The first thing that hit me sideways was the phrase "professional internet gambler."
If you're a crime buff there are few things that can become more obsessive than a real-life mystery in progress and we have one in Chicago right now. This week there was a huge break in a well-known local murder investigation and although details are sketchy and weird at this point, those few details don't add up at all. And I suspect that when the truth is known the story is going to get weirder. And more interesting.
Last October the body of 64-year-old dermatologist Dr. David Cornbleet was discovered by his daughter in his 12th-story Michigan Avenue office, just across the street from Millennium Park. Cornbleet had been bound, gagged, and stabbed over twenty times. Surveillance video showed what appeared to be a young man entering the building just before the killing and leaving just after. In both instances he seemed to be hiding his face. A witness who rode the elevator with the suspect back down to the street reported that he had injured his nose and had blood on his sweatshirt, as if he had been in some sort of struggle. The video ran for several days on Chicago television. Promising leads turned cold. The victim's family raised money for a reward and Dr. Cornbleet's son, Jon, created a MySpace page for soliciting tips from younger people--perhaps the killer's peers--who might not follow the mainstream media.
In June, apparently in part from leads developed on the internet, a 29-year-old New York resident and "professional internet gambler" named Hans Peterson (left in high school photo) became a "person of interest." DNA in Peterson's New York apartment was compared to DNA left behind at the crime scene. Two months after the murder, Peterson apparently had fled to the island of St. Martin where he applied for and received French citizenship. Last week, he turned himself in to St. Martin authorities, claiming that he committed the murder because five years ago Dr. Cornbleet had prescribed some acne medication that Peterson believed had made him impotent.Because the French will not extradite their citizens in capital cases, bringing Peterson to Chicago for trial has suddenly become complicated.
Obviously there are many holes in this story which will be filled in the coming weeks and months. And I suspect that some of the "facts" as we currently know them will turn out to be untrue. But the bones of this story--New York internet gambler seeks acne treatment in Chicago, has bad reaction, then five years later returns to savagely murder the doctor who wrote the prescription--just won't stand up on their own, especially when you compare the complete irrationality of the act to the cold calculation of applying for foreign citizenship in order to avoid prosecution in the United States.
The local TV stations have been all over this story. The Tribune put news of the confession on Page 3 of Metro, probably because they know so little about Peterson and what they know is somewhat dubious. The Sun-Times seems to be giving it a little more wood with no more information. There are skilled reporters working the beat, however, and my gut tells me this story is going to blow up into front page weirdness in the coming days.
And although I will almost always put my money on professional reporters having the edge over internet gossips, this story might turn out to be an exception. Hans Peterson has friends. Some of his friends must know his story. Some of those friends no doubt have blogs.
I'm not making any predictions, but this could be the kind of halfway-under-the-radar tale the internet was born for.
45 comments:
I didn't know it was so easy to become a French citizen! Do you have to be able to speak French, or is it enough to like St Juliens and escargots? And how about Mme Sarkozy, prancing around New Hampshire with her pals instead of going to Kennebunkport, or however it's spelled. My, my. (sorry, I have no comment on the underlying post.)
Kevin~
Killing with a knife - stabbing to death another human - is a very personal way to kill someone. Add bound and gagged and clearly there is something more to this than a five year old grudge.
Surprisingly, this hasn't hit the broader news. This is the first I've heard of this case. There is certainly a "story" here - if not a novel....
i know hans. i went to college with him and talked to him on the phone ocasionally, including after he murdered this person-obviously the murder was not discussed. post your email address here and i will tell you what i know about him.
Anonymous, please email what you know to me at kevin@guilfoile.net.
The Sun-Times has a little more information today based on an interview with a relative. They also have some info about the drug that is allegedly at the center of this crime.
The Tribune coverage is sparse and includes this embarrassing graf:
Members of the Cornbleet family are trying to piece together the life of the man accused of killing their father. They've talked with people who knew Peterson and hope to speak to his family some day. They've learned he was only a patient of their father's for one day in 2002, when Cornbleet prescribed a drug Peterson allegedly claimed in a confession to French authorities had made him impotent.
Since when does a paper as good as the Tribune abdicate reporting responsibilities on a high-profile crime to the victim's family? And why haven't we seen a picture of this guy?
I, too, had no idea it was so quick and easy to become a French citizen, but it makes sense if you think about it. Peterson was running away; what can be more French than that?
This is the first I hear of it, but why do you think Peterson's story does not hold up? Binding and gagging and then stabbing the victim sounds sort of rational to me.
Btw - Hans Peterson, a Swedish name...
