How Dangerous Are Antidepressants?- Interview with Kim Witczak

Kim Witczak refers to herself as the accidental advocate. She was living the American Dream, married with a successful career in advertising, traveling the world, and planning her life on her terms; however, all that changed with one phone call on August 6, 2003. Here to share her tragic story about the dangers of antidepressants on the Medical Truth Podcast is Kim Witczak.

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Intro 0:00

Get ready to hear the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth about the United States healthcare system with your host of the medical truth podcast, James Egidio.

James Egidio 0:17

Hi, I'm James Egidio your host of the medical truth podcast, the podcast that tells the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth about the American healthcare system. My guest refers to herself as the accidental advocate. She was living the American dream. Married with a successful career in advertising, traveling the world and planning her life on her terms. However, all that changed with one phone call on August 6th. 2003. Here to share her tragic story is my guest on the medical truth podcast. Ms. Kim Witczak. Kim, welcome to the medical truth podcast. How are you doing today?

Kim Witczak 0:55

I'm great. Thanks for having me looking forward to the conversation.

James Egidio 0:59

Absolutely. For the listeners and viewers of the medical truth podcast share your story as to your situation with your husband.

Kim Witczak 1:08

Sure. I like to call myself the accidental advocate because I never set out to do my drug safety advocacy work that I do today. 20 years ago, my life looked very different than it does today. I was happily married to my husband, Woody, of almost 10 years. We both had pretty successful careers and travel a lot. And we were just starting to talk about having a family. And however, on August 6, 2003, I got a call from my dad. I was out of town on business that changed the trajectory of my life. My dad called to tell me that Woody was found hanging from the rafter of our garage, dead at age 37. Woody wasn't depressed. Woody didn't have a history of depression or any other mental illness. Woody had just started his dream job. With a startup company and was having trouble sleeping, which, as I always say, is not that uncommon for entrepreneurs or even somebody like me that, wakes up in the middle of the night. But Wood was a guy that always needed eight hours of sleep. Like it was almost a joke how much like he needed his sleep and Woody, went to his GP, his family doctor, and it's the doctor that he's gone to, for his physicals. And I always call Woody like a. Humpty Dumpty type patient, because, he usually went to the doctors when something happened and he was injured. He was a big athlete. And they fixed him up. And so I don't think there was anything unusual. Woody went to see his doctor and was given a three week sample pack of Zoloft and was. told that it would take the edge off and help him sleep. And ironically, the first three weeks that Woody was on this drug, I was out of the country. And it was my busy time. It's the year I was in New Zealand on an advertising shoot. So I wasn't there the first three weeks that Woody was put on the drug. But I remember, and it'll be something that will. Probably a haunt me, but I'm also super thankful that I had this. I got to see this experience. I'll never forget Woody walked through our back door and dropped his bag his briefcase and he had his blue dress shirt and he was completely drenched through it with a t shirt underneath and he fell to the floor in our kitchen with his hands around a vice. Kim, you gotta help me. I don't know what's happening. My head's outside my body looking in he's bawling. And I was like, Watching him, I had never in our almost 10 years of being married to him and 3 years of dating prior, have I ever seen something like that. And of course, we calmed him down and we got him to I'm like, breathe, we did praying, we did yoga breathing, and eventually he called his doctor, and the doctor said, you gotta give it 4 to 6 weeks to kick in. And every night the next week, Woody, came home and he'd be like, what do you think about hypnosis? I'm going to beat this feeling. What do you think about acupuncture? What do you think about, he was trying to do anything to beat this feeling in his head. And I remember even saying, what if your job is so stressful? Quit, we can go back to what you were doing sales. Maybe you're not set and cut out. Like I had no idea what was going on. And so I had left to go out of town again, as I said, it was my busy time of season and I hadn't heard from Woody all day and that's. Which was highly unusual because we talked all the time and we also called many times during the day and just checked in when we were out of town. And so that's when I hadn't called and heard from Woody all day. I finally had my dad go over to our house and that, let me tell you was, I never expected that phone call. And at that time. obviously my entire life just fell apart in that phone call. But that night when I was there, the coroner asked me a question. Was Woody taking any medication and the only medication Woody was taking was Zoloft and she and it was sitting on the kitchen counter and she proceeded to say she was going to take it with her It might have something to do with his death and the other thing that same day that Woody was found There was a front page article in our newspaper the Minneapolis Star Tribune That said the UK finds link Between antidepressants and suicide in teens. And so that was like, that was happening while Woody, our, my entire life had just changed. And at that point we never once questioned the drug. Why would we, it was given to him by his doctor. It was sold and advertised as safe and effective, and it was FDA approved. And so never questioned the drug and, thank God for the coroner that asked that question. Because that night, my brother in law, as I'm trying to figure out how to get back to Minneapolis, my brother in law went home that night and Googled Zoloft and suicide. And we had no idea that what was, what came up in that search. And the, one of them was that in 1991, the FDA held hearings. An advisory committee hearing on the emergence of violence and suicide when it was just Prozac on the market. Really, that became the, as I say, became the mission. It was too late for our family. My brother in law and I, especially, I thank my brother in law in the beginning because he really was, doing all the research, ordering books from like David Healy, who is one of the main guys out of the UK psychiatrists that had been looking and seeing this idea of the link between violence and suicide in. volunteer, healthy volunteers and had done studies as well as Peter Breggin, who's another psychiatrist here in the the U.S.. And both of those, we're the basis and then we're just googling every possible thing we could. And eventually we call it the battle for Woody and it became our mission to go and go out to D. C. And get black box suicide warnings added to these drugs.

