Health (Part 2)

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My cold is dragging out, and now both parents have it. MY brother has been ill with something similar since christmas. C is living on beecham's powders. John M is convalescing from a small heart attack.

It doesn't help that the air is cold, light levels are low and the sky is a sick shade of grey. It's like the world itself has the flu.

I had an doctors appointment today to hear the results on a raft of blood tests. Short version: cholesterol, pressure, sugar and everything else is fine, so my getting out of breath from climbing a flight of stairs is simply down to being unfit. But I did get a prescription of antibiotics for the cough.

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GlaxoSmithKline are finally being sued over their antidepressant Paroxetine - trade name Seroxat. According to some leaked memos, they knew from their own trials that it had at best no effect on depression, and sometimes actually increased suicidal tendencies in the test subjects.

Twelve years ago I went to see a counsellor about depression. He wasn't very interested until I mentioned I was gay - then he spent half an hour trying to persuade me I wanted to abduct young boys. From talking to other people, I now know this kind of practice from counsellors is quite common.

Eventually he agreed to refer me to a specialist about depression. The specialist turned out to be psychiatrist who worked with paedophiles. But he, seeing what had happened, referred me to a third man who specialised in depression.

This man prescribed me an antidepressant newly on the market. It was called Paroxetine, and apparently it had none of the usual side effects. So, no dizziness, nausea, strange thoughts and dreams, vagueness of intellect, impotence etc.

Except it had all these effects, and made no impact on the depression. I was young enough and stupid enough to let the doctor persuade me it would work eventually.

It's difficult now to describe how the drug made me feel. Slow, muzzy, disconnected. Ill but apathetic and will-less. Rather like having a permanent headcold, ironically. I spent four years on various dosages of this drug, wandering dreamlike through courses in computing and theology, plus a really bad relationship and a consequent prison term. There was at least one seriously incompetent suicide attempt, but details of the entire period are very hazy.

I threw away all my pills at age 27, together with most of the junk in my head about counsellors, doctors, academia and relationships.

And now it's finally come out that GSK knew all about the effects of Seroxat, but put it on the market anyway, selling it as the safe new wonderdrug.

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