Ah, all those years ago – life was so simple then, we were more innocent.
The summers went on forever and our problems never really amounted to much.
We believed what we were told – the drugs we took were tested and safe, all they did was to cure us and you couldn’t become addicted to Seroxat… and… what’s even better – it treats a whole range of other ‘conditions’:
New pill to beat shyness
Sunday Mirror, Oct 4, 1998
A PILL to combat shyness is being launched this week and will be available on the NHS.
The drug, which could relieve the symptoms of up to three million chronically- shy people in Britain, is reported to improve the condition within a week in some cases.
Seroxat, which was originally licensed to treat depression, has now been given the go-ahead to fight shyness and “social phobias”.
The drug works by increasing the level of seratonin in the brain, and could cost the NHS up to pounds 700 million a year if all the country’s shy people took it.
Thursday, 23 July, 1998
Shy? Try taking a pill
Social wallflowers could be transformed into outgoing party animals with the help of a new drug.
SmithKline Beecham claims its anti-depression drug Seroxat, launched in the UK in 1992, has been shown in tests to cure ’social phobia’.
It has applied to the US Food and Drug Administration for a licence to use the drug, now prescribed for panic attacks, for people diagnosed as having acute shyness.
The media has climbed onto the Seroxat bandwagon, hailing it as the big new thing in social drugs after anti-impotence pill Viagra.
They say Seroxat will help shy people get to the point where they might need Viagra.
The downside is that Seroxat can reduce sexual drive and function.
Serotonin
The drug boosts the level of serotonin in the brain – the hormone which controls people’s moods.
It is already a major success at treating depression and its sales have risen by 23% in the last year.
It now accounts for one quarter of US anti-depressant drug sales and it was the fastest selling anti-depressant drug in the UK in the mid-1990s. In 1996, UK sales grew by 50%.
But if it gets approval to be used to treat acute shyness, sales are likely to soar.
A spokesman for SmithKline Beecham said shyness was ‘ a serious condition’ and that only those who had acute problems would be prescribed the drug by doctors.
It’s not even ten years ago and that copy sounds like it’s from the 1960s – we got spoonfed a whole lot of rubbish. Go over to GSK: Licence to (K)ill and read the whole of this great article.
In fact, you can go here and read another article at GSK: Licence to (K)ill.
