November 16, 2023 • 48 mins
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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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Intro (00:00):
Get ready to hear the truth, the whole truth, and
nothing but the truth about theUnited States healthcare system
with your host of the medicaltruth podcast, James Egidio.
James Egidio (00:17):
Hi, I'm James Egidio your host of the medical
truth podcast, the podcast thattells the truth, the whole truth
and nothing but the truth aboutthe American healthcare system.
My guest refers to herself asthe accidental advocate.
She was living the Americandream.
Married with a successful careerin advertising, traveling the
world and planning her life onher terms.
(00:40):
However, all that changed withone phone call on August 6th.
2003.
Here to share her tragic storyis my guest on the medical truth
podcast.
Ms.
Kim Witczak.
Kim, welcome to the medicaltruth podcast.
How are you doing today?
Kim Witczak (00:55):
I'm great.
Thanks for having me lookingforward to the conversation.
James Egidio (00:59):
Absolutely.
For the listeners and viewers ofthe medical truth podcast share
your story as to your situationwith your husband.
Kim Witczak (01:08):
Sure.
I like to call myself theaccidental advocate because I
never set out to do my drugsafety advocacy work that I do
today.
20 years ago, my life lookedvery different than it does
today.
I was happily married to myhusband, Woody, of almost 10
years.
We both had pretty successfulcareers and travel a lot.
And we were just starting totalk about having a family.
(01:31):
And however, on August 6, 2003,I got a call from my dad.
I was out of town on businessthat changed the trajectory of
my life.
My dad called to tell me thatWoody was found hanging from the
rafter of our garage, dead atage 37.
Woody wasn't depressed.
(01:51):
Woody didn't have a history ofdepression or any other mental
illness.
Woody had just started his dreamjob.
With a startup company and washaving trouble sleeping, which,
as I always say, is not thatuncommon for entrepreneurs or
even somebody like me that,wakes up in the middle of the
night.
But Wood was a guy that alwaysneeded eight hours of sleep.
Like it was almost a joke howmuch like he needed his sleep
(02:15):
and Woody, went to his GP, hisfamily doctor, and it's the
doctor that he's gone to, forhis physicals.
And I always call Woody like a.
Humpty Dumpty type patient,because, he usually went to the
doctors when something happenedand he was injured.
He was a big athlete.
And they fixed him up.
(02:35):
And so I don't think there wasanything unusual.
Woody went to see his doctor andwas given a three week sample
pack of Zoloft and was.
told that it would take the edgeoff and help him sleep.
And ironically, the first threeweeks that Woody was on this
drug, I was out of the country.
(02:56):
And it was my busy time.
It's the year I was in NewZealand on an advertising shoot.
So I wasn't there the firstthree weeks that Woody was put
on the drug.
But I remember, and it'll besomething that will.
Probably a haunt me, but I'malso super thankful that I had
this.
I got to see this experience.
I'll never forget Woody walkedthrough our back door and
(03:16):
dropped his bag his briefcaseand he had his blue dress shirt
and he was completely drenchedthrough it with a t shirt
underneath and he fell to thefloor 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 bodylooking in he's bawling.
And I was like, Watching him, Ihad never in our almost 10 years
(03:39):
of being married to him and 3years of dating prior, have I
ever seen something like that.
And of course, we calmed himdown and we got him to I'm like,
breathe, we did praying, we didyoga breathing, and eventually
he called his doctor, and thedoctor said, you gotta give it 4
to 6 weeks to kick in.
(03:59):
And every night the next week,Woody, came home and he'd be
like, what do you think abouthypnosis?
I'm going to beat this feeling.
What do you think aboutacupuncture?
What do you think about, he wastrying to do anything to beat
this feeling in his head.
And I remember even saying, whatif your job is so stressful?
Quit, we can go back to what youwere doing sales.
Maybe you're not set and cutout.
(04:20):
Like I had no idea what wasgoing on.
And so I had left to go out oftown again, as I said, it was my
busy time of season and I hadn'theard from Woody all day and
that's.
Which was highly unusual becausewe talked all the time and we
also called many times duringthe day and just checked in when
we were out of town.
(04:41):
And so that's when I hadn'tcalled and heard from Woody all
day.
I finally had my dad go over toour house and that, let me tell
you was, I never expected thatphone call.
And at that time.
obviously my entire life justfell apart in that phone call.
(05:03):
But that night when I was there,the coroner asked me a question.
Was Woody taking any medicationand the only medication Woody
was taking was Zoloft and sheand it was sitting on the
kitchen counter and sheproceeded to say she was going
to take it with her It mighthave something to do with his
(05:24):
death and the other thing thatsame day that Woody was found
There was a front page articlein our newspaper the Minneapolis
Star Tribune That said the UKfinds link Between
antidepressants and suicide inteens.
And so that was like, that washappening while Woody, our, my
(05:46):
entire life had just changed.
And at that point we never oncequestioned the drug.
Why would we, it was given tohim by his doctor.
It was sold and advertised assafe and effective, and it was
FDA approved.
And so never questioned the drugand, thank God for the coroner
(06:11):
that asked that question.
Because that night, my brotherin law, as I'm trying to figure
out how to get back toMinneapolis, my brother in law
went home that night and GoogledZoloft and suicide.
And we had no idea that whatwas, what came up in that
search.
And the, one of them was that in1991, the FDA held hearings.
(06:36):
An advisory committee hearing onthe emergence of violence and
suicide when it was just Prozacon the market.
Really, that became the, as Isay, became the mission.
It was too late for our family.
My brother in law and I,especially, I thank my brother
(06:57):
in law in the beginning becausehe really was, doing all the
research, ordering books fromlike David Healy, who is one of
the main guys out of the UKpsychiatrists that had been
looking and seeing this idea ofthe link between violence and
suicide in.
volunteer, healthy volunteersand had done studies as well as
(07:19):
Peter Breggin, who's anotherpsychiatrist here in the the
U.S..
And both of those, we're thebasis and then we're just
googling every possible thing wecould.
And eventually we call it thebattle for Woody and it became
our mission to go and go out toD.
C.
And get black box suicidewarnings added to these drugs.
James Egidio (07:42):
Yeah, so it sounds like the flashpoint for you to
look further into this is.
Possible cause of suicide atthat time possible was this
corner, correct?
Yeah,
Kim Witczak (07:57):
absolutely.
Yeah, absolutely.
It was literally I always saywhen somebody has something like
a sudden death or like asuicide, you go on an
investigative mode, you're in aninvestigative mode because
you're like how did this justhappen?
Because Woody went from lovinglife, full of life, had
everything that he was livingfor, from not being able to
(08:17):
sleep to head outside the body.
And five weeks later, he's deadand he's hanging.
And so thankfully for thatconversation with the coroner
who asked the simple question,what medication was Woody on?
And literally the only thingthat had changed in Woody's life
was the addition of Zoloft inhis life.
And so the fact that the coronerpointed that out and said it
(08:41):
might have something to do withhis death.
And she took the bottle withher.
James Egidio (08:47):
Yeah.
Were you so I guess leading upto his death were you, I get,
obviously you're there, right?
When he was, when he started touse the medication in that four
to six week window of time.
No,
Kim Witczak (09:02):
not the first three weeks.
I had just left.
I was on a BMW shoot down in NewZealand So I wasn't even there
the first three weeks He was onthe drug and it wasn't until I
came back three, you know I'mhis week number four when I saw
that it had outside the body andhe was crying and So that was
really I didn't see any of theexperience.
(09:24):
And like I had said earlier, weboth traveled a lot for our, our
jobs.
So travel was nothing out ofthe, out of the usual for either
one of us.
Yeah, so I wasn't there thefirst three weeks he was on the
drug.
James Egidio (09:38):
Yeah.
And how did his physicianrespond to this when this all
happened?
Kim Witczak (09:43):
After his death.
Are you?
Yeah.
Yeah.
He was completely shocked.
He's the one that said you gotto give it four to six weeks to
kick in.
And never once did he assume orthink there was anything to
worry about because he didn'tgive it to Woody for depression.
He gave it to him to help himsleep and and what I have
(10:05):
subsequently learned is, theyuse this drug off label, but at
that point, and eventually I didhave as part of the battle for
Woody as I call it.
We did have, it was multipronged.
It was, going out to WashingtonDC and meeting with senators,
the FDA, HHS.
We helped with congressionalhearings.
(10:27):
That was one aspect.
Another aspect was really usingthe media.
The mainstream, Woody's storywas told all over at this point
because Woody was not anisolated issue.
There were many others that werehappening at the same time.
And then we also had a bigfailure to warn wrongful death
lawsuit against Pfizer.
