The American Spectator

The Nation's Pulse

THERE IS ALREADY no shortage of reasons to join the tens of millions of Americans taking Paxil or its generic counterpart, paroxetine. As we shall see, side effects range from the hapless hiccups to grand mal seizure. But we're now told that the hit anti-uncomfortableness drug raises the risk of harm to others beside ourselves, in the form of birth defects: "Pregnant Women Warned By FDA to Avoid Paxil." Specifically, your Paxilated baby is overly likely to develop like a diseased clump of swiss cheese, with "holes and malformations in the chambers of the heart."

Of course, as the Washington Post takes pains to point out, "the defects often heal on their own, and more severe cases can be surgically repaired." Well. Goodness knows we wouldn't want the fetal needs of our children to get in the way of -- what? What does Paxil treat? Oh, a whole host of things: really, everything -- Depression, Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD), Social Anxiety Disorder (they won't allow the acronym SAD), Panic Disorder, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD), and Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). GlaxoSmithKline, well aware that what they're selling is simply a serotonin bomb, suggests that the hydra of neurosis Paxil treats exceeds"everyday shyness" or "the normal worry and anxiety we all face."

But then GSK reveals the full scale of our national spaz-out pandemic -- Depression: 16 million sufferers yearly; GAD, 5 million a year; SAD, 12 million; Panic, 3 million annual victims; OCD, up to 5 million over their lifetimes, and PTSD, up to 16 million at some point before they die. Fortunately for our mental census, GSK assures us that "many people have an overlap of these conditions." But even subtracting out a million sufferers from each disease to ensure nobody's counted twice, the figure reaches over 50 million. That's one of four Americans between the ages of 15 and 64, and the reader knows as well as this writer does that the kids and the elderly are often not exempt from pharmacotropic manipulation. Indeed, rarely have they the freedom to opt themselves out.

LET'S CIRCLE BACK to the side effects -- on what exactly 1 of 4 Americans (a conservative estimate) ought to roll the dice in exchange for the benefits of Paxil (yet to be described). The list, for those courageous enough to slog through it, is massive, appearing to embrace the known universe of ailments. But let's enjoy a few representative highlights:

p>Asthma br> Pneumonia br> Acne br> Urinary urgency br> Abnormal gait br> Lack of emotion br> Ear pain br> Eye pain br> Breast pain br> Deafness /p>