Like so many people, Kim Witczak's call to activism was born of personal heartache. In 2003, her husband, Tim ("Woody") Witczak, sought help for insomnia. His doctor prescribed the antidepressant Zoloft. Five weeks later, Witczak's father found Woody dead, hanging from the rafters of the couple's garage in south Minneapolis. Soon after, the widowed Witczak launched a national drug safety campaign to assure stronger safety measures for psychiatric drugs, including black box suicide warnings to protect those at-risk for devastating side effects.
She has testified before the U.S. Senate and co-organized an international conference in Washington, D.C., which brought together scholars, health care reformers, consumer advocates and health journalists to discuss what she calls the "selling of sickness."
This week, Witczak flew to Washington to begin her appointment as a consumer representative on the FDA's Psychopharmacologic Drugs Advisory Committee — Minnesota's only member.
Witczak, 49, grew up in Bloomington. A freelance advertising executive and co-founder of Free Arts Minnesota, she has never remarried. She travels and enjoys yoga, but her volunteer work with woodymatters.com has been essential to her healing. "I got involved," she said, "to make sure other families didn't have to go through what we learned the hard way."
Q: How did you connect the dots from Woody's death to a prescription drug?
A: From the beginning, his death made no sense to me. Woody wasn't depressed, nor did he have a history of depression or any other mental illness. The only thing that changed in his life was Zoloft. He experienced every known side effect, like diarrhea, night sweats, trembling hands, and his anxiety worsened. He also became easily agitated and kept expressing this feeling of his head being detached from his body. We now know this is a neurological disorder called akathisia. Woody was never told about this potentially deadly side effect and his doctor might not have even been aware of it.
Q: How many people are at risk of similar adverse side effects from Zoloft, Paxil, Prozac and the like?
A: About 3 to 5 percent of the population. That might not sound like a lot, but there are more than 100 million prescriptions for antidepressants written every year, totaling more than $11 billion in sales. Adults and children are being given antidepressants for a growing number of ailments, including depression, obsessive compulsive disorder, panic disorder, anxiety, PMDD [premenstrual dysphoric disorder], menopause, insomnia, pain management and migraines. Do the math and that's a lot of people who potentially can have serious issues with these powerful, mind-altering drugs.