James Egidio 7:42

Yeah, so it sounds like the flashpoint for you to look further into this is. Possible cause of suicide at that time possible was this corner, correct? Yeah,

Kim Witczak 7:57

absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. It was literally I always say when somebody has something like a sudden death or like a suicide, you go on an investigative mode, you're in an investigative mode because you're like how did this just happen? Because Woody went from loving life, full of life, had everything that he was living for, from not being able to sleep to head outside the body. And five weeks later, he's dead and he's hanging. And so thankfully for that conversation with the coroner who asked the simple question, what medication was Woody on? And literally the only thing that had changed in Woody's life was the addition of Zoloft in his life. And so the fact that the coroner pointed that out and said it might have something to do with his death. And she took the bottle with her.

James Egidio 8:47

Yeah. Were you so I guess leading up to his death were you, I get, obviously you're there, right? When he was, when he started to use the medication in that four to six week window of time. No,

Kim Witczak 9:02

not the first three weeks. I had just left. I was on a BMW shoot down in New Zealand So I wasn't even there the first three weeks He was on the drug and it wasn't until I came back three, you know I'm his week number four when I saw that it had outside the body and he was crying and So that was really I didn't see any of the experience. And like I had said earlier, we both traveled a lot for our, our jobs. So travel was nothing out of the, out of the usual for either one of us. Yeah, so I wasn't there the first three weeks he was on the drug.

James Egidio 9:38

Yeah. And how did his physician respond to this when this all happened?