AB,
My skepticism of the story in the media was not about the details of the actual murder. It was more about the motive. I found it hard to believe that anyone would travel halfway across the country specifically to murder a doctor who had prescribed him acne medication five years earlier. I thought the violent nature of the crime--twenty times is a lot of stabbing and, as Mark pointed out--stabbing is an intimate way to kill someone. And I was puzzled by the lack of information the public had about the suspect. I didn't have any alternate theory of the crime, it's just that the details as they were presented didn't make a lot of sense to me.
Having recently spoken to some people with more information about the case, I now believe the real story is basically the one we've been hearing, which, if true, will make it even stranger than anything I could have imagined.
I said I wouldn't make any predictions, but now I'm going to make two. First, this story will be the bones of a Law & Order next season. And second, over the next few months, we are going to be reading and hearing a great deal about this.
So, what did your earlier "anonymous" reader say? Who is the creep who killed the doctor? Who is this waste of a human being who uses "impotence" as an excuse to take another person's life so brutally?
Anonymous 2,
I spoke to Anonymous 1 the other day. Basically he/she confirmed the basic outline of the story and offered some personal details that will no doubt become public eventually. I found it all extremely interesting but I'm not going to post any of it here because without further context I don't really have much to say about it and in doing so I might inadvertently give a hint to A1's identity.
I'm not sure anything I heard gave me an understanding of why it happened. I still have many, many questions. At the least we are talking about a perfect storm of mental illness and prescription drugs. I still can't figure out why there hasn't been more extensive reporting on this case and specifically about Hans Peterson (although the Sun-Times has a very few new facts of the investigation today). I still haven't seen a photo. A1 gave me personal details about him that would not be difficult for any reporter to discover.
Beyond the bizarre and violent nature of the crime, it seems apparent that Peterson's defense (if he decides to put one up) will be that the drug Accutane, perhaps in combination with other drugs he had taken, significantly and perhaps irreversibly altered his behavior. That's a bombshell claim, and not without precedent. Charles Bishop was the Tampa teenager who apparently committed suicide by flying his small plane into an office tower a few months after 9/11. Bishop's parents blamed Accutane for their son's strange behavior and filed suit against the drugmaker, although they eventually dropped it, claiming they were "physically and emotionally unable" to go ahead with the litigation.
I have no idea if any of these claims have merit, but the fact that the question has been raised in the wake of two high-profile and extremely bizarre acts of violence deserves some inquiry, either to prove them or disprove them.
Also, the legal issues pertaining to Peterson's extradition, and the calculating way that he sought and obtained French citizenship, apparently to avoid the death penalty (and perhaps even prosecution in the US) should be a big story all by itself.
One last thing I should add for clarification: If I understand the timeline, Peterson stopped taking Accutane quite some time--perhaps years--before the murder. He claimed to various people (and those same people claim to have observed) that the drug had lingering effects.
Anonymous 2 here again...Let's face facts. The family sent that "anonymous" email to the press in an an effort (and a stupid one at that) to divert the public's attention away from the monstrous act their son commited. How crass and insensitive of them to call the Cornbleet family "rightous" in their emailed letter. The fact is that the killer's parents are doctors - yes doctors - and they knew that their son was a basket case and obviously didn't get him the proper help. Accutane, if taken the one or two times he claimed to have taken it, doesn't have lingering effects in the body for 5 years. That's just the most absurd thing to suggest. And there are no known cases of impotence stemming from Accutane. Clearly, Hans had severe mental problems and wanted to lash out at someone. Why Dr. Cornbleet - well, that's what I want to know. He supposedly only saw Dr. Cornbleet one time. If indeed, Dr. Cornbleet did prescribe Hans Accutane, he would have asked him to make a follow-up appointment. Either Dr. Cornbleet never prescribed Accutane in the first place or Hans never bothered to make the follow-up appointment. In either event, is that truly a basis for which to conspire for 5 years to kill that doctor???? Let's not take the focus away from the fact that Hans is a clearly deranged person, but of enough sound mind to plan and plot a murder for years, and also be clever enough to flee the country and take up French citizenship. If his parents are trying to drum up a guilty by insantity plea for when Hans returns to the U.S. they're way off their mark here.
In either event, is that truly a basis for which to conspire for 5 years to kill that doctor????
Obviously no, A2. I think we can say safely that mental illness was the source of Peterson's rage, not an acne medication. And you rightly point out that the details of the crime and his behavior afterward demonstrate a calculation that suggests there's something here other than psychosis. My curiosity with regard to Accutane is not whether it directly caused Peterson to commit murder, but rather about the curious way this story has been handled by the media when there are multiple threads of investigation that still seem to be unpulled.
