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There was a programme on recently about the drug Seroxat. It showed how the company GlaxoSmithKline seemed to have had altered the results of their research to support the fact that their drug is 'safe' for children. Many now believe it is not.

I was prescribed Seroxact by my doctor when I was 12 and first of all it did seem to be working. I felt more confident and could relax around others where as before I would have been unable to talk to anyone outside my small circle of friends. Fortunately I didn't have many of the side effects mentioned on the box (and there was a very long list of them!)However, a few of years later I tried to come off the Seroxat. At the time I was on 20mg daily and was advised to go down to 10mg and see how I felt. I started getting incredibly moody over very trivial things, and would often cry for no reason. Because I didn't seem to have a reason to be crying I would make some up and sit thinking about how bad my life is which of course just made it worse. I was going on holiday that year with family and decided not to take the medicine with me which again was a bad decision. I spent most of the time in my room crying, feeling like everyone was looking at me and not wanting to be around anyone else. When I got back I went back on the medicine. A couple of years later I tried to come off it again. At first I was told to go down to 15mg instead of 10mg. I did this for a month, then went down to 10mg and then to 5mg after another month. However, I didn't seem to be able to come off the 5mg. I started the crying at nothing again so tried to make an appointment with my doctor but couldn't get one for over a month which I thought was too long. So I went down to 1.5mg for two months, then to 1.5mg every other day for another two months and found it much easier to come off it that way. For some people it may be hard to tell if the negatives of the drug outweigh the positives but there are other ways to overcome anxiety. For me, walking seemed to help and I did a lot of walking when I was coming off the drug for the second time. I was walking home from sixth form which took me 45 minutes each day, and then a jog at the weekend. It might seem slightly excessive but it worked for me and I still got for walks when I'm feeling low.

Seroxat is the UK equivalent of Paxil and is often prescribed for depression or anxiety, mainly for adults but more recently for children and adolescents too. In one study that the GlaxoSmithKline company had done to compare the results of children on Seroxat to those put on placebo tablets actually showed that the Seroxat was no better than the sugar pill tablets. A follow-up study several years later also found that many of the children who took part in the study (all of whom were placed in the Seroxat group) had developed suicidal thoughts/symptoms and had started self-harming. However, the company covered up this information not only to the public but also the doctors who were told that the drug is safe for children and were even encouraged to prescribe it. More information can be found on the Panorama website at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/progra mmes/panorama/default.stm

Learn more about this author, Rosie Ribbon.
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