Baum Hedlund - Paxil / Seroxat's Donald Schell was depressed

extract

'Three-Legged Stool'




There was no question that Donald Schell was depressed. Before taking Paxil, he had been on other antidepressants including Prozac.






Furthermore, there seemed to be no other motivation for the murder-suicide. He had no obvious marital problems and clearly adored his daughter and granddaughter. So the pivotal question of the trial was: Did taking Paxil for two days - one pill each day - cause Schell to go berserk? Or did he become violent because he was already depressed?



This chicken-and-egg-type question had been at the heart of other the other antidepressant trials, as Vickery knew well. He had tried and lost a similar case - Forsyth v. Eli Lilly & Co. - in Hawaii in 1999.



"In Hawaii, I stupidly [bought into their] either/or argument: Was it the drug or the depression? Here I just focused on the drug." By doing so, he reframed the debate for the jury from, "Was it the depression or the drug?" to "Is it possible for the drug to produce a violent reaction in some people?"





http://www.baumhedlundlaw.com/media/ssri/Paxil_murder.htm