If my information is correct (and it's possible that it isn't) Peterson had been openly obsessed with the effects that Accutane had on him for some time. Those effects might have been entirely imagined (I have no idea) and perhaps his family is playing some sort of manipulation game and perhaps none of it had anything to do with Dr. Cornbleet except inside Hans Peterson's mind. But it's part of the story.
I have no reason to suspect Dr. Cornbleet did anything at all improper and I haven't suggested such a thing. And even if he had, it obviously would not have been justification for murder. I'm trying to understand an act of violence and Hans Peterson did not pick Dr. Cornbleet off the street. There were plenty of people in New York he could have killed with less effort. Inside his troubled head, he had some motivation for driving halfway across the country in order to commit a savage murder and I don't believe he came up with Accutane as an excuse after the fact. I'd like to try to understand why he did it on a level beyond "crazy made him do it."
Maybe that's not possible but I'm trying.
I also don't want to ignore the other part of this case, which is that Hans Peterson remains beyond the reach of the US justice system. Whatever your feelings about the death penalty (I'm against it), Peterson's calculated attempt to avoid prosecution for a brutal murder by becoming a French citizen is farcical in the extreme.
The Cornbleet family has created an online petition where you can add your own weight to the campaign to have him extradited.
I am also pasting the text of a letter written by Dr. Cornbleet's daughter, which suggests another avenue of involvement, as well:
Dear Friends:
My Name is Jocelyn Cornbleet and this is the first time I am going public in regards to my Father’s murder case. On October 24, 2006 I discovered him brutally tortured, stabbed and left murdered in his office building in downtown Chicago. After not hearing from him, I was sent to his office and found him left for approximately four hours lying dead in his own blood. My family and friends have selflessly worked to find the monster who took my father, a loving husband and dedicated doctor from us.
The man who committed this brutal murder, Hans Peterson, is a former patient who saw my father one time in 2002, 4 years before the crime. To date he has been able to avoid Chicago and United States officials by flying to and hiding in the French portion of St. Martin in the Caribbean. While in hiding, and because his mother is French, he applied for French citizenship to escape the American judicial system. In May, the French government granted his dual citizenship. During the first week of August, he admitted to the police in St. Martin that he brutally killed my father and is currently being held on the French island.
The United States Department of Justice has asked for his return to be tried in Illinois. However, the French government has been unwilling to extradite this American born and raised man, even though there was an international warrant out for his arrest and he applied for and was granted French citizenship AFTER HE MURDERED MY FATHER.
Under French law, life in prison is a maximum of 20 years, and there is no guarantee that he we will even be brought to trial. This is absolutely unacceptable to my family who has endured this nightmare. I saw the horrible atrocities this monster did to my father first hand and my family and I are hoping you can help us achieve justice.
At this time there are two things that you can easily do to help.
The first is to contact your state’s senators and district congressman. I have attached links to many of their websites and emails. If yours is not listed visit this site and conduct a search. You can also reach all presidential candidates through this link.
[SECTION DELETED REFERRING TO EMAIL ATTACHMENT} If you do create your own message, we ask that you reference our website (http://www.myspace.com/dr_david_cornbleet_murder) so these officials know that everyone is referring to the same topic.
After contacting these government officials, the second thing that we request you do is pass this email on to all your friends, family members, and co-workers, and request that they follow the same two tasks. If ever there was a time for spam mail to be justified this would be it.
If you have any questions or comments please contact us directly through our website or via email at drdavidcornbleetinfo@yahoo.com.
Thank you so much for your time and support
Jocelyn Cornbleet
Anonymous,
I am very interested in the Dr. Cornbleet murder case. I would appreciate any information that you would like to share. My e-mail is LLMCB@hotmail.com
I look forward to hearing from you,
Sincerely,
LLMCB
Perhaps you amateur detectives would like to know what really happened.
You think that the press should have really figured it out?
I sent them this information several days ago and they are still sitting on their hands.
This is being written by Hans' family member who has written whatever else you have seen.
I have chosen to remain anonymous to minimize the harrassement of the righteous Chicagoans who blame his family.
LET US SOLVE THE OTHER MYTSTERIES
Now that the first mystery has been solved and we know who killed Dr Cornbleet, let us solve the other mysteries.
2. How did Hans Peterson become a psychotic killer?
3. Why was he prescribed Accutane?
Again, the second mystery is why did this young man become a psychotic killer?
Picture a young, intelligent, shy college graduate trying to find his way through the maze of the business world. He has a problem with acne and clinical depression, not unlike many young men his age. He suddenly becomes psychotic and eventually, turns into a murderer after taking just 1 or 2 doses of an FDA approved drug, Accutane, prescribed by a respected, licensed doctor.