Kim Witczak 9:43

After his death. Are you? Yeah. Yeah. He was completely shocked. He's the one that said you got to give it four to six weeks to kick in. And never once did he assume or think there was anything to worry about because he didn't give it to Woody for depression. He gave it to him to help him sleep and and what I have subsequently learned is, they use this drug off label, but at that point, and eventually I did have as part of the battle for Woody as I call it. We did have, it was multi pronged. It was, going out to Washington DC and meeting with senators, the FDA, HHS. We helped with congressional hearings. That was one aspect. Another aspect was really using the media. The mainstream, Woody's story was told all over at this point because Woody was not an isolated issue. There were many others that were happening at the same time. And then we also had a big failure to warn wrongful death lawsuit against Pfizer. And between those three prongs, that really was the first, really gave me an insight. look into what these guys have known about these guys being the drug companies and What the FDA is known about and then some of and then really helping Congress because you know back we started pushing for FDA Advice, hearings similar to the same hearing That they held in 1991 and it was where all these families came and the members of the public came forward to tell their story and I quickly learned Woody was not his, he wasn't the only one out there that I'm there and eventually in 2004 there were hearings that resulted in putting a black box warning, which is the most serious of all warnings on a drug for Children under 18. And then eventually they were looking at all ages and in 2000 and six, they being the FDA, they added the warning to age 24. But to this day, 20 years later, there still is no warning for all ages and it's eye opening some of the information that we got out from under seal in our lawsuit that showed that all ages are at risk. The FDA has known about it, Pfizer knew about it and and they kept it from the doctors the side effect that Woody had and a lot of times, it was at that point it was, intuitively in the deepest part of me, I knew Woody wasn't depressed. And that's how everybody was like, Oh Woody must've been depressed. And I'm like no. I'm telling you, Woody was not depressed. Like he had, he, during this time, He was still running. He was a big runner and a big athlete. And he he was pretty anal. So he kept track of how many miles he put on his shoes because he was constantly rotating them because of training for marathons. And so during this time, he was still running. He couldn't, and he did tell me, he was like, Kim, I can't run these long distance. I'm only about three miles. So that's about what he was running. And so when all these like experts and the suicide groups and everybody was telling me what he was depressed. I'm like, no, there's no way. And so one of the documents and it's one that I think both Healy and Breggin would talk about is called akathisia and it's a side effect. where it's this internal agitation that literally you want to crawl out of your skin. You're constantly moving that head outside the body. And Pfizer Zoloft chief medical officer, Dr. Roger Lane, wrote an article in one of the medical journals where he described akathisia. As not so much it being the disease itself, but it's a drug induced from the medication that quote unquote his words. Death can be a welcome result now that document was public But what wasn't public that eventually became? Released And it was declassified Was a memo that dr. Roger Lane who wrote that article where? Describing akathisia where death can be a welcome result sent out a memo to his sales staff and the product field staff saying the attached journal article is not suitable for general practitioners, but may be interesting to a neuro biologically inclined psychiatrist. So they intentionally kept that side effect from GPs. And when you think about it. There's a lot more. And there was a, at that point, there was a lot of business reasons to moving prescribing out of the psychiatrists and into the GPs where they say anywhere from 70 to 80 percent of the business and the prescription. Come from the GP's offices. So there was an example of they intentionally kept it from Woody's doctor and really any doctor. So Wood's doctor at that point, they were, they, at this point back then they were, selling and it was advertised all over the media, the little bouncing white balls, they were selling it to, for everything. I remember one of the ads saying do you get nervous being in a group of people? You might have social anxiety disorder, only your doctor can know. So like they had a lot of, marketing and sales that were geared to GPs. People like, the Dr. Woody went to, and so really Wood's doctor didn't

James Egidio 15:47

know. Yeah. Yeah. I know they used it off label too, for premature ejaculation. They used it for a lot of things. I know anxiety as well. When you did this research and you did a deep dive, what did you discover in terms of not just Zoloft, but maybe other antidepressants, or did you do any research on other antidepressants?

