Prozac

I am writing because of a misconception in "Star Drug Prozac Becomes Lilly Liability" (July 28.) Business analyst Rita Freedman is quoted as saying: "I view the lawsuits themselves as a non-event. . . . There really is no scientific basis for the complaint. People who are depressed are suicidal anyway." The quote seems to imply that all depressed people are suicidal. Are all people who are depressed suicidal? No. Some are and some aren't. The point of Dr. Martin Teicher's research was that some depressed patients became suicidal after they took Prozac.

A federal judge in Arlington, Va., on Friday dismissed a $20-million libel lawsuit that the Church of Scientology had filed against an executive with Eli Lilly & Co., the maker of Prozac. The lawsuit accused Mitchell E. Daniels Jr., a vice president of the Indianapolis-based pharmaceuticals company, of maligning the church in comments published in USA Today. The newspaper was not named as a defendant.

George Porter, a 47-year-old engineering librarian from La Canada Flintridge, first became depressed after his father's heart attack nearly seven years ago. The married father of two was overcome with sadness that wouldn't go away and lost pleasure in activities he'd once enjoyed. "I'd been a voracious reader all my life, and I found it almost impossible to get through a book," he said. He often began sobbing uncontrollably.

We just returned to LAX from Maui. There were at least 10 children under 6 years old in our section alone, mostly crying, yelling, throwing things and running up and down the aisle. There were verbal threats from other passengers. It was literally the "flight from hell." Why can't the airlines have a section for parents with children showing Disney movies and give them something to entertain themselves with, like Prozac! Fly first class, you say? Last time, we had to put up with musicians drunk or high on drugs--worse than children in coach.

Many people accept the idea of placing a child on medicine to control unruly behavior. But mention an antidepressant and just watch the jaws drop. "I tell parents that depression is a no-fault brain disease," said Dr. Harold Koplewicz, director of the Child Study Center at New York University Medical Center. "Once they understand the concept, I explain how the new antidepressants have helped enormously in the treatment of anxiety and depression. It's not a 'feel-good medicine.'

Antidepressants can help people recovery from major depression, but some people dislike the medications because of their effects on sexual function. An antidepressant approved by the Food and Drug Administration on Monday, however, appears to have fewer sexual side effects. The drug, called Viibryd (or vilazodone), is the first antidepressant that is a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor combined with and a 5HT1A receptor partial agonist. Many of the so-called SSRI antidepressants, such as Prozac or Zoloft, work on the serotonin system of the brain.

Each word is taken from the vanity plate master list issued by the DMV* * IARIVD ONERTH BEE4 SPUTNIC WENTE N2ORBT. B4 PROZAC. BEFORE VIDTAPE, POLYSTR, DGTLSND. WHENNNN IWASA YNGSTR PEEPL DYD LISTN2 PATTI PAGE--ON 78S. TEFLON WAS SSOM CRAKPOT DREEME. EVRY1 DIDDIE WITH THER ORIGNEL LIVERR. IMOLD. * VELCRO. CLONED SHEEEP. NONFAT CHEEEZ. FRNKLEE ICOULD TKTRLVT. NDA FIFTYS, SUMHOWE WE SUR5D. NO1HD AU2MATQ FOKUS KAMERAS. WEHAD2 FOCUS OURSELF! ITT WSNTEZY.

If, in defiance of all taste and common sense, you insist upon seeing Peter J. Nieves' "Violencia" at the Lost Studio, you may have to dip into your Y2K stash of Prozac a little early. Nieves, who also directed this protracted purgatory of a play, obviously subscribes to the assault-and-battery school of play writing, in which craft, motivation and context are eviscerated by shock value. Scenes of nonlinear degeneracy are thrown together with little regard for form.

The magic of Hollywood success--how can one account for it? Were the executives at Fox and Sony who gambled more than $300 million to create the hits "X-Men: The Last Stand" and "The Da Vinci Code" visionaries? Were their peers at Warner Bros. who green-lighted the flop "Poseidon," which cost $160 million to produce, just boneheads? The 2006 summer blockbuster season is upon us, one of the two times each year (the other is Christmas) when a film studio's hopes for black ink are decided by the gods of movie fortune--namely, you and me. Americans may not scurry with enthusiasm to vote for our presidents, but come summer, we do vote early and often for the films we love, to the tune of about $200 million each weekend.