Paxil Claims a Short Life

Omaha, NE"My wife took Paxil before and during her pregnancy and everything was fine," says Trever Hargitt. "This was going to be our third so we knew what to expect -- or thought we did..." Keagan Hargitt lived only three short weeks due to heart and lung failure. "Now we will never know what our son could have grown up to be."

"There was nothing untoward, not even a hint of anything wrong," says Hargitt. "Pre-natal checked out fine and even when Keagan was first born he seemed okay so they sent him to the regular nursery. I worked in the administration section at the hospital so the nurses were keeping a real close eye on him for me, they were extra precautious."

"During a regular checkup just a few hours after Keagan was born, one nurse noticed that his heart didn't sound quite right so they brought in a neo-natal cardiologist. He detected a murmur that was disconcerting so our son was transferred to neo-natal care. There, they did a high-intensity ultrasound of his heart and detected a major problem: his heart wasn't working the way that it should because the entire left side was underdeveloped. They tried to repair one of the heart valves -- when Keagan was barely eight hours old he was moved to Children's Hospital and underwent his first heart surgery. He had two more open-heart surgeries after that and two procedures on his lungs -- the doctors never did close his little chest. Through the dressings, you could actually see his heart beating.

After the last surgery, they discovered that he also had a lung condition. If Keagan had a healthy heart, they could have fixed his lung but this wasn't the case. No surgery was going to be successful with this combination.

Our son lived just over three weeks. The doctors said they could keep him alive but he would never leave the hospital and would stay on pain medication. We told the doctors to take him off all the extra meds -- at one point he was on 27 different drugs. We got to hold him until he passed away. When the nurse said he was gone, we held him in the waiting room until he went for autopsy.

My (now) ex-wife Barbara brought Paxil to my attention - she heard it on a news broadcast. There was no heart condition in either family and part of his autopsy comprised genetic testing.

Because of my job, I know a lot of doctors and drug representatives. If a medication is questionable, then the doctors and the people taking it should have all the information so they can make an intelligent decision.(I also know that doctors get kickbacks from the drug makers for prescribing their products.) The drug companies have to be accountable -- they are destroying people's lives so they can have more money in their pockets. I am extremely furious. I should be taking my son to a ball game instead of having his brothers and sister looking at his photographs with tubes coming out of his little body.

I hope a lawsuit exposes this company for what it is: these drug makers have to realize it isn't about dollars and cents but human lives."

Keagan Hargitt was born on January 14, 2002, in Omaha, Nebraska: He was also born with hypoplastic left heart syndrome. Keagan passed away 24 days later. His parents, Barbara and Trever, have three other children, none of whom have birth defects and all were born when Barbara was not on Paxil.