Kim Witczak 16:09

Oh yeah. It was the whole class of the SSF SSR eyes. And that's where we discovered, that the hearings in 1991, when it was just Prozac on the market and it was on the emergence of violence and suicide. And the majority of those advisory board members had ties to the, drug companies and manufacturers that made antidepressants. So at that point in 91, they said they said, no, we don't see any link between the, the emergence of violence and suicide and Prozac. And at that time, the FDA told Eli Lilly to study suicidality. They never did. The FDA never followed up with them. Then meanwhile, come 13 years later, before they put warnings on, they now approved a Zoloft, Paxil. It got approved for kids. I learned things such as, when you study kids, it extends the patent of a drug and, by six months, that was something that, the role of Congress. All of a sudden you're like, wait, this is a business. And so then, some of the things other things discovering through the lawsuit, obviously the side effect akathisia started to look really at my business, which is advertising. I didn't realize because I have spent my entire career in advertising. I didn't realize that the U S was only one of two countries in the world that allowed drug ads. And there's a lot of things that were happening that there was also that clinical trials that, the bulk of that in our country, we needed to clinical trials, the double two double blinded placebo controlled studies, but until there were lawsuits that pulled out and got into the company's files, the bulk of the Zoloft clinical trials that were in their company files, Pfizer's files, the placebo out performed the drug and for the ones that they used to get approval in the U. S. It barely outperformed the drug. And so I started learning about clinical trials and then also realizing that there were other high profile murder suicides. I don't know if you remember if you remember Phil Hartman, he was a comedian on Saturday night live and his wife. murdered, Phil Hartman and then took her own life and I didn't realize, and she had just started Zoloft and the media made it out to be like, Oh, she was crazy. But meanwhile, the family had secretly settled with Pfizer and nobody knew about that lawsuit. So there, there, it was just like, I, and then I was shocked also to, to find out that Prozac Initially didn't get approved in Germany for two reasons, risk of suicide and lack of efficacy. And when I saw it on, again, on the BGA, their internal company news, letterhead yours, you can't unsee when you've seen this and you have somebody like Woody dead. I knew I had to do something with it, but when eventually Germany did. Approve Prozac. But it was originally prescribed with a tranquilizer to help offset that activation, which is what Woody had, where, the akathisia where Pfizer actually described it, death can be a welcome result. Yeah.

James Egidio 19:47

Yeah. Did he, did Woody have any alternative medications or remedies that were suggested by his doctor for his insomnia or did they just throw him on a Zoloft and that was it?

Kim Witczak 20:03

Yeah, they gave him

James Egidio 20:04

Zoloft. That was it? That was just Zoloft?

Kim Witczak 20:07

Yep. And this would help take the edge off. Quote, unquote.

James Egidio 20:11

Wow. And then in your deep dive and in your research, since you've been an advocate in this, uh, area of medicine and medication how young are some of the patients that they're putting this. These medications on

Kim Witczak 20:27

oh my god I was shocked to know that they put little kids like little two and three year olds and especially with some of the foster kids and so that was shocking to me and then of course, they're young, I met during this time I met several families whose kids were like 13 12 10 They were given the drug For like test anxiety, and they went on to hang themselves to they just moved and were stressed. And again, a lot of these were hangings with the suicides. And fast forward, it's I initially, eventually we got the black box warnings on these drugs and was really involved in, like I said working with the house energy and commerce that actually called to task the FDA leadership and the drug company executives to come before Congress and they drilled them because the leadership at FDA with held some reports from their own scientists that would have that would have resulted in, warning the public. A lot earlier than it did. And you just start watching the games that are being played. And truthfully, I, I didn't realize that I thought it was just an isolated issue with antidepressants. And what I realized it's really a much bigger. Systemic problem with our drug safety system. The system's not really designed to deal with safety. It's all about getting the drugs on the market. And, even when I remember a meeting that we went and met with the top officials at the FDA that were responsible for approvals of antidepressants and we told them Woody's story and there was, we had some other families as well as Dr. Healy was in this meeting with us at, with the FDA officials. And it was fun, like watching them, battling back and forth with data, but literally I remember saying to Bob Temple, I said, and told him Woody's story and I go. Aren't you curious how, like, how would he who didn't have history of depression, went from not sleeping to head outside the body and hanging in five weeks? I would think that you would be curious, like the NTSB, if there was a plane crash. To go out and investigate to see why somebody like this, was there any similarities? Could we prevent this from happening to somebody else that you would be interested? And he literally said to us. This is just an anecdote. I'm like, what? He goes, this is just an anecdote. It didn't happen. We didn't see it in the double blinded placebo controlled studies. And I remember going, an anecdote, like I literally, I'm like, Woody is not an anecdote. Neither is that other family that's sitting there and the other family, all of our loved ones within weeks. Or less than, a couple months for sure. All took their own lives and you're not curious. And so really I'm sitting by my desk and it we created this whole campaign called we are not. Anecdotes. We matter. And I remember like telling the, and we all wore these at our the 2006 hearing and I continue to still wear it and hand these buttons out because it's not just antidepressants. Now, we're seeing it in a lot of other, classes of drugs and vaccines, et cetera, but to hear them say anecdotes and it was really, yeah. That's where I saw that they're not interested in safety and like they're not the same people that approve the drugs and vaccines and devices are the same people that are responsible for looking at safety. And so if you have the same group, just even human nature, even if you were curious. You, are you going to go and really dig deep or are you constantly having to argue like, Nope, we didn't see it in the double blinded placebo. Nope. We didn't see it. Like that meeting that I'll never forget between Bob Temple and David Healy that went back and forth about the data and what they saw about these warnings. So it's, that was another thing that I learned is the system isn't really set up. To help talk about safety and alarm the public when there is safety. And it'll still be, that's why I'm still doing this work 20 years later. And and the importance of warning, like I even, I remember at these things, I don't understand when you know that there could potentially. Not even saying causation, even if there's a potential for some type of harm. Why wouldn't you inform the public? It just seems like such a no brainer.

