clearly Hugh James solicitors set up ‘User’s Group’ to form the focus for future litigation

Wonder Drug? (Irish Tatler, December 2002)

The side effects of anti-depressants and official denials


extract - http://www.offscenepublications.com/selected-writings.html

Mark Harvey, a solicitor with the Cardiff firm Hugh James Ford Simey, has something to say on the subject: “My feeling is GSK knew, and they certainly know damn well now, their drug had the capacity to cause a lot of harm to small number of people. In particular in relation to coming off it and they’re not being honest to either prescribing doctors or patients.”

Hugh James Ford Simey has already been contacted by over 120 people, complaining of problems with Seroxat. They’re coming in, says Mark Harvey, at a rate of nearly three a week. In order to facilitate these people, the firm is setting up a ‘User’s Group’ to form the focus for future litigation against the drug companies. Many of these people have experiences ‘cold turkey’ like symptoms while coming off the drug.

“I’ve seen an advert in the States. It actually says ‘Talk to your doctor about non-habit forming Paxil,” says Harvey. “That’s outrageous, that’s clearly designed to catch patients and it deals with what they want to know, which is if it’s non addictive...”