Furious Seasons

March 10, 2009

Doctor Pleads No Contest In Prozac-Related Suicide

I've been following this tragic tale for some time and now it appears to have come to an end.

" Christian Hageseth, 68, who had practiced in Colorado, pleaded no contest Feb. 24 to a felony count of practicing medicine illegally in the case of John McKay, a 19-year-old Stanford University student who killed himself in August 2005 by inhaling car exhaust fumes at his mother's home in Menlo Park, the San Francisco Chronicle reported Monday. Hageseth faces up to one year in jail when he is sentenced April 17 in San Mateo County.
The newspaper called the case precedent-setting since county prosecutors in California were allowed to prosecute a doctor in another state for engaging in "telemedicine" without examining or even seeing a patient.

McKay had ordered 90 capsules of fluoxetine, the generic version of the antidepressant Prozac, from usanetrx.com, a Web site in India that in turn forwarded his order to a Texas company, JRB Health Solutions, which then sent it to Hageseth, its physician contact in Fort Collins, Colo.

"Hageseth filled the prescription without contacting McKay and sent it back to JRB, which then had a Mississippi pharmacy ship the capsules to McKay.
Traces of the drug and alcohol were found in McKay's system but not at lethal levels."

While I suppose there are conditions and medications where telemedicine might be workable, depression isn't one of them and neither are anti-depressants. The doctor has surrendered his medical license.

Posted by Philip Dawdy at March 10, 2009 12:03 AM

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Comments

Philip,

People have known about Prozac suicides since 1990. It appears that only the doctors don't know.

Here is a case reported by People's Pharmacy in 1990 of a young woman who committed suicide on Prozac in 1988. I have copied and pasted part of the story.

http://www.ssristories.com/show.php?item=1413

Paragraph 1 reads: "Question: My daughter committed suicide in 1988 one month after being put on a new medicine called Prozac. She was not depressed, but Prozac was prescribed for an eating disorder."

_________________________________________________________________________
Safety of new, popular antidepressant questioned
St. Petersburg Times
April 29, 1990
Author: JOE GRAEDON

TERESA GRAEDON
Estimated printed pages: 2

Question: My daughter committed suicide in 1988 one month after being put on a new medicine called Prozac. She was not depressed, but Prozac was prescribed for an eating disorder.

We believe Prozac is responsible for her suicide. She did not seem suicidal before she started taking this medicine, and even the day before she hanged herself she promised to take care of her neighbors' cat while they were on vacation.

Have you ever heard of another case of someone committing suicide while taking Prozac?

Posted by: Rosie at March 10, 2009 01:30 PM

My father committed suicide right after he retired and his gold-digger second-wife recommended he take a prescription, so he wouldn't miss her during the day. Her first call was to their lawyer to confirm the new trust fund putting 100% of his money in her name would survive suicide, then she called 9-1-1, then she called the coroner to make sure this was ruled a suicide and had the body cremated next day to eliminate all evidence of any Prozac overdosing. His whole life he was boundlessly optimistic, as he would have to be, to marry a women half of his age!

Posted by: Poast Tosties at March 15, 2009 10:22 AM