James Egidio 25:26

Yeah, it's, I, to me, and I think it's obvious now, especially after the rollout of the bioweapon, the vaccine they call it, that for the pharmaceutical companies to not take liability, And no matter what the fallout is for them, it's the cost of doing business. That's how they look at it. They could care less about human life at all. I actually have a friend, both of her parents were on antidepressants and both of them her mom and dad hung themselves in their garage in Vegas on antidepressants. Oh, yeah.

Kim Witczak 26:04

Yeah.

James Egidio 26:05

Horrible. Yeah. Yeah, and then the other thing too is the warnings that go out on especially the antidepressants because I have another friend who commits suicide as well on antidepressants. But of course he was mixing it with alcohol and he asphyxiated himself in his garage with his car. But is the using alcohol and they don't, they don't really, they don't, they poo that they just whatever, and that again, it's, they don't take the responsibility for. Really, like you say, putting out these warnings to the patient and then the doctors are so liberal when it comes to writing these prescriptions, it's just it's like a band aid for most physicians, to write these prescriptions and just say here, use it and not follow up or if they do follow up, it's just, oh, how's it working for you? And of course, the patients a lot of times are going to say it works because everybody wants the quick fix. Yeah. Yeah.

Kim Witczak 27:03

I think you're absolutely right with antidepressant doctors are too quick to prescribe. Even if they, like if somebody was to, say that they had an adverse event or something doesn't feel right. It's too quick to say, oh, it's your disease getting worse. Or not recognize it as being a side effect, like with Woody, Oh, just give it time. Or, layering more drugs on top of the drug to deal with some of the side effects. And there's a belief that it's not an issue with adults. And so I think, they've done a really good job at convincing the medical profession through, all their education and the, and even some of the screening forms that they use to talk through to get talk about anti or depression and mental health, all of those were created by the drug companies and marketing. And it's. No wonder why we have more people taking these drugs and, look at even just the last couple of years, obviously with the pandemic and people being locked down and kids being prescribed and over prescribed and, the the U S task preventative services just did a report to the Congress and they said the number one area that they need to, that. Congress or whatever area that we need to put focus on is mental health. So for me, that scares me because I'm thinking, okay, this is where all the research money is going to go and we're going to have more. And I sit on the FDA, that same committee that in 1991 didn't do their job. I am now the consumer representative on the, FDA's psychopharmalogic drugs advisory committee. And I see how a lot of the new drugs are coming to market and it's all for treatment resistant depression. So meaning you've been on an antidepressant two or more of them, they don't work and you're still depressed. We're going to put this new drug and we're going to fast track it, which is not even going through the the regular, Gold standard per say, even though there's, there's some debate there if it's even gold standard, but they're being fast tracked. I think it's going to be something we're going to have to continue to watch. And, we haven't even talked about the potential link. between all these, the shooters and mass shooting that's something that we need to be looking at as well. And so it's good. It feels like there's this job is never complete. Never.

James Egidio 29:38

Yeah. Yeah. What was what his sleep cycle like prior to him being prescribed the the antidepressants?