(10:49):
And between those three prongs,that really was the first,
really gave me an insight.
look into what these guys haveknown about these guys being the
drug companies and What the FDAis known about and then some of
and then really helping Congressbecause you know back we started
(11:11):
pushing for FDA Advice, hearingssimilar to the same hearing That
they held in 1991 and it waswhere all these families came
and the members of the publiccame forward to tell their story
and I quickly learned Woody wasnot his, he wasn't the only one
out there that I'm there andeventually in 2004 there were
(11:36):
hearings that resulted inputting a black box warning,
which is the most serious of allwarnings on a drug for Children
under 18.
And then eventually they werelooking at all ages and in 2000
and six, they being the FDA,they added the warning to age
(11:59):
24.
But to this day, 20 years later,there still is no warning for
all ages and it's eye openingsome of the information that we
got out from under seal in ourlawsuit that showed that all
ages are at risk.
The FDA has known about it,Pfizer knew about it and and
(12:22):
they kept it from the doctorsthe side effect that Woody had
and a lot of times, it was atthat point it was, intuitively
in the deepest part of me, Iknew Woody wasn't depressed.
And that's how everybody waslike, Oh Woody must've been
depressed.
And I'm like no.
I'm telling you, Woody was notdepressed.
Like he had, he, during thistime, He was still running.
He was a big runner and a bigathlete.
(12:43):
And he he was pretty anal.
So he kept track of how manymiles he put on his shoes
because he was constantlyrotating them because of
training for marathons.
And so during this time, he wasstill 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 wasrunning.
(13:04):
And so when all these likeexperts and the suicide groups
and everybody was telling mewhat he was depressed.
I'm like, no, there's no way.
And so one of the documents andit's one that I think both Healy
and Breggin would talk about iscalled akathisia and it's a side
effect.
where it's this internalagitation that literally you
(13:27):
want to crawl out of your skin.
You're constantly moving thathead outside the body.
And Pfizer Zoloft chief medicalofficer, Dr.
Roger Lane, wrote an article inone of the medical journals
where he described akathisia.
As not so much it being thedisease itself, but it's a drug
(13:49):
induced from the medication thatquote unquote his words.
Death can be a welcome resultnow that document was public But
what wasn't public thateventually became?
Released And it was declassifiedWas a memo that dr.
(14:11):
Roger Lane who wrote thatarticle where?
Describing akathisia where deathcan be a welcome result sent out
a memo to his sales staff andthe product field staff saying
the attached journal article isnot suitable for general
practitioners, but may beinteresting to a neuro
(14:36):
biologically inclinedpsychiatrist.
So they intentionally kept thatside 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 prescribingout of the psychiatrists and
(14:58):
into the GPs where they sayanywhere from 70 to 80 percent
of the business and theprescription.
Come from the GP's offices.
So there was an example of theyintentionally kept it from
Woody's doctor and really anydoctor.
So Wood's doctor at that point,they were, they, at this point
back then they were, selling andit was advertised all over the
(15:23):
media, the little bouncing whiteballs, they were selling it to,
for everything.
I remember one of the ads sayingdo you get nervous being in a
group of people?
You might have social anxietydisorder, only your doctor can
know.
So like they had a lot of,marketing and sales that were
geared to GPs.
People like, the Dr.
(15:43):
Woody went to, and so reallyWood's doctor didn't
James Egidio (15:47):
know.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I know they used it off labeltoo, for premature ejaculation.
They used it for a lot ofthings.
I know anxiety as well.
When you did this research andyou did a deep dive, what did
you discover in terms of notjust Zoloft, but maybe other
antidepressants, or did you doany research on other
(16:08):
antidepressants?
Kim Witczak (16:09):
Oh yeah.
It was the whole class of theSSF SSR eyes.
And that's where we discovered,that the hearings in 1991, when
it was just Prozac on the marketand it was on the emergence of
violence and suicide.
And the majority of thoseadvisory board members had ties
to the, drug companies andmanufacturers that made
(16:32):
antidepressants.
So at that point in 91, theysaid they said, no, we don't see
any link between the, theemergence of violence and
suicide and Prozac.
And at that time, the FDA toldEli Lilly to study suicidality.
They never did.
The FDA never followed up withthem.
Then meanwhile, come 13 yearslater, before they put warnings
(16:55):
on, they now approved a Zoloft,Paxil.
It got approved for kids.
I learned things such as, whenyou study kids, it extends the
patent of a drug and, by sixmonths, 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 thingsother things discovering through
(17:18):
the lawsuit, obviously the sideeffect akathisia started to look
really at my business, which isadvertising.
I didn't realize because I havespent my entire career in
advertising.
I didn't realize that the U Swas only one of two countries in
the world that allowed drug ads.
(17:38):
And there's a lot of things thatwere 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, butuntil there were lawsuits that
pulled out and got into thecompany's files, the bulk of the
(18:02):
Zoloft clinical trials that werein their company files, Pfizer's
files, the placebo out performedthe drug and for the ones that
they used to get approval in theU.
S.
It barely outperformed the drug.
And so I started learning aboutclinical trials and then also
realizing that there were otherhigh profile murder suicides.
(18:26):
I don't know if you remember ifyou remember Phil Hartman, he
was a comedian on Saturday nightlive and his wife.
murdered, Phil Hartman and thentook her own life and I didn't
realize, and she had juststarted Zoloft and the media
made it out to be like, Oh, shewas crazy.
But meanwhile, the family hadsecretly settled with Pfizer and
(18:51):
nobody knew about that lawsuit.
So there, there, it was justlike, I, and then I was shocked
also to, to find out that ProzacInitially didn't get approved in
Germany for two reasons, risk ofsuicide and lack of efficacy.
(19:11):
And when I saw it on, again, onthe BGA, their internal company
news, letterhead yours, youcan't unsee when you've seen
this and you have somebody likeWoody dead.
I knew I had to do somethingwith it, but when eventually
Germany did.
(19:31):
Approve Prozac.
But it was originally prescribedwith a tranquilizer to help
offset that activation, which iswhat Woody had, where, the
akathisia where Pfizer actuallydescribed it, death can be a
welcome result.
Yeah.
James Egidio (19:47):
Yeah.
Did he, did Woody have anyalternative medications or
remedies that were suggested byhis doctor for his insomnia or
did they just throw him on aZoloft 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 theedge off.
Quote, unquote.
James Egidio (20:11):
Wow.
And then in your deep dive andin your research, since you've
been an advocate in this, uh,area of medicine and medication
how young are some of thepatients 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 andthree year olds and especially
with some of the foster kids andso that was shocking to me and
then of course, they're young, Imet during this time I met
several families whose kids werelike 13 12 10 They were given
(20:47):
the drug For like test anxiety,and they went on to hang
themselves to they just movedand were stressed.
And again, a lot of these werehangings with the suicides.
And fast forward, it's Iinitially, eventually we got the
(21:08):
black box warnings on thesedrugs and was really involved
in, like I said working with thehouse energy and commerce that
actually called to task the FDAleadership and the drug company
executives to come beforeCongress and they drilled them
because the leadership at FDAwith held some reports from
(21:34):
their own scientists that wouldhave that would have resulted
in, warning the public.
A lot earlier than it did.
And you just start watching thegames that are being played.
And truthfully, I, I didn'trealize that I thought it was
just an isolated issue withantidepressants.
And what I realized it's reallya much bigger.
(21:57):
Systemic problem with our drugsafety system.
The system's not really designedto deal with safety.
It's all about getting the drugson the market.
And, even when I remember ameeting that we went and met
with the top officials at theFDA that were responsible for
approvals of antidepressants andwe told them Woody's story and
(22:21):
there was, we had some otherfamilies as well as Dr.
Healy was in this meeting withus at, with the FDA officials.
And it was fun, like watchingthem, battling back and forth
with data, but literally Iremember saying to Bob Temple, I
said, and told him Woody's storyand I go.
Aren't you curious how, like,how would he who didn't have
(22:42):
history of depression, went fromnot sleeping to head outside the
body and hanging in five weeks?
I would think that you would becurious, like the NTSB, if there
was a plane crash.
To go out and investigate to seewhy somebody like this, was
there any similarities?
Could we prevent this fromhappening to somebody else that
(23:04):
you would be interested?
And he literally said to us.
This is just an anecdote.
I'm like, what?
He goes, this is just ananecdote.
It didn't happen.
We didn't see it in the doubleblinded placebo controlled
studies.
And I remember going, ananecdote, like I literally, I'm
like, Woody is not an anecdote.
(23:24):
Neither is that other familythat's sitting there and the
other family, all of our lovedones within weeks.
Or less than, a couple monthsfor sure.
All took their own lives andyou're not curious.
And so really I'm sitting by mydesk and it we created this
whole campaign called we arenot.
Anecdotes.
We matter.
(23:45):
And I remember like telling the,and we all wore these at our the
2006 hearing and I continue tostill wear it and hand these
buttons out because it's notjust antidepressants.
