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David Healy papers
Biomed 433  
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Description
The David Healy Papers collection consists of a draft of David Healy’s monograph and all associated interview transcripts/supplementary materials from his published oral history of psychopharmacology ( The Psychopharmacologists, Vols. I-III). It also contains research and testimony from multiple legal cases on pharmaceutical product liability concerning the treatment of depression, including specific arguments about the pharmaceutical industry’s knowledge of the relationships between Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors (SSRIs) and suicide. The collection’s legal materials include raw data from fluoxetine’s clinical trials, which occurred while the product was seeking FDA approval, before it was launched in the U.S. in 1988. These data show the co-prescription of benzodiazepines during Randomized Control Trials to counteract the activating properties of fluoxetine. Pertinent legal cases include the Jefferson Circuit court case, Fentress v. Shea Communications and Eli Lilly (the first SSRI case to go to trial rather than be settled outside of court), as well as the following U.S. District Court cases: Susan Forsyth et al. v. Eli Lilly, Miller et al. v. Pfizer Incorporated, Motus v. Pfizer Incorporated, and Tobin v. SmithKline Beecham Pharmaceuticals (now GlaxoSmithKline). All of these legal cases were synthesized and published in David Healy’s 2004 book entitled Let Them Eat Prozac: The Unhealthy Relationship between the Pharmaceutical Industry and Depression.
Background
David Healy is an internationally recognized psychiatrist, researcher, and author from Ireland. He has served as a former Secretary of the British Association for Psychopharmacology, and he is a founder and Chief Executive Officer of Data Based Medicine Americas Limited, which aims to collect direct patient reports of drug effects through their website (RxISK.org) and use them to affect regulatory policy. He has published extensively on the history of psychopharmacology and psychiatry, issues with medical ghost writing, SSRI use and suicide risk, Explanatory Models of mental illness and the historical shaping of categories for mental illness.
Extent
13.2 linear ft. (35 document boxes and 1 record carton box)
Restrictions
Property rights in the physical objects belong to the UCLA Biomedical Library. Literary rights, including copyright, are retained by the creators and their heirs. It is the responsibility of the researcher to determine who holds the copyright and pursue the copyright owner or his or her heir for permission to publish if the Biomedical Library does not hold the copyright.
Availability
COLLECTION STORED OFF-SITE AT SRLF: Open for research. All materials are stored off site and require advance notice for use. Please contact History and Special Collections for the Sciences, UCLA Louise M. Darling Biomedical Library, 310.825.6940, to arrange for use.