Clarification on petition

[Guest guest]

Dear ,

Thank you for bringing this up. I helped a little with the editing

of the petiton prior to it being posted, and I read this the same way as

you did the first couple of times.. However, you need to re-read it.

You will see that it is worded correctely. However, we probably should

have phrased it a little differently to make it more clear.

Let me try and re-word it so you will understand this. By

the GAO's own admission, those adverse events that are actually reported

are estimated to be somewhere between 1% and 10% of the adverse events

that actually occur with any given drug.

Therefore, if the adverse events actually reported are only in the

area of 1% of what is actually happening in the real world, then as many

as 108,900 suicides and 188,500 suicide attempts may be the real number....

and if those adverse events that are actually reported lie closer to the

10% mark, then we would calculate that 10,890 suicides and 18,850 suicide

attempts would be closer to the "real" number of adverse events actually

occuring.

I hope this clarifies things for you. If you support this petition,

I hope you will help us circulate it by forwarding it to everyone for whom

you have an email address, or direct attention to it in any other way you

can think of.

Our Best to You!

The Avenging Angel

wrote:

Dear Writers of the Petition:

Thank you for making this attempt at awakening the government and the

public to the offenses of the pharmaceutical industry.

I wanted to point out an error that I noticed in paragraph 6, quoted

below. Focus on the last two sentences.

>>6. By the Government Accounting Office’s own admissions, reported

FDA Adverse Drug Events only reflect an estimated 1%, to a conservative

10% of actual events, and “are unlikely to be representative of the much

larger number of unreported events.” (“Adverse Drug Events – the Magnitude

of Health Risk is Uncertain Because of Limited Incidence Date”, Jan. 2000;

GAO/HEHS-00-21) Given this lack of actual data, Prozac numbers could be

projected to be in the area of 10,890 deaths by suicide and 18,850 suicide

attempts at 10% reporting. At 1% reporting, 108,900 suicides and 188,500

suicide attempts could be projected.<<

I believe you have reversed the 1% and the 10% numbers in the last two

sentences. This is the kind of error that makes an otherwise admirable

document look rather foolish. Unfortunately, spell-checkers don't

catch this sort of thing.

Best wishes. You are to be complimented on your work on this vitally

important issue.

Sincerely,