Now, we're seeing it in a lot ofother, classes of drugs and
vaccines, et cetera, but to hearthem say anecdotes and it was
(24:05):
really, yeah.
That's where I saw that they'renot interested in safety and
like they're not the same peoplethat approve the drugs and
vaccines and devices are thesame people that are responsible
for looking at safety.
And so if you have the samegroup, just even human nature,
(24:26):
even if you were curious.
You, are you going to go andreally 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'llnever forget between Bob Temple
and David Healy that went backand forth about the data and
(24:47):
what they saw about thesewarnings.
So it's, that was another thingthat I learned is the system
isn't really set up.
To help talk about safety andalarm the public when there is
safety.
And it'll still be, that's whyI'm still doing this work 20
years later.
And and the importance ofwarning, like I even, I remember
(25:10):
at these things, I don'tunderstand when you know that
there could potentially.
Not even saying causation, evenif there's a potential for some
type of harm.
Why wouldn't you inform thepublic?
It just seems like such a nobrainer.
James Egidio (25:26):
Yeah, it's, I, to me, and I think it's obvious
now, especially after therollout of the bioweapon, the
vaccine they call it, that forthe pharmaceutical companies to
not take liability, And nomatter what the fallout is for
them, it's the cost of doingbusiness.
That's how they look at it.
They could care less about humanlife at all.
(25:49):
I actually have a friend, bothof her parents were on
antidepressants and both of themher mom and dad hung themselves
in their garage in Vegas onantidepressants.
Oh, yeah.
Kim Witczak (26:04):
Yeah.
James Egidio (26:05):
Horrible.
Yeah.
Yeah, and then the other thingtoo is the warnings that go out
on especially theantidepressants because I have
another friend who commitssuicide as well on
antidepressants.
But of course he was mixing itwith alcohol and he asphyxiated
himself in his garage with hiscar.
But is the using alcohol andthey don't, they don't really,
(26:29):
they don't, they poo that theyjust whatever, and that again,
it's, they don't take theresponsibility for.
Really, like you say, puttingout these warnings to the
patient and then the doctors areso liberal when it comes to
writing these prescriptions,it's just it's like a band aid
for most physicians, to writethese prescriptions and just say
(26:51):
here, use it and not follow upor if they do follow up, it's
just, oh, how's it working foryou?
And of course, the patients alot of times are going to say it
works because everybody wantsthe quick fix.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Kim Witczak (27:03):
I think you're absolutely right with
antidepressant doctors are tooquick to prescribe.
Even if they, like if somebodywas to, say that they had an
adverse event or somethingdoesn't feel right.
It's too quick to say, oh, it'syour disease getting worse.
Or not recognize it as being aside effect, like with Woody,
(27:24):
Oh, just give it time.
Or, layering more drugs on topof the drug to deal with some of
the side effects.
And there's a belief that it'snot an issue with adults.
And so I think, they've done areally good job at convincing
the medical profession through,all their education and the, and
(27:47):
even some of the screening formsthat they use to talk through to
get talk about anti ordepression and mental health,
all of those were created by thedrug companies and marketing.
And it's.
No wonder why we have morepeople taking these drugs and,
(28:07):
look at even just the lastcouple of years, obviously with
the pandemic and people beinglocked down and kids being
prescribed and over prescribedand, the the U S task
preventative services just did areport to the Congress and they
said the number one area thatthey need to, that.
Congress or whatever area thatwe need to put focus on is
(28:30):
mental health.
So for me, that scares mebecause I'm thinking, okay, this
is where all the research moneyis going to go and we're going
to have more.
And I sit on the FDA, that samecommittee that in 1991 didn't do
their job.
I am now the consumerrepresentative on the, FDA's
psychopharmalogic drugs advisorycommittee.
(28:51):
And I see how a lot of the newdrugs are coming to market and
it's all for treatment resistantdepression.
So meaning you've been on anantidepressant two or more of
them, they don't work and you'restill depressed.
We're going to put this new drugand we're going to fast track
it, which is not even goingthrough the the regular, Gold
(29:12):
standard per say, even thoughthere's, there's some debate
there if it's even goldstandard, but they're being fast
tracked.
I think it's going to besomething we're going to have to
continue to watch.
And, we haven't even talkedabout the potential link.
between all these, the shootersand mass shooting that's
something that we need to belooking at as well.
(29:33):
And so it's good.
It feels like there's this jobis never complete.
Never.
James Egidio (29:38):
Yeah.
Yeah.
What was what his sleep cyclelike prior to him being
prescribed the theantidepressants?
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 thefact of him getting up at 3 a.m.
He, that wasn't, he, that wasn'tnormal for him.
Now it is like for somebody likeme, I get, I constantly wake up
and it's just the way my sleepcycle is.
(30:09):
But, when I think about even theconversations that could have
been had, what are you eating?
What are he didn't.
The other thing is he wasn't abig.
Drinker, like he could have onedrink, two made him drunk.
So he didn't really do that.
He didn't drink caffeine becausehe his body was super sensitive.
And so there were a lot ofthings that, now looking back,
(30:32):
I, we probably should havequestioned 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 thequestion, why are you giving me
an antidepressant?
I'm not depressed.
(30:54):
So he didn't even have thatinformation.
And we didn't even have theinformation of being closely.
monitored when first going onthese drugs or dosages change?
He would, that would have beenanother opportunity that he
could have said, my wife's outof town for the next three
weeks.
Is there something else we cando while she's out of town that
(31:18):
we could try?
Yoga, breathing, maybe there'ssome other, but he wasn't a guy
that would naturally just go,give me a quick fix.
That wasn't how he, but he wassomebody who really trusted his
doctor.
James Egidio (31:32):
Yeah.
And I understand that becauseyou see looking around today at,
especially after the whole COVIDthing and the rollout of this
bioweapon, this vaccine, theycall it.
I could see where people buyinto what their doctors suggest
(31:52):
or prescribe because they have alot of trust right prior to
COVID.
They had a lot of trust in theirdoctor.
And then of course thepharmaceutical companies, as you
probably know already, theyspend billions of dollars on
advertising billions it's a big,this was probably one of the
biggest marketing campaigns withthis rollout of the, this
vaccine this poison that they.
(32:13):
They rolled out I can't blamethe patient and I can't blame
the person that's watching thiscommercial for these
medications.
In fact, my wife, she's fromItaly and she's we're watching
TV.
Sometimes we're not big TVwatchers, but you'll see she'll
see prescription medicationcommercials and she'll say.
(32:33):
They don't even advertise likethis in Italy, so I could see
why people buy into it.
And, they'll walk into aphysician's office and they'll
say, Hey, I need this medicationbecause I saw it on television.
And then a lot of times thedoctors probably nine times out
of 10, I'll say, Oh, no problemhere.
Here's the prescription.
(32:54):
So you get caught in thecrossfire of negligent
prescribing.
And being bought and sold by thecommercials in on television.
What happens?
Kim Witczak (33:09):
Yeah.
That was one of the things, soas I call it, I've, through the
years I've traveled and I'vegone to other countries that
have been.
to go to conferences and attendconferences that have been about
the critical thinking or theugly side of, pharmaceutical
companies.
And there was one conference,um, that I remember going to in
(33:33):
Amsterdam in 2010, and it wascalled selling sickness.
And it was attended, it was puton by the Dutch government and
attended by people from all overthe EU, Australia, there was
only a handful of people andhalf of them were my attorneys
and we were over there and theywere, every example that they
(33:56):
use was from the US.
And it was like the, whether itwas the marketing or
ghostwriting or the use of ofusing doctor influencers called
key opinion leaders to thescreening tools that have been
created.
And I remember like thinking,why isn't this conversation
(34:18):
happening in the U.
S.?
And so I eventually tried to getthe organizers.
to do it in the U.
S.
They didn't, but I ended upbringing this conference over to
the U.
S.
called Selling Sickness.
And it is something that I lookat now.
And when you were saying aboutlike the doctors and the public
and I've created this spider webwhere I have the doctor and the
(34:39):
patient in the middle.
And it's all of the influencethat is behind, that's going on
behind the scenes.
And, spiderwebs, a lot of timeswe don't even see them, right?
And spiderwebs are beautiful.
They tangle us.
And so that is something that Ithink a lot about now is, that
for the public, and especiallywhen I look back at the.
(35:01):
Last when the vaccines came out,the the, and I put in quotes
because I had never really donemuch about vaccines because I
don't have kids, but once thatcame out and I started watching
the marketing that was behindthe campaign and the fact that
these companies were given It'sThe same company that in
(35:23):
November, December of 2020, likethe opioids just paid like
billion dollar fine Pfizer paidbefore that had the largest and
billions of dollars of fine foroff label marketing and And so
the fact that these companieswere given complete legal
immunity was like a red flagfrom, but then also the
(35:44):
marketing campaign, like theywere having all the celebrities,
they were using all thetechniques that we use in my
business.