Unbelievable?
To help solve this mystery, some scienticic research will be necessary.
Go to www.rocheusa.com/products/accutane/pi.pdf
On this site, you will find prescribing information for Accutane that every doctor should know thoroughly and abide by strictly. Clearly, Accutane is a dangerous drug. It is banned in France and several other countries.
Go past the part about pregnancy and birth defects to CONTRAINDICATIONS
and findthe large bold type section headed by WARNINGS with the subheading "Psychiatric Disorders".This section states that "prior to initiation of Accutane therapy, patients and family members should be asked about any history of psychiatric disorders".
Read carefully and you will see the phrase "Discontinuation of Accutane therapy may be insufficient" for the adverse effects to go away. This indicates that just 1 or 2 doses can cause permanent damage.
Those patients with a personal or family history of any psychiatric disorder such as depression are particularly susceptible to the serious adverse reactions of "depression, psychosis, and rarely, aggressive and/or violent behaviors".
Given Hans peterson's personal and family history (he and his mother and a sibling had all been treated for clinical depression) he was particularly susceptible to Accutane"s serious adverse psychiatric effects.
This explains how an apparently normal young man was transformed into a psychotic murderer.
Mystery #3 remains.
Why would a doctor who has read the WARNINGS prescribe Accutane to Hans Peterson??
He suddenly becomes psychotic and eventually, turns into a murderer after taking just 1 or 2 doses of an FDA approved drug, Accutane, prescribed by a respected, licensed doctor.
But that's not what happened, is it AP? He "turned into a murderer" some five years after taking "one or two doses" of this drug (I'll take your word on the dosage part). That's hardly sudden and it hardly demonstrates a cause and effect. I once registered my personal high score in Donkey Kong a week after I took a Benadryl, but that doesn't prove a relationship.
Read carefully and you will see the phrase "Discontinuation of Accutane therapy may be insufficient" for the adverse effects to go away. This indicates that just 1 or 2 doses can cause permanent damage.
Um, no. That's not what it says at all. There is a significant gap between the vague legalese of "discontinuation of Accutane may be insufficient" and the claim that one dose of Accutane might induce a permanent and violent (and yet somehow still carefully calculating) psychosis.
This explains how an apparently normal young man was transformed into a psychotic murderer.
Um, again, no it doesn't. I wish it were so simple.
AP, I have sympathy for the families of people who do unforgivable things. In fact we've touched on the topic in this space. But I suspect that the reason the media hasn't printed your claims is because, while these explanations you suggest might give you comfort, and they might even prove one day to be true for all I know (although i doubt it), they don't really qualify as facts.
I know the Peterson family is doing everything they can to mitigate the repercussions for their son. I hope my family would do the same for me. But I haven't heard anyone in Chicago or elsewhere suggest that the Peterson family is to blame for the murder. I have heard people react negatively to attempts to make excuses for Hans, but no one should be surprised that people in general show more sympathy to the family of the victim than they do to the family of the murderer.
I should add, AP, that if what you say is true, let's present the evidence in an American courtroom instead of making anonymous and unsubstantiated claims that, in this forum, carry all the credibility of an unsolicited Nigerian email. Accutane is a part of this story one way or the other and if it can turn a mildly depressed but otherwise well-adjusted young man into a savage killer than we all ought to know about it.
A better forum for that claim than this one would be a Chicago courtroom at Hans's trial.
Hans was given a drug that can cause psychosis that he was particularly susceptible to.
He did subsequently develop psychosis.
That is:permanent damage to the emotional/social part of the brain.
If you don't think that had anything to do with this murder then you are much more of an amateur detective than I had previously thought.
AP, I'm not an any kind of detective, I'm just a curious bystander. And I don't dispute that Hans may have suffered ill effects from the drug. According to reports, he seemed to think it made him impotent, a claim about Accutane I've never heard anywhere else. Members of his family (and other individuals who knew him) describe other changes in his behavior over the past several years. Maybe that's attributable to the drug and maybe not. I can't know.
But the assertion that's hard to accept at face value here is that taking one or two doses of this pill directly caused Hans to become a savage murderer years later. And not just a savage murderer but one who planned and calculated, who made an appointment under an assumed name, who drove halfway across the country, who knew where security cameras were and covered his face to hide from them, who subsequently fled the country and who concocted a fairly ingenious plan to try to avoid prosecution in the US. This wasn't a Virginia Tech style rampage. This was a planned assassination. To say it was caused solely by a medication he took five years ago is an extraordinary claim, even when you take into account other accusations that have been made about Accutane in the past. As obvious as it seems to be to you, I have to remain skeptical of it.
