NATION : Prozac in Abbie Hoffman Death?
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DOYLESTOWN, Pa. — Two citizens groups today asked the Bucks County coroner to reopen an investigation into the death of political activist Abbie Hoffman for signs that he was driven to suicide by a controversial anti-depressant.
Hoffman had taken the drug Prozac six weeks before he was found dead on April 12, 1989, in his Solebury Township apartment, the Citizens Commission on Human Rights and the Prozac Survivors Support Group said in a letter to the coroner.
Coroner Thomas Rosko’s autopsy showed Hoffman, a founder of the 1960s anti-war Yippie movement, died from an overdose of the sedative phenobarbitol and alcohol.
In their letter, the groups cite a Harvard study linking Prozac to obsessive suicidal thoughts. Published in the February edition of the American Journal of Psychiatry, the study found that 3 1/2% of Prozac users developed suicidal thoughts that lasted up to three months after taking the drug.
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