Was like, I've never liked, I'venever liked the use of
celebrities, even in likepromoting a car or like fashion.
I know they do, but cause theywork, but I was like watching
all these celebrities.
(36:05):
Telling us that it's completelysafe and effective and I'm like,
what do they know about that?
And then I saw this the use ofsales promotion tools Like bring
your vax card in and get a donuta day for a year you know from
Krispy Kreme So I started youknow, these are the things that
I hope and I pray that, Godforbid, there's another one that
(36:28):
we really people start payingattention because like Woody and
we were pretty smart and, or atleast I thought we were smart,
but how quickly, when we're sickand 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, butI certainly after the last
(36:50):
couple years I'd be veryhesitant to watch the mainstream
media and what they're promotingAs well as watch all the
marketing and really have likepeople should pay attention to
those marketing and also Theidea of like fear, the power of
fear.
Cause I've seen it even on someof the drugs that we approve,
(37:11):
like the hope they sell hope andfear, that's the power of
marketing or manipulation alittle bit persuasion.
James Egidio (37:21):
Yeah, that's exactly what they're doing.
They're selling that.
And what's really interestingabout that is, they are when you
have to go to a naturopath or achiropractor for that matter,
who gives you better solutionsto your ill illness than a
(37:43):
allopathic physician.
You'll go, you go to achiropractor, you go to a
naturopath, they have bettersolutions, like you say, than
most of these allopathicphysicians.
Even the DOs.
Do a little bit more prescribingthan the MDs.
Yeah, but again you get muchbetter care It seems like from
alternatives and i'm notsuggesting anything, but that's
(38:06):
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 evenwhat kind of training are they
getting our doctors in whetherit's nutrition, how much of a
course is in nutrition, how muchof the courses in these natural,
there's no money in the, some ofthese other solutions and also
(38:30):
how the FDA works.
And no wonder why our doctorsit's a business and I keep
saying healthcare is a business.
And I don't even use the wordpatients.
It drives my patient safetygroup crazy because I call us
customers.
But truly, if we look at it thatway, we're customers because
(38:54):
they need patients to go tobusiness.
They need patience.
And so why wouldn't you havethis?
If I was a company and, I knewthat, there, I could always
build in the cost of doingbusiness, although I don't know,
I could do it because it justdoesn't feel right to me.
But the cradle to gravestrategy, like it's a brilliant
(39:17):
strategy.
If you can keep a customer forlife, And keep them moving in
and out of different productcycles or, and so again, that is
I totally understand that mylens is from my background in
advertising and the businessside of things, but I, it is a
(39:37):
lot, I always tell people that.
Even our lawyers when there arelawsuits and it's why they try
to do anything to keep them outof the out of the company files
or whatnot is One of the firstplaces lawyers go when there's
litigation against a drugcompany.
They go to the marketingdepartment Yeah, I find that
(39:58):
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 offlabel marketing, promotion,
pushing something that may notbe safe or effective, right?
And so a lot of it is themarketing, the power of the
marketing.
And, it's funny, I recently cameacross a, an article from 1999
(40:29):
where Pfizer, it was about the.
power of marketing, being ininvolved in some of the clinical
trials and because they have tofigure out how are they going to
sell this to the public.
And that's something that Idon't think I ever really paid
much attention to this.
And I think most people don't.
(40:50):
And it's not until, somethinghappens where you maybe We'll
And it's the whole goal of why Ido what I do is so that no
family ever has to ask after thefact, how come we didn't know.
And so I think it's reallyimportant that, having these
conversations because you'realso the new media as we've seen
(41:11):
over the last couple years.
James Egidio (41:13):
Yeah.
And it's interesting you saythat too, with the cradle.
To the grave theory to becauseagain, you mentioned earlier
that they're putting children asyoung as 12, 13 years old on
these antidepressants.
So it's like they're creatingthese patients is what they're
doing.
(41:33):
But the fallout or potentialfallout doesn't matter.
It's just, again, the cost to doin business.
And then it even makes even moresense that when they do these
clinical trials, I know they,they always target these
demographics, the age, the sexof a person so on and so forth.
So they have a whole plethora ofdemographics that they work
(41:57):
with.
So they say, okay, now this ishow we're going to market and
who we're going to market it towhen we roll it out to the
market.
Yep.
So they have it pretty muchdialed in from the time they do
R and D research and developmenttill the time they put it out on
the market and market it, theactual medication.
So my question to you is, whenit comes to antidepressants,
(42:21):
where are we at in terms ofregulation or oversight?
Kim Witczak (42:26):
I'm not sure I would say there's much other
than the fact that there's goingto be more and more new drugs
coming to market, you look atwhat was it again, the US task
preventative services justrecommended that all Americans
65 and under are screened foranxiety.
And so I think we are insomething that we're going to
(42:50):
just, it's going to be acontinual it's human nature.
And I think we have to have someof these conversations like, of
course we're anxious.
Of course of course there'stimes of sadness, but what, and
this is where I think, I havenot seen.
Much change in this work.
And in some ways, I think thework has gotten it's gotten even
(43:12):
worse in the last, I would havethought that we've made some
improvements, but I, in someways, I think the pressure and
trying to change and all thefast tracking of new drugs that
are coming on the market fortreatment resistant depression
and all of that, I think, Weneed to be the ones to take a
step back and don't and pushback, but also don't fall prey
(43:35):
to some of the things that we'reseeing and maybe start asking
ourselves or being curiousaround, 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 toafter Woody died and I went to
my doctor and she asked if Ineeded something and I looked at
(43:57):
her.
I said first of all, I think myI mean, I think this is what
killed my husband.
And then I said, but aren't Isupposed to be?
Sad and hurt.
My husband died and she said youdon't need to.
And I was like, Yes, I do.
That's the only way through isnot numbing.
And that was a long time ago.
(44:19):
And I think we've just whatwe'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 leastquestion the use of it because,
the getting off of these drugs.
I wish that, and I'll have toput them on my website, but
(44:41):
there were a couple big aboutthe withdrawal and people trying
to get off of these medicines.
Are we going to be on themforever?
And then find out like, causethey can't get off of them or
they feel like, Oh, I'm stillsad.
And then, so you could see thatwhole cascading effect that's
created by the system.
And that's where I think it'sreally important that we, as the
(45:04):
people push back and startquestioning and just reevaluate
what does health mean?
James Egidio (45:12):
Yeah.
It means I think shutting offthe television.
Number one.
Diet, exercise and faith in God.
Those are the three, three, foursolutions right there.
And I think the further peopleget away from all that lifestyle
change stuff.
tHat they engage in with socialmedia and all this other stuff
(45:34):
that they, all the pressure theyput on themselves with, their
status and in their phones andall this other stuff, they got
to get away from that.
People have to get away fromthat.
Realize that we have to just goback to basics and just
decompress, shut the phones offand spend time with your family
and eat properly.
Fresh foods and exercise.
(45:55):
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 kepteverybody inside.
glued to the TV, right?
Fear mongering.
You couldn't be outside whereyou need to be outside like
vitamin D and like healthy andpeople weren't like you're
(46:21):
keeping people away from familybecause, so all of the
strategies that you justsuggested.
You think about it.
That is not what happened duringthe last four years.
No, I shut down church.
I did too.
And, and shut down churches, allthe things that were super
important to a life well
James Egidio (46:41):
lived.
Absolutely.
Thank you so much for joining meon this episode of the medical
truth podcast.
Now your website iswww.WoodyMatters.Com That's
woody matters.
I've been flashing that at thebottom there in the ticker the
whole time.
Any, anything else you'd like toshare with the listeners and
viewers of the medical truthpodcast?
Kim Witczak (47:02):
Sure.
You can also follow me at atwoody matters on Twitter or X
now.
And I also have a sub stackcalled acceptable collateral
damage.
And really it's unacceptable,but and so that's really where I
put and write about certainthings as well.
And then just Kim Witczak.
(47:22):
com.
And I have on there, some of mywork that I'm doing around
selling sickness and the spiderweb.
James Egidio (47:29):
Good.
Good.
I didn't know you were on substack.
That's awesome.
I'll have to hit you up on substack 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 whatyou just said, acceptable
collateral damage costs of doingbusiness and I'm trying to
prevent people from being whatWoody was considered costs.
Absolutely.
Any others.
Yeah,
James Egidio (47:56):
absolutely.
Kim, thank you so much forjoining 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 towww.
medicaltruthpodcast.
com.
You can also find the MedicalTruth Podcast on Rumble, as well
as all the major podcastplatforms like Apple Podcasts,
Spotify, Stitcher, and iHeart.