My only partially informed sense of this is that Hans was affected by the medication and those effects became an obsession. The focus of his mental illness. That obsession led to this murder. As I said, Accutane is a part of this story, but in my mind it doesn't offer the simple explanation you suggest. The amount of planning and the lengths (literally) Hans had to go to commit this crime add up to premeditated murder, not just the unfortunate collateral damage of a drug-induced psychotic episode.
Mystery #3 remains.
Why would a doctor who has read the WARNINGS prescribe Accutane to Hans Peterson??
I'm still curious what you mean by this. I don't know whether Dr. Cornbleet acted improperly or not when he prescribed Accutane to Hans. Are you suggesting he not only did it improperly but that he did it on purpose? Or are you merely alleging that Dr. Cornbleet had not read the warnings before he wrote the prescription? Even if the latter were true, surely it's not really your position that he ought to have been murdered for it.
Hello, Anonymous 2 back here again from last week..
Umm, I don't believe we have any proof that Dr. Cornbleet even prescribed Accutane to this lunatic. For all anyone knows this psycho made up this story or who knows what stories he told himself when he went full-out delusional? For all we know, Hans invented this ridiculous story to try to throw blame on someone other than himself. Please, people, let's not forget that Han's father is a doctor and did not take the proper measures to help his son get better (if he, indeed, was so worried about him), and now he and his family are blaming the poor Cornbleet family. People, let's not forget that his son completely plotted this murder for years, he had days to think about what he was going to do on his drive from New York to Chicago where he killed the doctor. He had enough sound mind to think about how he would evade the law by running to the French. What astounds me, however, is the complete utter lack of sensitivity the Peterson family is showing toward the Cornbleets who are the victims in this. The Petersons are in no way victims. Their son is in no way, a victim. He is disturbed, to be sure, but he is also a killer and tried to find a way to escape the heinous crime he commited. I am going to cut and paste part of an article below that appeared in a French newspaper so that everyone can see just how insenstive the Peterson family is: I have included the link to the newspaper article as well, however, it is in French.
http://jabiru.blog.lemonde.fr/2007/08/17/peine-de-mort-pour-hans-peterson/
The father of Hans Peterson, is himself Doctor in Oregon. He claimed his son suffered a “severe and permanent damage to emotional and social parts of his brain, from the drug Accutane which was prescribed to him in 2002 by the dermatologist Dr. David Cornbleet. "My son was an intelligent and shy man who led a fairly healthy life but he has never been the same since he took that drug,” said Peterson Senior in an overseas phone interview.
“He doesn’t relate well to people, he has lost all interest in physical activity, he has become a cigarette smoker and a gambler. He is always depressed and there is a sense of terror and turmoil in him since taking that medication.”
Peterson Snr said prior to taking the drug his son did suffer depression at times but not to the extent he could not go to College and pass exams, and have a relatively normal life otherwise.
On the subject of his son’s extradition he said:
“ This is a tragedy where this doctor inappropriately prescribed this drug which more or less ruined my son and caused him to kill. He suffered the side effects for five years. I think just punishment would be for him to be in a French mental hospital/prison. The French would probably take better care of him. Even though it was a horrible thing he did, it wasn’t his fault in a way and he has suffered enough in my opinion. I think there are two victims here in this tragedy and the biggest villain is the drug which should be withdrawn. It’s ruined other families”
Peterson Snr said he has had a lot of harassing phone calls and wished not to discuss his family any further. He sent message of condolence to the Cornbleet family.
According to a federal affidavit, Hans Peterson boarded an Executive Air Flight in Puerto Rico on December 29, 2oo6 bound for the French West Indies. In May, Peterson’s former room mate told the FBI he had phone contact with him and that Peterson asked for his mail to be sent to St. Martin.
The Sun Times said according to the Peterson family, Cornbleet only spent a few minutes with Hans, did not ask questions about psychiatric problems and did not tell him he was being prescribed a dangerous drug . Mental health problems are rare according to the drug company. But the company acknowledges there have been reports the drug causes aggressive or violent behaviour.
###
So I don't end up repeating myself everywhere, I should point out that I have also written about this case at Radosh.net and there is a parallel discussion there. In that post I also comment on Mr. Peterson's interview (posted above by A2) with a freelance journalist in St. Martin.
Sorry, Kevin. I hadn't seen your posting on Radosh.net - I just read the comments now. Forgive me for duplicating.
