MJ

I have largely ignored Jackson's passing, not for lack of interest but for general revulsion at the whole celebrity/tragedy angle. Let me leave it at this, he was obviously and chronically terrorized by his father and exploited by just about everyone else. Then the pharmaceuticals found a home, to wit, his being sued a couple of years ago for 100,000 in pharmacy bills.

as per Furious Seasons:

I was blown away on Saturday when, during cable news coverage of Michael Jackson's death, two doctors offering analysis were very critical of Jackson's reported long-term, chronic use of both painkillers and anti-depressants and noted that they could affect someone's heart health (while that's likely obvious to one and all with painkillers, it's probably not so obvious with anti-depressants). Sadly, I cannot find transcripts of either doctor on Fox News and CNN, but I can assure you they said it and it was a stunner to me, given how the mainstream media ignored the connection between anti-depressant use and sudden cardiac death in women, as reported by researchers in the Nurse's Health Study. It's also a stunner to me in light of how naive we've been as a culture when it comes to using anti-depressants very casually while assuming that there's no long-term impact from using the drugs.

Jackson was allegedly on a staggering cocktail of prescription drugs: thrice daily injections of Demerol; Dilaudid; Viccodine; and 120 mgs. a day of Zoloft and 40 mgs. a day of Paxil. He was supposedly taking the anti-depressants for OCD and social phobia issues. What Jackson was taking at the time of his death isn't entirely clear, since his toxicology report won't be available for many weeks and also since last night his personal physician, Conrad Murray, reportedly told Los Angeles police detectives that he hadn't injected Jackson with Demerol and, in the words of the doctor's lawyer, "There was no Demerol. No OxyContin."

He said nothing about anti-depressants, however.

So we shall see how all this prescription business plays out. Of course, Jackson was known to have used painkillers for many years to treat chronic pain problems and it's entirely possible that he'd become addicted to them. It's entirely possible that Michael was hooked on anti-depressants as well. Certainly, SSRIs can be very addictive (or create physical dependency, if you prefer) for some people.

That said, I want to make it clear that I am not blaming Zoloft and Paxil for Jackson's death. I am not saying that taking either drug will give any specific person a heart attack. But I am saying that, for now, that the two anti-depressants are inextricably entwined and linked to the death of MJ.

The research on long-term anti-depressant use is thin to begin with and there's not a lot of research on links between anti-depressant use and heart problems, but it is obvious to me that there is clearly something going on here and, as I wrote back in March, the nurse's study should be a big wake up call to doctors who've had patients on anti-depressants for many years and for patients themselves.