Kim Witczak 29:47

What was typically a guy who needed eight hours of sleep. And that was pretty, so he was, and he slept a lot. All through the night so the fact of him getting up at 3 a.m. He, that wasn't, he, that wasn't normal for him. Now it is like for somebody like me, I get, I constantly wake up and it's just the way my sleep cycle is. But, when I think about even the conversations that could have been had, what are you eating? What are he didn't. The other thing is he wasn't a big. Drinker, like he could have one drink, two made him drunk. So he didn't really do that. He didn't drink caffeine because he his body was super sensitive. And so there were a lot of things that, now looking back, I, we probably should have questioned or even this idea that had Woody. that it was an antidepressant, even said that it was an antidepressant. I think Woody might've asked the question, why are you giving me an antidepressant? I'm not depressed. So he didn't even have that information. And we didn't even have the information of being closely. monitored when first going on these drugs or dosages change? He would, that would have been another opportunity that he could have said, my wife's out of town for the next three weeks. Is there something else we can do while she's out of town that we could try? Yoga, breathing, maybe there's some other, but he wasn't a guy that would naturally just go, give me a quick fix. That wasn't how he, but he was somebody who really trusted his doctor.

James Egidio 31:32

Yeah. And I understand that because you see looking around today at, especially after the whole COVID thing and the rollout of this bioweapon, this vaccine, they call it. I could see where people buy into what their doctors suggest or prescribe because they have a lot of trust right prior to COVID. They had a lot of trust in their doctor. And then of course the pharmaceutical companies, as you probably know already, they spend billions of dollars on advertising billions it's a big, this was probably one of the biggest marketing campaigns with this rollout of the, this vaccine this poison that they. They rolled out I can't blame the patient and I can't blame the person that's watching this commercial for these medications. In fact, my wife, she's from Italy and she's we're watching TV. Sometimes we're not big TV watchers, but you'll see she'll see prescription medication commercials and she'll say. They don't even advertise like this in Italy, so I could see why people buy into it. And, they'll walk into a physician's office and they'll say, Hey, I need this medication because I saw it on television. And then a lot of times the doctors probably nine times out of 10, I'll say, Oh, no problem here. Here's the prescription. So you get caught in the crossfire of negligent prescribing. And being bought and sold by the commercials in on television. What happens?

Kim Witczak 33:09

Yeah. That was one of the things, so as I call it, I've, through the years I've traveled and I've gone to other countries that have been. to go to conferences and attend conferences that have been about the critical thinking or the ugly side of, pharmaceutical companies. And there was one conference, um, that I remember going to in Amsterdam in 2010, and it was called selling sickness. And it was attended, it was put on by the Dutch government and attended by people from all over the EU, Australia, there was only a handful of people and half of them were my attorneys and we were over there and they were, every example that they use was from the US. And it was like the, whether it was the marketing or ghostwriting or the use of of using doctor influencers called key opinion leaders to the screening tools that have been created. And I remember like thinking, why isn't this conversation happening in the U. S.? And so I eventually tried to get the organizers. to do it in the U. S. They didn't, but I ended up bringing this conference over to the U. S. called Selling Sickness. And it is something that I look at now. And when you were saying about like the doctors and the public and I've created this spider web where I have the doctor and the patient in the middle. And it's all of the influence that is behind, that's going on behind the scenes. And, spiderwebs, a lot of times we don't even see them, right? And spiderwebs are beautiful. They tangle us. And so that is something that I think a lot about now is, that for the public, and especially when I look back at the. Last when the vaccines came out, the the, and I put in quotes because I had never really done much about vaccines because I don't have kids, but once that came out and I started watching the marketing that was behind the campaign and the fact that these companies were given It's The same company that in November, December of 2020, like the opioids just paid like billion dollar fine Pfizer paid before that had the largest and billions of dollars of fine for off label marketing and And so the fact that these companies were given complete legal immunity was like a red flag from, but then also the marketing campaign, like they were having all the celebrities, they were using all the techniques that we use in my business. Was like, I've never liked, I've never liked the use of celebrities, even in like promoting a car or like fashion. I know they do, but cause they work, but I was like watching all these celebrities. Telling us that it's completely safe and effective and I'm like, what do they know about that? And then I saw this the use of sales promotion tools Like bring your vax card in and get a donut a day for a year you know from Krispy Kreme So I started you know, these are the things that I hope and I pray that, God forbid, there's another one that we really people start paying attention because like Woody and we were pretty smart and, or at least I thought we were smart, but how quickly, when we're sick and I know when I've been sick and you're your guards are down, you go in and you want to trust and you trust your doctors, but I certainly after the last couple years I'd be very hesitant to watch the mainstream media and what they're promoting As well as watch all the marketing and really have like people should pay attention to those marketing and also The idea of like fear, the power of fear. Cause I've seen it even on some of the drugs that we approve, like the hope they sell hope and fear, that's the power of marketing or manipulation a little bit persuasion.