-- Anonymous 2
No worries, A2. That was certainly relevant to this conversation. I just meant I didn't want to respond to it over here when I'd already responded over there. Trying to cut down on the typing.
AP, let's try to change the tenor of this conversation. We have heard that Hans had some emotional troubles before he went to see Dr. Cornbleet the first time. You and others claim there was a radical change in his behavior afterward. Specifically what changes did you notice after he allegedly took the Accutane?
I have got a huge scoop that nobody know. It was Hans Peterson's sister who through myspace contacted Jon Cornbleet and told him about Hans Peterson. She is entitled to the reward money. I have also heard she is the one entitled to the reward money of $25,000. From there, Jon Cornbleet contacted the apartment and his roommate Charlie told the tale of what happened. I am certain of this informaiton as it came from a reliable source.
This was already reported I believe on WBBM AM that the sister is the one who confessed per the arrest warrant.
What happened to David Cornbleet is a terrible tragedy and he should not have been murdered, BUT, David Cornbleet should not have given Hans Peterson Accutane for his mild acne, PERIOD. Seriously, has anyone bothered to really examine the other side of the story? Well, you’re all in luck because I’m about to summarize and reference all of the straightforward indisputable facts about Accutane. It is obvious that everyone here, with the exception of the Peterson family member, hasn't conducted any due-diligence because all of you know absolutely nothing about Accutane. Comparing Aspirin or Tylenol or Benadryl to Accutane is like comparing a BB gun to a Bazooka. Aspirin, Tylenol, and Benadryl are over-the-counter pain relievers, Accutane is a powerful chemotherapy drug. I bet that all of you didn't know that Accutane was originally developed to be a chemotherapy drug back in the 1970's. During these chemotherapy clinical trials, the doctors began to notice that their cancer patients were having their acne cleared up. This is when all logic and common sense got thrown out the window and Accutane slowly became known as a popular treatment for acne. It has the most potent drying effect upon the human body (the skin, eyes, lips, mouth, nose, mucous membranes) of any substance ever discovered by mankind. Chemotherapy drugs by their very definition have the most toxic and deadly side effects of any drugs used in conventional medicine. Accutane is a retinoid. Retinoids are used in chemotherapy to induce cellular differentiation and apoptosis (programmed cell death) Today, Accutane is still used as a chemotherapy drug for leukemia, brain cancer, and pancreatic cancer. But we're talking about using Accutane as an acne medication, which is insane. Most people rightfully think that acne medications are all safe because acne itself is a benign non-life-threatening condition. This is logically how it's supposed to be, but for the past 25 years that Accutane has been on the market, Hoffman-LaRoche, the FDA, and even some dermatologists have done an excellent job of downplaying the extremely long-list of severe side effects and deceiving everybody. Dermatologists have been radically deviating from Accutane’s strict prescribing guidelines, because it is well known that 90% of Accutane prescriptions are “off-label” and going to people with mild to moderate acne, not severe cystic acne, the kind that leaves pot-holes in your face and body. All you have to do is look at the sales of Accutane, compare it to the small percentage of people with severe cystic acne, and it becomes obvious. The fact that Accutane can cause several different devastating permanent side effects is not up for debate, the FDA admits it in the Physician's Desk Reference. Here are four example paragraphs taken directly from the PDR word for word in the warning section on Accutane,
“Stomach area (abdomen) problems. Certain symptoms may mean that your internal organs are being damaged. These organs include the liver, pancreas, bowel (intestines), and esophagus (connection between mouth and stomach). If your organs are damaged, they may not get better even after you stop taking Accutane. Stop taking Accutane and call your doctor if you get:
-severe stomach, chest or bowel pain
-trouble swallowing or painful swallowing
-new or worsening heartburn
-diarrhea
-rectal bleeding
-yellowing of your skin or eyes
-dark urine”
“Serious brain problems. Isotretinoin can increase the pressure in your brain.
This can lead to permanent loss of sight, or in rare cases, death. Stop taking
Isotretinoin and call your prescriber right away if you get any of these signs of
increased brain pressure: bad headache, blurred vision, dizziness, nausea, or
vomiting. Also, some patients taking isotretinoin have had seizures (convulsions)
or stroke.”
“Vision problems. Accutane may affect your ability to see in the dark. This condition usually clears up after you stop taking Accutane, but it may be permanent. Other serious eye effects can occur. Stop taking Accutane and call your doctor right away if you have any problems with your vision or dryness of the eyes that is painful or constant.”
“Hearing Problems. Some people taking isotretinoin have developed hearing problems. It is possible that hearing loss can be permanent. Stop using Isotretinoin and call your prescriber if your hearing gets worse or if you have ringing in your ears.”