Get ready to hear the truth, the whole truth, and
nothing but the truth about theUnited States healthcare system
with your host of the medicaltruth podcast, James Egidio.
James Egidio (00:17):
Hi, I'm James Egidio your host of the medical
truth podcast, the podcast thattells the truth, the whole truth
and nothing but the truth aboutthe American healthcare system.
My guest refers to herself asthe accidental advocate.
She was living the Americandream.
Married with a successful careerin advertising, traveling the
world and planning her life onher terms.
(00:40):
However, all that changed withone phone call on August 6th.
2003.
Here to share her tragic storyis my guest on the medical truth
podcast.
Ms.
Kim Witczak.
Kim, welcome to the medicaltruth podcast.
How are you doing today?
Kim Witczak (00:55):
I'm great.
Thanks for having me lookingforward to the conversation.
James Egidio (00:59):
Absolutely.
For the listeners and viewers ofthe medical truth podcast share
your story as to your situationwith your husband.
Kim Witczak (01:08):
Sure.
I like to call myself theaccidental advocate because I
never set out to do my drugsafety advocacy work that I do
today.
20 years ago, my life lookedvery different than it does
today.
I was happily married to myhusband, Woody, of almost 10
years.
We both had pretty successfulcareers and travel a lot.
And we were just starting totalk about having a family.
(01:31):
And however, on August 6, 2003,I got a call from my dad.
I was out of town on businessthat changed the trajectory of
my life.
My dad called to tell me thatWoody was found hanging from the
rafter of our garage, dead atage 37.
Woody wasn't depressed.
(01:51):
Woody didn't have a history ofdepression or any other mental
illness.
Woody had just started his dreamjob.
With a startup company and washaving trouble sleeping, which,
as I always say, is not thatuncommon for entrepreneurs or
even somebody like me that,wakes up in the middle of the
night.
But Wood was a guy that alwaysneeded eight hours of sleep.
Like it was almost a joke howmuch like he needed his sleep
(02:15):
and Woody, went to his GP, hisfamily doctor, and it's the
doctor that he's gone to, forhis physicals.
And I always call Woody like a.
Humpty Dumpty type patient,because, he usually went to the
doctors when something happenedand he was injured.
He was a big athlete.
And they fixed him up.
(02:35):
And so I don't think there wasanything unusual.
Woody went to see his doctor andwas given a three week sample
pack of Zoloft and was.
told that it would take the edgeoff and help him sleep.
And ironically, the first threeweeks that Woody was on this
drug, I was out of the country.
(02:56):
And it was my busy time.
It's the year I was in NewZealand on an advertising shoot.
So I wasn't there the firstthree weeks that Woody was put
on the drug.
But I remember, and it'll besomething that will.
Probably a haunt me, but I'malso super thankful that I had
this.
I got to see this experience.
I'll never forget Woody walkedthrough our back door and
(03:16):
dropped his bag his briefcaseand he had his blue dress shirt
and he was completely drenchedthrough it with a t shirt
underneath and he fell to thefloor 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 bodylooking in he's bawling.
And I was like, Watching him, Ihad never in our almost 10 years
(03:39):
of being married to him and 3years of dating prior, have I
ever seen something like that.
And of course, we calmed himdown and we got him to I'm like,
breathe, we did praying, we didyoga breathing, and eventually
he called his doctor, and thedoctor said, you gotta give it 4
to 6 weeks to kick in.
(03:59):
And every night the next week,Woody, came home and he'd be
like, what do you think abouthypnosis?
I'm going to beat this feeling.
What do you think aboutacupuncture?
What do you think about, he wastrying to do anything to beat
this feeling in his head.
And I remember even saying, whatif your job is so stressful?
Quit, we can go back to what youwere doing sales.
Maybe you're not set and cutout.
(04:20):
Like I had no idea what wasgoing on.
And so I had left to go out oftown again, as I said, it was my
busy time of season and I hadn'theard from Woody all day and
that's.
Which was highly unusual becausewe talked all the time and we
also called many times duringthe day and just checked in when
we were out of town.
(04:41):
And so that's when I hadn'tcalled and heard from Woody all
day.
I finally had my dad go over toour house and that, let me tell
you was, I never expected thatphone call.
And at that time.
obviously my entire life justfell apart in that phone call.
(05:03):
But that night when I was there,the coroner asked me a question.
Was Woody taking any medicationand the only medication Woody
was taking was Zoloft and sheand it was sitting on the
kitchen counter and sheproceeded to say she was going
to take it with her It mighthave something to do with his
(05:24):
death and the other thing thatsame day that Woody was found
There was a front page articlein our newspaper the Minneapolis
Star Tribune That said the UKfinds link Between
antidepressants and suicide inteens.
And so that was like, that washappening while Woody, our, my
(05:46):
entire life had just changed.
And at that point we never oncequestioned the drug.
Why would we, it was given tohim by his doctor.
It was sold and advertised assafe and effective, and it was
FDA approved.
And so never questioned the drugand, thank God for the coroner
(06:11):
that asked that question.
Because that night, my brotherin law, as I'm trying to figure
out how to get back toMinneapolis, my brother in law
went home that night and GoogledZoloft and suicide.
And we had no idea that whatwas, what came up in that
search.
And the, one of them was that in1991, the FDA held hearings.
(06:36):
An advisory committee hearing onthe emergence of violence and
suicide when it was just Prozacon the market.
Really, that became the, as Isay, became the mission.
It was too late for our family.
My brother in law and I,especially, I thank my brother
(06:57):
in law in the beginning becausehe really was, doing all the
research, ordering books fromlike David Healy, who is one of
the main guys out of the UKpsychiatrists that had been
looking and seeing this idea ofthe link between violence and
suicide in.
volunteer, healthy volunteersand had done studies as well as
(07:19):
Peter Breggin, who's anotherpsychiatrist here in the the
U.S..
And both of those, we're thebasis and then we're just
googling every possible thing wecould.
And eventually we call it thebattle for Woody and it became
our mission to go and go out toD.
C.
And get black box suicidewarnings added to these drugs.
James Egidio (07:42):
Yeah, so it sounds like the flashpoint for you to
look further into this is.
Possible cause of suicide atthat time possible was this
corner, correct?
Yeah,
Kim Witczak (07:57):
absolutely.
Yeah, absolutely.
It was literally I always saywhen somebody has something like
a sudden death or like asuicide, you go on an
investigative mode, you're in aninvestigative mode because
you're like how did this justhappen?
Because Woody went from lovinglife, full of life, had
everything that he was livingfor, from not being able to
(08:17):
sleep to head outside the body.
And five weeks later, he's deadand he's hanging.
And so thankfully for thatconversation with the coroner
who asked the simple question,what medication was Woody on?
And literally the only thingthat had changed in Woody's life
was the addition of Zoloft inhis life.
And so the fact that the coronerpointed that out and said it
(08:41):
might have something to do withhis death.
And she took the bottle withher.
James Egidio (08:47):
Yeah.
Were you so I guess leading upto his death were you, I get,
obviously you're there, right?
When he was, when he started touse the medication in that four
to six week window of time.
No,
Kim Witczak (09:02):
not the first three weeks.
I had just left.
I was on a BMW shoot down in NewZealand So I wasn't even there
the first three weeks He was onthe drug and it wasn't until I
came back three, you know I'mhis week number four when I saw
that it had outside the body andhe was crying and So that was
really I didn't see any of theexperience.
(09:24):
And like I had said earlier, weboth traveled a lot for our, our
jobs.
So travel was nothing out ofthe, out of the usual for either
one of us.
Yeah, so I wasn't there thefirst three weeks he was on the
drug.
James Egidio (09:38):
Yeah.
And how did his physicianrespond to this when this all
happened?
Kim Witczak (09:43):
After his death.
Are you?
Yeah.
Yeah.
He was completely shocked.
He's the one that said you gotto give it four to six weeks to
kick in.
And never once did he assume orthink there was anything to
worry about because he didn'tgive it to Woody for depression.
He gave it to him to help himsleep and and what I have
(10:05):
subsequently learned is, theyuse this drug off label, but at
that point, and eventually I didhave as part of the battle for
Woody as I call it.
We did have, it was multipronged.
It was, going out to WashingtonDC and meeting with senators,
the FDA, HHS.
We helped with congressionalhearings.
(10:27):
That was one aspect.
Another aspect was really usingthe media.
The mainstream, Woody's storywas told all over at this point
because Woody was not anisolated issue.
There were many others that werehappening at the same time.
And then we also had a bigfailure to warn wrongful death
lawsuit against Pfizer.
