Jury Is Still Out on Prozac’s Powers

Re “Making Peace With Prozac” (Dec. 1): Dr. Peter D. Kramer may be wondering, but he is also prescribing “often . . . to guide a person through a rocky period.”

This is what far too many people do with Valium, alcohol, marijuana, all sorts of drugs. Our society is rotting with drug use. People are being medicated or are self-medicating for their distress. The psychiatric community and their drug suppliers are a legitimization of the idea that personal problems require pharmacological solutions.

The message in supplying drugs “to guide a person through a rocky period” is that you are unable to deal with it directly and it is preferable not to do so.

But personal growth means coming to terms with, and developing faith in, ourselves. These are human problems requiring human solutions. What we need are doctors who are more genuinely understanding of their patients than they are fascinated by using their “powerful tool.”

RICHARD PORTER, M.D.

Brentwood

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The article on Prozac implied that the drug is mainly being used for cosmetic mental purposes. Not much was said about the drug’s main purpose--relieving clinical depression.

I’m a 43-year-old woman who has suffered from clinical depression all my life, but it was never diagnosed properly until a few years ago.

For as long as I can remember, I’ve always felt vaguely sad and unhappy, with no apparent cause. I was jealous of other people’s happy faces and wondered why God liked them better than me. I got very little joy out of life. I cried a lot and often thought it would be nice to die so I could get some relief.

Over the years, I spent thousands of dollars on therapy with different therapists. Finally, a new psychiatrist said that all the talk therapy in the world was never going to help me because he thought my problem was chemical.

He started me on Prozac and almost immediately I felt like a new person. It makes me feel like a normal person who has normal body chemistry must feel. That’s all. Life is good now. I still have problems, but they don’t devastate me like they used to. My biggest regret is the years I lost while feeling awful.

NAME WITHHELD

Pasadena

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Scientific concern that Prozac makes people become violent and suicidal has solidified over the past two years.

We are the leading firm in California fighting to protect the public from this killer drug through a dozen Prozac-related cases that are now moving toward trial. These cases involve true nightmares that never would have occurred if the public had been properly informed about this drug.

GEORGE W. MURGATROYD III

Kananack, Murgatroyd,

Baum & Hedlund

Los Angeles