James Egidio 37:21

Yeah, that's exactly what they're doing. They're selling that. And what's really interesting about that is, they are when you have to go to a naturopath or a chiropractor for that matter, who gives you better solutions to your ill illness than a allopathic physician. You'll go, you go to a chiropractor, you go to a naturopath, they have better solutions, like you say, than most of these allopathic physicians. Even the DOs. Do a little bit more prescribing than the MDs. Yeah, but again you get much better care It seems like from alternatives and i'm not suggesting anything, but that's what it seems like to me

Kim Witczak 38:08

Yeah you know that was really surprising to me in all of this research is even what kind of training are they getting our doctors in whether it's nutrition, how much of a course is in nutrition, how much of the courses in these natural, there's no money in the, some of these other solutions and also how the FDA works. And no wonder why our doctors it's a business and I keep saying healthcare is a business. And I don't even use the word patients. It drives my patient safety group crazy because I call us customers. But truly, if we look at it that way, we're customers because they need patients to go to business. They need patience. And so why wouldn't you have this? If I was a company and, I knew that, there, I could always build in the cost of doing business, although I don't know, I could do it because it just doesn't feel right to me. But the cradle to grave strategy, like it's a brilliant strategy. If you can keep a customer for life, And keep them moving in and out of different product cycles or, and so again, that is I totally understand that my lens is from my background in advertising and the business side of things, but I, it is a lot, I always tell people that. Even our lawyers when there are lawsuits and it's why they try to do anything to keep them out of the out of the company files or whatnot is One of the first places lawyers go when there's litigation against a drug company. They go to the marketing department Yeah, I find that fascinating

James Egidio 39:59

that is it's very fascinating And what's the reason why do you think?

Kim Witczak 40:04

Oh a lot of the fines that they've paid, the massive fines have been for off label marketing, promotion, pushing something that may not be safe or effective, right? And so a lot of it is the marketing, the power of the marketing. And, it's funny, I recently came across a, an article from 1999 where Pfizer, it was about the. power of marketing, being in involved in some of the clinical trials and because they have to figure out how are they going to sell this to the public. And that's something that I don't think I ever really paid much attention to this. And I think most people don't. And it's not until, something happens where you maybe We'll And it's the whole goal of why I do what I do is so that no family ever has to ask after the fact, how come we didn't know. And so I think it's really important that, having these conversations because you're also the new media as we've seen over the last couple years.

James Egidio 41:13

Yeah. And it's interesting you say that too, with the cradle. To the grave theory to because again, you mentioned earlier that they're putting children as young as 12, 13 years old on these antidepressants. So it's like they're creating these patients is what they're doing. But the fallout or potential fallout doesn't matter. It's just, again, the cost to do in business. And then it even makes even more sense that when they do these clinical trials, I know they, they always target these demographics, the age, the sex of a person so on and so forth. So they have a whole plethora of demographics that they work with. So they say, okay, now this is how we're going to market and who we're going to market it to when we roll it out to the market. Yep. So they have it pretty much dialed in from the time they do R and D research and development till the time they put it out on the market and market it, the actual medication. So my question to you is, when it comes to antidepressants, where are we at in terms of regulation or oversight?

