban was identified by the victim, was implicated by his best friend, was captured on security video footage at the scene of the attack and left his police service weapon, with his name on it, in the victim's car. Ploghaus told the jury that while bar-hopping in Ontario before the kidnapping, Orban groped a woman's chest, grabbed a man's crotch and repeatedly texted a former girlfriend hoping for an afternoon tryst.
NEWS
April 23, 2012 | By Alan Zarembo, Los Angeles Times/For the Booster Shots blog
Publication bias: It has long been a problem in medical research. Studies that show a drug or treatment is effective are more likely to be published than studies with negative findings. As a result, the medical literature that guides how diseases and disorders are treated often provides doctors an incomplete picture of the evidence. A case in point is the use of antidepressants to treat the repetitive behaviors -- including hoarding, tapping, head banging and strict adherence to routine -- that are a hallmark of autism.
NATIONAL
April 7, 2012 | By Kim Murphy, Los Angeles Times
SEATTLE - U.S. Air Force pilot Patrick Burke's day started in the cockpit of a B-1 bomber near the Persian Gulf and proceeded across nine time zones as he ferried the aircraft home to South Dakota. Every four hours during the 19-hour flight, Burke swallowed a tablet of Dexedrine, the prescribed amphetamine known as "go pills. " After landing, he went out for dinner and drinks with a fellow crewman. They were driving back to Ellsworth Air Force Base when Burke began striking his friend in the head.