This morning I received an anguished email from Tania Morgan, a 59-year-old former head teacher I interviewed for the Daily Mail last year following her son’s adverse and tragic reaction to an antidepressant.
Tania and her husband Ian had told the story of their 25-year-old son, Sam, who took his life a week after he’d started taking the medication – they believe his suicide was the direct result of the drug.
She wrote: ‘HELP. I don’t know where to turn but I am unable to turn a blind eye to what is happening and owe it to my son to not let this matter lay. I’m writing to you this morning in despair, frustration and anger.’
Tania’s anger had been triggered by the news yesterday of the inquest into the death of Thomas Kingston, the husband of Lady Gabriella Windsor.
The coroner had said: ‘The evidence of his wife, family and business partner all supports his lack of suicidal intent. He was suffering adverse effects of medication he had recently been prescribed.’
Thomas Kingston had been given a number of anti-anxiety drugs and antidepressants –a type known as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) – to help him sleep and to deal with stress at work.
But in February earlier this year, the 45-year-old financier was found dead at his parents’ Cotswolds home with a head injury from his father’s shotgun.
Since the death of her son five years ago Tania has campaigned tirelessly for regulators to warn people that antidepressants can cause even those without a history of mental illness to take their own lives.
Lady Gabriella Windsor with her husband Thomas Kingston, who killed himself in February after suffering adverse effects of medication he had recently been prescribed
The couple outside St George’s chapel, Windsor, on their wedding day in 2019
She has written numerous letters including to the medical regulator, the MHRA (the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency); the health secretaries for England and Wales; Nadine Dorries, then Minister for Patient Safety Prevention and Mental Health; the then Prime Minister Rishi Sunak – and the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE).
Tania told me: ‘I’m devastated to hear about Thomas Kingston’s death because it could have been avoided. The story so closely replicates our family’s that I feel angry and let down by so many people.
‘The MHRA has promised to look into this matter, but nearly five years after the needless death of our son another life is cut short that should never have happened.’
Like Sam, Thomas Kingston was not depressed: he’d gone to his GP in January because he had trouble sleeping and was given the antidepressant sertraline, a type of SSRI.
But it made him feel ‘sleepy and low in the mornings’, while he would get ‘woozy and overheat’ during the day, the inquest heard.
So in February it was replaced by another SSRI, citalopram, in the weeks before his death.
He had no history of mental illness, leaving his friends and wife in no doubt that his death was caused by the medication.
Lady Gabriella Kingston told the inquest: ‘If this can happen to Tom it can happen to anyone’.
Tania, whose 25-year-old son, Sam, killed himself in January 2020, has campaigned tirelessly for regulators to warn people that antidepressants can cause even those without a history of mental illness to take their own lives
Tania and husband Ian believe the death of Sam (pictured) was caused by an adverse reaction to an antidepressant
Indeed, I hear stories like these regularly through antidepressantrisks.org, a not-for-profit website that I set up after I had my own experience of an adverse reaction to antidepressants that in 2012 left me first psychotic, then suicidal – fortunately I was admitted to hospital so I was not able to carry out my suicidal thoughts.
First, let me stress that many people do benefit from these drugs. But their adverse effects can be disastrous for others.
One reason is that those who, like me, were lucky to survive often report an agonising condition called akathisia, which is a sign of drug toxicity.
This is characterised by an inability to sit still and an inner terror – and it causes people to want to end their lives just to end the agony.
Yesterday I was talking to a woman who had an adverse reaction to an antidepressant she was given for neuropathic pain.
She had such bad akathisia that she’d jumped off a building to end it – she was lucky to survive.
Since being slowly weaned off the drug, she has made a full recovery.
She had never been suicidal or depressed before taking the drug and hasn’t been since.
Journalist Katinka Blackford Newman has had my own experience of an adverse reaction to antidepressants that left her first psychotic, then suicidal – fortunately she was admitted to hospital so she was not able to carry out her suicidal thoughts
Another potential reason that people take their lives after taking antidepressants is a drug-induced toxic effect called serotonin syndrome, which is characterised by ‘temperature dysregulation’ (where your body goes from feeling very hot to feeling cold and shivering) and a clouding of consciousness (where you experience delirium and confusion). The expert report from Thomas Kingston’s inquest said that serotonin syndrome was the most likely factor leading to him taking his life.
Nobody knows for sure why some people become suicidal from antidepressants while other seem to benefit.
While drug companies put the risk of suicide from most SSRIs at one in 100, some experts think the figures may be higher.
David Healy, a professor of psychiatry who was an expert medical witness at Thomas Kingston’s inquest thinks that between one in ten and one in 20 people taking antidepressants could be at risk.
In 1999 he ran a healthy volunteer trial in which two out of 20 who were given sertraline became suicidal after one week of taking it – and one of the volunteers still felt suicidal two months later after stopping the drug.
There are nearly nine million people in the UK on antidepressants, yet experts and campaigners – including myself – think that much could be done to improve awareness of the risks.
The most dangerous time for an adverse reaction to antidepressants is when you go on them, change dose or come off them, says Professor Healy.
Patients are rarely warned of this and often I hear that when people suffer an adverse reaction, their doctors double their dose or tell them that it takes time for the pills to work.
‘Sam had everything going for him,’ says Tania, 59, a former head teacher. ‘He had a steady girlfriend of six years, no financial worries and a group of fantastic friends’
In some cases, doctors mistake the adverse reaction as a worsening of the original symptoms of anxiety or depression.
Despite the fact that Thomas Kingston reported an adverse reaction to sertraline, his GP switched him to citalopram.
In his report, Professor Healy said: ‘Thomas Kingston should not have been switched from sertraline to citalopram. An individual having such a poor response to one SSRI was likely to have an equally poor response to another SSRI’.
There is much that could be improved by regulators to warn patients of the potential risks.
While there are warnings in the patient information leaflet of antidepressants that if you are feeling suicidal the drugs may make you worse, there is no warning that the drugs can cause suicidal feelings in people who are completely healthy.
Concluding in his report to the Coroner, Professor Healy wrote: ‘In terms of preventing future deaths, my view is that MHRA and NICE have fallen short in their communication of the risk of suicide on these medicines.
‘Their communication in this area is ambiguous and has misled many good doctors, leading to unnecessary deaths.’
It’s not just antidepressants that cause people to take their lives.
There are more than 1OO different medications that have been linked to this side-effect, including antipsychotics, benzodiazepines, anti-malarial tablets, acne medication and even some antibiotics.
Earlier this year I launched a petition ‘The Question That Will Save Lives’ to get suicide prevention services to ask callers if they are taking medication that can cause suicide.
It now has over 32,000 signatures and my hope is that if suicide services can make callers aware of the risks of some medications, then this could indeed save lives.
Until there is greater awareness, bereaved relatives such as Tania Morgan will continue their fight to get regulators to properly warn the public.
She ended her email to me with: ‘I am unable to stomach another needless death of an innocent, unsuspecting, trusting person looking for some relief only to endure such acute feelings of helplessness and panic brought on by the medication that the only way out is by ending their lives.’
- change.org/TheQuestionThatWillSaveLives
- For confidential support, call the Samaritans on 116 123 or visit a local Samaritans branch. Go to samaritans.org for details.
- Katinka Blackford Newman runs antidepressantrisks.org, a campaigning website that raises awareness about the potential risks of antidepressants.