Kim Witczak 42:26

I'm not sure I would say there's much other than the fact that there's going to be more and more new drugs coming to market, you look at what was it again, the US task preventative services just recommended that all Americans 65 and under are screened for anxiety. And so I think we are in something that we're going to just, it's going to be a continual it's human nature. And I think we have to have some of these conversations like, of course we're anxious. Of course of course there's times of sadness, but what, and this is where I think, I have not seen. Much change in this work. And in some ways, I think the work has gotten it's gotten even worse in the last, I would have thought that we've made some improvements, but I, in some ways, I think the pressure and trying to change and all the fast tracking of new drugs that are coming on the market for treatment resistant depression and all of that, I think, We need to be the ones to take a step back and don't and push back, but also don't fall prey to some of the things that we're seeing and maybe start asking ourselves or being curious around, this idea of what is it? What is it to be a human? And what is it like to have? To be sad and to, I go back to after Woody died and I went to my doctor and she asked if I needed something and I looked at her. I said first of all, I think my I mean, I think this is what killed my husband. And then I said, but aren't I supposed to be? Sad and hurt. My husband died and she said you don't need to. And I was like, Yes, I do. That's the only way through is not numbing. And that was a long time ago. And I think we've just what we've as a collective society have experienced. Globally over the last three, four years, we have to be really smart and push back and at least question the use of it because, the getting off of these drugs. I wish that, and I'll have to put them on my website, but there were a couple big about the withdrawal and people trying to get off of these medicines. Are we going to be on them forever? And then find out like, cause they can't get off of them or they feel like, Oh, I'm still sad. And then, so you could see that whole cascading effect that's created by the system. And that's where I think it's really important that we, as the people push back and start questioning and just reevaluate what does health mean?

James Egidio 45:12

Yeah. It means I think shutting off the television. Number one. Diet, exercise and faith in God. Those are the three, three, four solutions right there. And I think the further people get away from all that lifestyle change stuff. tHat they engage in with social media and all this other stuff that they, all the pressure they put on themselves with, their status and in their phones and all this other stuff, they got to get away from that. People have to get away from that. Realize that we have to just go back to basics and just decompress, shut the phones off and spend time with your family and eat properly. Fresh foods and exercise. And like I said, faith in God, those are the important things I think more than anything.

Kim Witczak 46:00

Yep. I would, and get out in nature, go hike and see, I think back to what we did and we kept everybody inside. glued to the TV, right? Fear mongering. You couldn't be outside where you need to be outside like vitamin D and like healthy and people weren't like you're keeping people away from family because, so all of the strategies that you just suggested. You think about it. That is not what happened during the last four years. No, I shut down church. I did too. And, and shut down churches, all the things that were super important to a life well

James Egidio 46:41

lived. Absolutely. Thank you so much for joining me on this episode of the medical truth podcast. Now your website is www.WoodyMatters.Com That's woody matters. I've been flashing that at the bottom there in the ticker the whole time. Any, anything else you'd like to share with the listeners and viewers of the medical truth podcast?

Kim Witczak 47:02

Sure. You can also follow me at at woody matters on Twitter or X now. And I also have a sub stack called acceptable collateral damage. And really it's unacceptable, but and so that's really where I put and write about certain things as well. And then just Kim Witczak. com. And I have on there, some of my work that I'm doing around selling sickness and the spider web.

James Egidio 47:29

Good. Good. I didn't know you were on sub stack. That's awesome. I'll have to hit you up on sub stack and friend you or whatever. Yeah, I

Kim Witczak 47:37

don't know how it works, but it's called acceptable collateral damage, but I actually have on with it, but, and it's because of what you just said, acceptable collateral damage costs of doing business and I'm trying to prevent people from being what Woody was considered costs. Absolutely. Any others. Yeah,

James Egidio 47:56

absolutely. Kim, thank you so much for joining me for this episode of the medical truth podcast. Thanks for having me. Yeah, absolutely. God bless. Thanks. Thanks. All right.

Outro 48:07

Thanks for listening to the Medical Truth Podcast. For the latest episodes, go to www. medicaltruthpodcast. com. You can also find the Medical Truth Podcast on Rumble, as well as all the major podcast platforms like Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, and iHeart.