Hans Peterson did not receive any of these warnings. Tinnitus is one of the latent side effects Hans Peterson has from his exposure to Accutane.
Before any of you attempt to challenge the statements I've made above, I strongly suggest that all of you go read the Physician's Desk Reference, visit the websites I've outlined below, and look over all of the evidence so that you can see this killer drug for what it really is. Imagine yourself visiting a doctor looking to treat a few pimples and walking out of the office with a powerful and potentially lethal chemotherapy drug in your possession, this is what happened to Hans Peterson and it permanently damaged his body.
http://www.knowledgeofhealth.com/report.asp?story=Accutane%20a%20modern%20horror%20story&catagory=Drugs,%20Accutane,%20Acne
http://www.accutaneaction.com/
http://www.erbook.net/accutane
http://www.erbook.net/moreqanda–sex_and_loveQ.htm
In this link, scroll down to where it says "Accutane causing vaginal pain and fragility"
http://leda.law.harvard.edu/leda/data/472/Green.html
http://www.house.gov/stupak/accutane.shtml
http://accutane.poweradvocates.com/accutane_side_effects.html
People need to understand more of the full story behind Accutane to see this incident for what it really is. The medical establishment has been passing out a powerful poison (a chemotherapy vitamin A derivative/retinoid drug) to innocent and naive young adults and teenagers for their benign condition of acne, who have absolutely no idea what they are getting themselves into. There's really no other way to say it. The dermatologists are getting all of their information from Hoffman-LaRoche drug sales reps and are not conducting any due-diligence of their own, which is why some of the blame has to be placed on them. These doctors are using a powerful drug that can inflict permanent side effects upon teenagers and young adults who have their entire lives ahead of them.
Even today, Roche continues to lie about the evidence linking Accutane with these types of horrific permanent side effects, and the worst part about it is that so far they've been able to get away with this during their two and a half decade cover-up of Accutane and its life-altering side effects. It is well known that Accutane causes side effects in 100 % of everyone who takes it. Dermatologists tell their patients that they need to endure the most common side effects of Accutane (dry skin, dry lips, dry eyes) in order to gain a therapeutic acne reducing effect. Do Accutane patients realize that these specific symptoms they're experiencing are due to the vitamin A toxicity syndrome caused by the Accutane pills they are taking? Dermatologists don't disclose to their patients that they're basically poisoning their body with vitamin A metabolites in order to reduce their acne, but a few dermatologists really do tell it how it is and have been quoted as saying that Accutane is "controlled vitamin A poisoning." Here’s a quote from a Dermatologist website about Accutane
“I’ve always tried to explain it as controlled vitamin A poisoning, as the potential side effects are similar to those that would occur if you took far too much oral vitamin A.”
https://www.dermadoctor.com/pages/newsletter96.asp?WID=%7B8D162C43-114F-491A-A6F4-4E4057D8F8C3%7D
Hoffman-LaRoche continues to deny that Accutane can cause psychiatric side effects like depression and suicide, but they pay no attention to the fact that vitamin A toxicity or hypervitaminosis A has been consistently linked to mental illness for the past 150 years. In 1856, the arctic explorer Elisha Kane and his crew experienced drowsiness, irritability, headache, vertigo, and psychosis after they consumed polar bear liver, which was later found out to be poisonous because it contains lethal amounts of vitamin A. People have died from vitamin A toxicity after consuming too much polar bear liver. (see James O’Donnell’s Congressional Testimony, 2000) Polar Bear liver contains about 1 million IU of vitamin A per ounce (the RDA for adult humans is only 5000 IU), which is why if you eat too much of it, the skin on your hands and other places all over your body comes off in giant sheets. Not surprisingly, peeling of the skin on the palms and soles and skin coming off in giant sheets on various places of the body is also a potential side effect of Accutane. Here’s a link to a research report dated all the way back to 1943 that explains what happens to the human body when polar bear liver is ingested. The side effects of eating polar bear liver are identical to the side effects of Accutane.
http://www.biochemj.org/bj/037/0166/0370166.pdf
Evidence about Accutane’s ability to cause psychiatric problems had been building up all throughout the 80’s and 90’s, but nobody, not even the dermatologists were talking about it or acknowledging that it was happening. Despite all of the accumulating evidence, dermatologists announced to everyone that there was absolutely no link between Accutane and psychiatric side effects. There was a shocking report that appeared in The American Academy of Dermatology back in 1987 that was titled “Hypervitaminosis A syndrome: a paradigm of retinoid side effects.” (J Am Acad Dermatol 1987;16: 1027-39) I guess none of the Dermatologists bothered to read their own journal because this report should have raised some serious red flags about the connection between retinoids and psychiatric toxicity. In this report it says that physicians utilizing retinoids should be aware that in the past few decades patients have been committed to psychiatric hospitals for severe depression and schizophrenia when mental changes were due to hypervitaminosis A. The report also says that investigative trials of new retinoids have shown how important it is to become familiar with hypervitaminosis A syndrome because so many adverse effects associated with new retinoids (such as Accutane) have previously been encountered in patients with chronic hypervitaminosis A.