(10:49):
And between those three prongs,that really was the first,
really gave me an insight.
look into what these guys haveknown about these guys being the
drug companies and What the FDAis known about and then some of
and then really helping Congressbecause you know back we started
(11:11):
pushing for FDA Advice, hearingssimilar to the same hearing That
they held in 1991 and it waswhere all these families came
and the members of the publiccame forward to tell their story
and I quickly learned Woody wasnot his, he wasn't the only one
out there that I'm there andeventually in 2004 there were
(11:36):
hearings that resulted inputting a black box warning,
which is the most serious of allwarnings on a drug for Children
under 18.
And then eventually they werelooking at all ages and in 2000
and six, they being the FDA,they added the warning to age
(11:59):
24.
But to this day, 20 years later,there still is no warning for
all ages and it's eye openingsome of the information that we
got out from under seal in ourlawsuit that showed that all
ages are at risk.
The FDA has known about it,Pfizer knew about it and and
(12:22):
they kept it from the doctorsthe side effect that Woody had
and a lot of times, it was atthat point it was, intuitively
in the deepest part of me, Iknew Woody wasn't depressed.
And that's how everybody waslike, Oh Woody must've been
depressed.
And I'm like no.
I'm telling you, Woody was notdepressed.
Like he had, he, during thistime, He was still running.
He was a big runner and a bigathlete.
(12:43):
And he he was pretty anal.
So he kept track of how manymiles he put on his shoes
because he was constantlyrotating them because of
training for marathons.
And so during this time, he wasstill 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 wasrunning.
(13:04):
And so when all these likeexperts and the suicide groups
and everybody was telling mewhat he was depressed.
I'm like, no, there's no way.
And so one of the documents andit's one that I think both Healy
and Breggin would talk about iscalled akathisia and it's a side
effect.
where it's this internalagitation that literally you
(13:27):
want to crawl out of your skin.
You're constantly moving thathead outside the body.
And Pfizer Zoloft chief medicalofficer, Dr.
Roger Lane, wrote an article inone of the medical journals
where he described akathisia.
As not so much it being thedisease itself, but it's a drug
(13:49):
induced from the medication thatquote unquote his words.
Death can be a welcome resultnow that document was public But
what wasn't public thateventually became?
Released And it was declassifiedWas a memo that dr.
(14:11):
Roger Lane who wrote thatarticle where?
Describing akathisia where deathcan be a welcome result sent out
a memo to his sales staff andthe product field staff saying
the attached journal article isnot suitable for general
practitioners, but may beinteresting to a neuro
(14:36):
biologically inclinedpsychiatrist.
So they intentionally kept thatside 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 prescribingout of the psychiatrists and
(14:58):
into the GPs where they sayanywhere from 70 to 80 percent
of the business and theprescription.
Come from the GP's offices.
So there was an example of theyintentionally kept it from
Woody's doctor and really anydoctor.
So Wood's doctor at that point,they were, they, at this point
back then they were, selling andit was advertised all over the
(15:23):
media, the little bouncing whiteballs, they were selling it to,
for everything.
I remember one of the ads sayingdo you get nervous being in a
group of people?
You might have social anxietydisorder, only your doctor can
know.
So like they had a lot of,marketing and sales that were
geared to GPs.
People like, the Dr.
(15:43):
Woody went to, and so reallyWood's doctor didn't
James Egidio (15:47):
know.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I know they used it off labeltoo, for premature ejaculation.
They used it for a lot ofthings.
I know anxiety as well.
When you did this research andyou did a deep dive, what did
you discover in terms of notjust Zoloft, but maybe other
antidepressants, or did you doany research on other
(16:08):
antidepressants?
Kim Witczak (16:09):
Oh yeah.
It was the whole class of theSSF SSR eyes.
And that's where we discovered,that the hearings in 1991, when
it was just Prozac on the marketand it was on the emergence of
violence and suicide.
And the majority of thoseadvisory board members had ties
to the, drug companies andmanufacturers that made
(16:32):
antidepressants.
So at that point in 91, theysaid they said, no, we don't see
any link between the, theemergence of violence and
suicide and Prozac.
And at that time, the FDA toldEli Lilly to study suicidality.
They never did.
The FDA never followed up withthem.
Then meanwhile, come 13 yearslater, before they put warnings
(16:55):
on, they now approved a Zoloft,Paxil.
It got approved for kids.
I learned things such as, whenyou study kids, it extends the
patent of a drug and, by sixmonths, 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 thingsother things discovering through
(17:18):
the lawsuit, obviously the sideeffect akathisia started to look
really at my business, which isadvertising.
I didn't realize because I havespent my entire career in
advertising.
I didn't realize that the U Swas only one of two countries in
the world that allowed drug ads.
(17:38):
And there's a lot of things thatwere 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, butuntil there were lawsuits that
pulled out and got into thecompany's files, the bulk of the
(18:02):
Zoloft clinical trials that werein their company files, Pfizer's
files, the placebo out performedthe drug and for the ones that
they used to get approval in theU.
S.
It barely outperformed the drug.
And so I started learning aboutclinical trials and then also
realizing that there were otherhigh profile murder suicides.
(18:26):
I don't know if you remember ifyou remember Phil Hartman, he
was a comedian on Saturday nightlive and his wife.
murdered, Phil Hartman and thentook her own life and I didn't
realize, and she had juststarted Zoloft and the media
made it out to be like, Oh, shewas crazy.
But meanwhile, the family hadsecretly settled with Pfizer and
(18:51):
nobody knew about that lawsuit.
So there, there, it was justlike, I, and then I was shocked
also to, to find out that ProzacInitially didn't get approved in
Germany for two reasons, risk ofsuicide and lack of efficacy.
(19:11):
And when I saw it on, again, onthe BGA, their internal company
news, letterhead yours, youcan't unsee when you've seen
this and you have somebody likeWoody dead.
I knew I had to do somethingwith it, but when eventually
Germany did.
(19:31):
Approve Prozac.
But it was originally prescribedwith a tranquilizer to help
offset that activation, which iswhat Woody had, where, the
akathisia where Pfizer actuallydescribed it, death can be a
welcome result.
Yeah.
James Egidio (19:47):
Yeah.
Did he, did Woody have anyalternative medications or
remedies that were suggested byhis doctor for his insomnia or
did they just throw him on aZoloft 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 theedge off.
Quote, unquote.
James Egidio (20:11):
Wow.
And then in your deep dive andin your research, since you've
been an advocate in this, uh,area of medicine and medication
how young are some of thepatients 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 andthree year olds and especially
with some of the foster kids andso that was shocking to me and
then of course, they're young, Imet during this time I met
several families whose kids werelike 13 12 10 They were given
(20:47):
the drug For like test anxiety,and they went on to hang
themselves to they just movedand were stressed.
And again, a lot of these werehangings with the suicides.
And fast forward, it's Iinitially, eventually we got the
(21:08):
black box warnings on thesedrugs and was really involved
in, like I said working with thehouse energy and commerce that
actually called to task the FDAleadership and the drug company
executives to come beforeCongress and they drilled them
because the leadership at FDAwith held some reports from
(21:34):
their own scientists that wouldhave that would have resulted
in, warning the public.
A lot earlier than it did.
And you just start watching thegames that are being played.
And truthfully, I, I didn'trealize that I thought it was
just an isolated issue withantidepressants.
And what I realized it's reallya much bigger.
(21:57):
Systemic problem with our drugsafety system.
The system's not really designedto deal with safety.
It's all about getting the drugson the market.
And, even when I remember ameeting that we went and met
with the top officials at theFDA that were responsible for
approvals of antidepressants andwe told them Woody's story and
(22:21):
there was, we had some otherfamilies as well as Dr.
Healy was in this meeting withus at, with the FDA officials.
And it was fun, like watchingthem, battling back and forth
with data, but literally Iremember saying to Bob Temple, I
said, and told him Woody's storyand I go.
Aren't you curious how, like,how would he who didn't have
(22:42):
history of depression, went fromnot sleeping to head outside the
body and hanging in five weeks?
I would think that you would becurious, like the NTSB, if there
was a plane crash.
To go out and investigate to seewhy somebody like this, was
there any similarities?
Could we prevent this fromhappening to somebody else that
(23:04):
you would be interested?
And he literally said to us.
This is just an anecdote.
I'm like, what?
He goes, this is just ananecdote.
It didn't happen.
We didn't see it in the doubleblinded placebo controlled
studies.
And I remember going, ananecdote, like I literally, I'm
like, Woody is not an anecdote.
(23:24):
Neither is that other familythat's sitting there and the
other family, all of our lovedones within weeks.
Or less than, a couple monthsfor sure.
All took their own lives andyou're not curious.
And so really I'm sitting by mydesk and it we created this
whole campaign called we arenot.
Anecdotes.
We matter.
(23:45):
And I remember like telling the,and we all wore these at our the
2006 hearing and I continue tostill wear it and hand these
buttons out because it's notjust antidepressants.
