Source: http://www.thetimesonline.com/articles/2007/06/13/news/top_news/doc033e30e9c6967a82862572f80081b832.txt Scott Randall Cunningham was a typical eighth-grader with all the concerns that physicians and parents might expect to see in a 14-year-old. He talked to his mom about girls, got caught smoking, had an active social life and yearned to work at Taco Bell, where his favorite food was served.
Yet when he told his counselor that the stresses of life were getting to him, he received a prescription for the antidepressant Paxil. Six weeks later, he died as a result of trying to commit suicide.
Four years after the death, GlaxoSmithKline, the manufacturer of Paxil, began printing a disclaimer with Paxil warning that the drug increased the risk of suicidal thinking and behavior in some adolescent users of the drug.
The family has joined dozens of other families across the nation suing GlaxoSmithKline. They contend the drug industry hid the dangers that antidepressants pose a problem for the adolescents who take them.
Filed last year in Pennsylvania, the Cunningham's case was transferred to U.S. District Court in Hammond earlier this month. The lawsuit alleges fraud and negligence and seeks undisclosed monetary damages for the family.