Now, we're seeing it in a lot ofother, classes of drugs and
vaccines, et cetera, but to hearthem say anecdotes and it was
(24:05):
really, yeah.
That's where I saw that they'renot interested in safety and
like they're not the same peoplethat approve the drugs and
vaccines and devices are thesame people that are responsible
for looking at safety.
And so if you have the samegroup, just even human nature,
(24:26):
even if you were curious.
You, are you going to go andreally 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'llnever forget between Bob Temple
and David Healy that went backand forth about the data and
(24:47):
what they saw about thesewarnings.
So it's, that was another thingthat I learned is the system
isn't really set up.
To help talk about safety andalarm the public when there is
safety.
And it'll still be, that's whyI'm still doing this work 20
years later.
And and the importance ofwarning, like I even, I remember
(25:10):
at these things, I don'tunderstand when you know that
there could potentially.
Not even saying causation, evenif there's a potential for some
type of harm.
Why wouldn't you inform thepublic?
It just seems like such a nobrainer.
James Egidio (25:26):
Yeah, it's, I, to me, and I think it's obvious
now, especially after therollout of the bioweapon, the
vaccine they call it, that forthe pharmaceutical companies to
not take liability, And nomatter what the fallout is for
them, it's the cost of doingbusiness.
That's how they look at it.
They could care less about humanlife at all.
(25:49):
I actually have a friend, bothof her parents were on
antidepressants and both of themher mom and dad hung themselves
in their garage in Vegas onantidepressants.
Oh, yeah.
Kim Witczak (26:04):
Yeah.
James Egidio (26:05):
Horrible.
Yeah.
Yeah, and then the other thingtoo is the warnings that go out
on especially theantidepressants because I have
another friend who commitssuicide as well on
antidepressants.
But of course he was mixing itwith alcohol and he asphyxiated
himself in his garage with hiscar.
But is the using alcohol andthey don't, they don't really,
(26:29):
they don't, they poo that theyjust whatever, and that again,
it's, they don't take theresponsibility for.
Really, like you say, puttingout these warnings to the
patient and then the doctors areso liberal when it comes to
writing these prescriptions,it's just it's like a band aid
for most physicians, to writethese prescriptions and just say
(26:51):
here, use it and not follow upor if they do follow up, it's
just, oh, how's it working foryou?
And of course, the patients alot of times are going to say it
works because everybody wantsthe quick fix.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Kim Witczak (27:03):
I think you're absolutely right with
antidepressant doctors are tooquick to prescribe.
Even if they, like if somebodywas to, say that they had an
adverse event or somethingdoesn't feel right.
It's too quick to say, oh, it'syour disease getting worse.
Or not recognize it as being aside effect, like with Woody,
(27:24):
Oh, just give it time.
Or, layering more drugs on topof the drug to deal with some of
the side effects.
And there's a belief that it'snot an issue with adults.
And so I think, they've done areally good job at convincing
the medical profession through,all their education and the, and
(27:47):
even some of the screening formsthat they use to talk through to
get talk about anti ordepression and mental health,
all of those were created by thedrug companies and marketing.
And it's.
No wonder why we have morepeople taking these drugs and,
(28:07):
look at even just the lastcouple of years, obviously with
the pandemic and people beinglocked down and kids being
prescribed and over prescribedand, the the U S task
preventative services just did areport to the Congress and they
said the number one area thatthey need to, that.
Congress or whatever area thatwe need to put focus on is
(28:30):
mental health.
So for me, that scares mebecause I'm thinking, okay, this
is where all the research moneyis going to go and we're going
to have more.
And I sit on the FDA, that samecommittee that in 1991 didn't do
their job.
I am now the consumerrepresentative on the, FDA's
psychopharmalogic drugs advisorycommittee.
(28:51):
And I see how a lot of the newdrugs are coming to market and
it's all for treatment resistantdepression.
So meaning you've been on anantidepressant two or more of
them, they don't work and you'restill depressed.
We're going to put this new drugand we're going to fast track
it, which is not even goingthrough the the regular, Gold
(29:12):
standard per say, even thoughthere's, there's some debate
there if it's even goldstandard, but they're being fast
tracked.
I think it's going to besomething we're going to have to
continue to watch.
And, we haven't even talkedabout the potential link.
between all these, the shootersand mass shooting that's
something that we need to belooking at as well.
(29:33):
And so it's good.
It feels like there's this jobis never complete.
Never.
James Egidio (29:38):
Yeah.
Yeah.
What was what his sleep cyclelike prior to him being
prescribed the theantidepressants?
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 thefact of him getting up at 3 a.m.
He, that wasn't, he, that wasn'tnormal for him.
Now it is like for somebody likeme, I get, I constantly wake up
and it's just the way my sleepcycle is.
(30:09):
But, when I think about even theconversations that could have
been had, what are you eating?
What are he didn't.
The other thing is he wasn't abig.
Drinker, like he could have onedrink, two made him drunk.
So he didn't really do that.
He didn't drink caffeine becausehe his body was super sensitive.
And so there were a lot ofthings that, now looking back,
(30:32):
I, we probably should havequestioned 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 thequestion, why are you giving me
an antidepressant?
I'm not depressed.
(30:54):
So he didn't even have thatinformation.
And we didn't even have theinformation of being closely.
monitored when first going onthese drugs or dosages change?
He would, that would have beenanother opportunity that he
could have said, my wife's outof town for the next three
weeks.
Is there something else we cando while she's out of town that
(31:18):
we could try?
Yoga, breathing, maybe there'ssome other, but he wasn't a guy
that would naturally just go,give me a quick fix.
That wasn't how he, but he wassomebody who really trusted his
doctor.
James Egidio (31:32):
Yeah.
And I understand that becauseyou see looking around today at,
especially after the whole COVIDthing and the rollout of this
bioweapon, this vaccine, theycall it.
I could see where people buyinto what their doctors suggest
(31:52):
or prescribe because they have alot of trust right prior to
COVID.
They had a lot of trust in theirdoctor.
And then of course thepharmaceutical companies, as you
probably know already, theyspend billions of dollars on
advertising billions it's a big,this was probably one of the
biggest marketing campaigns withthis rollout of the, this
vaccine this poison that they.
(32:13):
They rolled out I can't blamethe patient and I can't blame
the person that's watching thiscommercial for these
medications.
In fact, my wife, she's fromItaly and she's we're watching
TV.
Sometimes we're not big TVwatchers, but you'll see she'll
see prescription medicationcommercials and she'll say.
(32:33):
They don't even advertise likethis in Italy, so I could see
why people buy into it.
And, they'll walk into aphysician's office and they'll
say, Hey, I need this medicationbecause I saw it on television.
And then a lot of times thedoctors probably nine times out
of 10, I'll say, Oh, no problemhere.
Here's the prescription.
(32:54):
So you get caught in thecrossfire of negligent
prescribing.
And being bought and sold by thecommercials in on television.
What happens?
Kim Witczak (33:09):
Yeah.
That was one of the things, soas I call it, I've, through the
years I've traveled and I'vegone to other countries that
have been.
to go to conferences and attendconferences that have been about
the critical thinking or theugly side of, pharmaceutical
companies.
And there was one conference,um, that I remember going to in
(33:33):
Amsterdam in 2010, and it wascalled selling sickness.
And it was attended, it was puton by the Dutch government and
attended by people from all overthe EU, Australia, there was
only a handful of people andhalf of them were my attorneys
and we were over there and theywere, every example that they
(33:56):
use was from the US.
And it was like the, whether itwas the marketing or
ghostwriting or the use of ofusing doctor influencers called
key opinion leaders to thescreening tools that have been
created.
And I remember like thinking,why isn't this conversation
(34:18):
happening in the U.
S.?
And so I eventually tried to getthe organizers.
to do it in the U.
S.
They didn't, but I ended upbringing this conference over to
the U.
S.
called Selling Sickness.
And it is something that I lookat now.
And when you were saying aboutlike the doctors and the public
and I've created this spider webwhere I have the doctor and the
(34:39):
patient in the middle.
And it's all of the influencethat is behind, that's going on
behind the scenes.
And, spiderwebs, a lot of timeswe don't even see them, right?
And spiderwebs are beautiful.
They tangle us.
And so that is something that Ithink a lot about now is, that
for the public, and especiallywhen I look back at the.
(35:01):
Last when the vaccines came out,the the, and I put in quotes
because I had never really donemuch about vaccines because I
don't have kids, but once thatcame out and I started watching
the marketing that was behindthe campaign and the fact that
these companies were given It'sThe same company that in
(35:23):
November, December of 2020, likethe opioids just paid like
billion dollar fine Pfizer paidbefore that had the largest and
billions of dollars of fine foroff label marketing and And so
the fact that these companieswere given complete legal
immunity was like a red flagfrom, but then also the
(35:44):
marketing campaign, like theywere having all the celebrities,
they were using all thetechniques that we use in my
business.
Was like, I've never liked, I'venever liked the use of
celebrities, even in likepromoting a car or like fashion.
I know they do, but cause theywork, but I was like watching
all these celebrities.
(36:05):
Telling us that it's completelysafe and effective and I'm like,
what do they know about that?
And then I saw this the use ofsales promotion tools Like bring
your vax card in and get a donuta day for a year you know from
Krispy Kreme So I started youknow, these are the things that
I hope and I pray that, Godforbid, there's another one that
(36:28):
we really people start payingattention because like Woody and
we were pretty smart and, or atleast I thought we were smart,
but how quickly, when we're sickand 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, butI certainly after the last
(36:50):
couple years I'd be veryhesitant to watch the mainstream
media and what they're promotingAs well as watch all the
marketing and really have likepeople should pay attention to
those marketing and also Theidea of like fear, the power of
fear.
Cause I've seen it even on someof the drugs that we approve,
(37:11):
like the hope they sell hope andfear, that's the power of
marketing or manipulation alittle bit persuasion.
James Egidio (37:21):
Yeah, that's exactly what they're doing.
They're selling that.
And what's really interestingabout that is, they are when you
have to go to a naturopath or achiropractor for that matter,
who gives you better solutionsto your ill illness than a
(37:43):
allopathic physician.
You'll go, you go to achiropractor, you go to a
naturopath, they have bettersolutions, like you say, than
most of these allopathicphysicians.
Even the DOs.
Do a little bit more prescribingthan the MDs.
Yeah, but again you get muchbetter care It seems like from
alternatives and i'm notsuggesting anything, but that's
(38:06):
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 evenwhat kind of training are they
getting our doctors in whetherit's nutrition, how much of a
course is in nutrition, how muchof the courses in these natural,
there's no money in the, some ofthese other solutions and also
(38:30):
how the FDA works.
And no wonder why our doctorsit's a business and I keep
saying healthcare is a business.
And I don't even use the wordpatients.
It drives my patient safetygroup crazy because I call us
customers.
But truly, if we look at it thatway, we're customers because
(38:54):
they need patients to go tobusiness.
They need patience.
And so why wouldn't you havethis?
If I was a company and, I knewthat, there, I could always
build in the cost of doingbusiness, although I don't know,
I could do it because it justdoesn't feel right to me.
But the cradle to gravestrategy, like it's a brilliant
(39:17):
strategy.
If you can keep a customer forlife, And keep them moving in
and out of different productcycles or, and so again, that is
I totally understand that mylens is from my background in
advertising and the businessside of things, but I, it is a
(39:37):
lot, I always tell people that.
Even our lawyers when there arelawsuits and it's why they try
to do anything to keep them outof the out of the company files
or whatnot is One of the firstplaces lawyers go when there's
litigation against a drugcompany.
They go to the marketingdepartment Yeah, I find that
(39:58):
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 offlabel marketing, promotion,
pushing something that may notbe safe or effective, right?
And so a lot of it is themarketing, the power of the
marketing.
And, it's funny, I recently cameacross a, an article from 1999
(40:29):
where Pfizer, it was about the.
power of marketing, being ininvolved in some of the clinical
trials and because they have tofigure out how are they going to
sell this to the public.
And that's something that Idon't think I ever really paid
much attention to this.
And I think most people don't.
(40:50):
And it's not until, somethinghappens where you maybe We'll
And it's the whole goal of why Ido what I do is so that no
family ever has to ask after thefact, how come we didn't know.
And so I think it's reallyimportant that, having these
conversations because you'realso the new media as we've seen
(41:11):
over the last couple years.
James Egidio (41:13):
Yeah.
And it's interesting you saythat too, with the cradle.
To the grave theory to becauseagain, you mentioned earlier
that they're putting children asyoung as 12, 13 years old on
these antidepressants.
So it's like they're creatingthese patients is what they're
doing.
(41:33):
But the fallout or potentialfallout doesn't matter.
It's just, again, the cost to doin business.
And then it even makes even moresense that when they do these
clinical trials, I know they,they always target these
demographics, the age, the sexof a person so on and so forth.
So they have a whole plethora ofdemographics that they work
(41:57):
with.
So they say, okay, now this ishow we're going to market and
who we're going to market it towhen we roll it out to the
market.
Yep.
So they have it pretty muchdialed in from the time they do
R and D research and developmenttill the time they put it out on
the market and market it, theactual medication.
So my question to you is, whenit comes to antidepressants,
(42:21):
where are we at in terms ofregulation or oversight?
Kim Witczak (42:26):
I'm not sure I would say there's much other
than the fact that there's goingto be more and more new drugs
coming to market, you look atwhat was it again, the US task
preventative services justrecommended that all Americans
65 and under are screened foranxiety.
And so I think we are insomething that we're going to
(42:50):
just, it's going to be acontinual it's human nature.
And I think we have to have someof these conversations like, of
course we're anxious.
Of course of course there'stimes of sadness, but what, and
this is where I think, I havenot seen.
Much change in this work.
And in some ways, I think thework has gotten it's gotten even
(43:12):
worse in the last, I would havethought that we've made some
improvements, but I, in someways, I think the pressure and
trying to change and all thefast tracking of new drugs that
are coming on the market fortreatment resistant depression
and all of that, I think, Weneed to be the ones to take a
step back and don't and pushback, but also don't fall prey
(43:35):
to some of the things that we'reseeing and maybe start asking
ourselves or being curiousaround, 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 toafter Woody died and I went to
my doctor and she asked if Ineeded something and I looked at
(43:57):
her.
I said first of all, I think myI mean, I think this is what
killed my husband.
And then I said, but aren't Isupposed to be?
Sad and hurt.
My husband died and she said youdon't need to.
And I was like, Yes, I do.
That's the only way through isnot numbing.
And that was a long time ago.
(44:19):
And I think we've just whatwe'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 leastquestion the use of it because,
the getting off of these drugs.
I wish that, and I'll have toput them on my website, but
(44:41):
there were a couple big aboutthe withdrawal and people trying
to get off of these medicines.
Are we going to be on themforever?
And then find out like, causethey can't get off of them or
they feel like, Oh, I'm stillsad.
And then, so you could see thatwhole cascading effect that's
created by the system.
And that's where I think it'sreally important that we, as the
(45:04):
people push back and startquestioning and just reevaluate
what does health mean?
James Egidio (45:12):
Yeah.
It means I think shutting offthe television.
Number one.
Diet, exercise and faith in God.
Those are the three, three, foursolutions right there.
And I think the further peopleget away from all that lifestyle
change stuff.
tHat they engage in with socialmedia and all this other stuff
(45:34):
that they, all the pressure theyput on themselves with, their
status and in their phones andall this other stuff, they got
to get away from that.
People have to get away fromthat.
Realize that we have to just goback to basics and just
decompress, shut the phones offand spend time with your family
and eat properly.
Fresh foods and exercise.
(45:55):
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 kepteverybody inside.
glued to the TV, right?
Fear mongering.
You couldn't be outside whereyou need to be outside like
vitamin D and like healthy andpeople weren't like you're
(46:21):
keeping people away from familybecause, so all of the
strategies that you justsuggested.
You think about it.
That is not what happened duringthe last four years.
No, I shut down church.
I did too.
And, and shut down churches, allthe things that were super
important to a life well
James Egidio (46:41):
lived.
Absolutely.
Thank you so much for joining meon this episode of the medical
truth podcast.
Now your website iswww.WoodyMatters.Com That's
woody matters.
I've been flashing that at thebottom there in the ticker the
whole time.
Any, anything else you'd like toshare with the listeners and
viewers of the medical truthpodcast?
Kim Witczak (47:02):
Sure.
You can also follow me at atwoody matters on Twitter or X
now.
And I also have a sub stackcalled acceptable collateral
damage.
And really it's unacceptable,but and so that's really where I
put and write about certainthings as well.
And then just Kim Witczak.
(47:22):
com.
And I have on there, some of mywork that I'm doing around
selling sickness and the spiderweb.
James Egidio (47:29):
Good.
Good.
I didn't know you were on substack.
That's awesome.
I'll have to hit you up on substack 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 whatyou just said, acceptable
collateral damage costs of doingbusiness and I'm trying to
prevent people from being whatWoody was considered costs.
Absolutely.
Any others.
Yeah,
James Egidio (47:56):
absolutely.
Kim, thank you so much forjoining 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 towww.
medicaltruthpodcast.
com.
You can also find the MedicalTruth Podcast on Rumble, as well
as all the major podcastplatforms like Apple Podcasts,
Spotify, Stitcher, and iHeart.
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