In some people Accutane causes permanent severe sexual side effects like painful intercourse in men and women, impotence, and dryness of the vaginal lining and penis. The Dermatologists in every Cornbleet murder news report I've come across have lied about the association between Accutane and sexual problems. There's an Medical Doctor on the internet named Kevin Pezzi MD who discusses Accutane's severe sexual side effects here at his website http://www.erbook.net/accutane These side effects have been acknowledged in other countries (In a 1994 study, the UK's Dr. William Cunliffe wrote about Accutane causing severe dryness and cracking of the penis) and they've been reported to the FDA several times for the past 20 years (look through the list of FDA Adverse Drug Reaction reports on Congressman Bart Stupak's website if you don't believe me) but the Feds and Roche (Remember, the fox is guarding the hen-house, the drug companies basically own the FDA) have done nothing to warn patients because this is the ONE side effect that would tend to strongly dissuade people from taking Accutane for their acne, plus Roche would lose hard on their bottom line. Here's the reference to Dr. William Cunliffe's study (Retinoids Today and Tomorrow No 34 4-10/1994)
Congressman Bart Stupak's website
http://www.house.gov/stupak/accutane.shtml
The Peterson family said it, and I will say it again. The real villains in this tragedy are Roche Pharmaceuticals. Their drug has destroyed a large number of families and now the Cornbleet and Peterson families have been added to the list. People, focus your attention and your hatred towards Hoffman-LaRoche and the drug Accutane, not towards Hans Peterson.
I’m the one who put up the previous two posts, but instead of remaining anonymous, I’ve decided to identify myself by my initials. Right now I'm going to continue giving my crash course on the acne drug Accutane. The story behind Accutane is hands down the epitome example of the corruption associated with the FDA and the pharmaceutical industry. It is among the top four drugs that attract the most reported adverse side effects on the FDA’s database. Due to the incidence of underreporting, the FDA estimates that only about 1 to 10 percent of all side effects ever get reported to the agency. Based on this info, one can only imagine how many serious side effects there are from taking Accutane that have never been reported to anyone. Even Roche has admitted several years ago that there are over 40,000 Accutane Adverse Drug Reaction reports on their database. In August of 1997 the FDA issued a warning letter to Roche for failing to submit serious adverse event reports in a timely manner. Roche claimed that its computer systems were responsible for delays of up to eight years in complying with the law. The FDA has never really done anything other than a slap on the wrist to punish Hoffman-LaRoche for their blatantly obvious and outrageous criminal behavior. Despite all of the shocking adverse drug reaction reports, patients today are still not being adequately warned by Dermatologists about more than 200 different side effects this drug can cause and the about possibility that these side effects can emerge years or even decades after someone finishes a course of Accutane when it is too late to change their mind. The risks associated with taking Accutane are so great that the FDA has taken the remarkable step of requiring each prescription of Accutane to come with a medication guide to list-off a lot of the side effects. The only other drugs that have ever required a medication guide are Thalidomide and Mifeprex.
Initially, Accutane was only meant to be prescribed for severe disfiguring cystic acne, the kind that leaves pot holes in the skin on the face and all over the body. But it is still debatable whether or not Accutane should even be used for this type of severe acne. By prescribing Accutane for “off-label” uses such as mild and moderate cases of acne, dermatologists had radically deviated from Accutane’s strict prescribing guidelines. This is definitely good for business because it increased the sales of Accutane over 2000 percent, but really bad for the health of millions of innocent teenagers who got exposed. It is clear that the first dictum of the practice of medicine, to “first do no harm,” is being flagrantly ignored. One thing becomes very obvious when you examine the whole Accutane situation. Dermatologists only care about clear skin, your health and bodily functions mean absolutely nothing to them. I’m not referring to all Dermatologists, only the one’s who recklessly prescribe Accutane for cases of mild to moderate acne.
Does anyone remember the drug Thalidomide, an anti-nausea medication prescribed to pregnant women in Europe back in the late 1950s and early 1960s? This drug caused approximately 10,000 babies to be born with severe debilitating birth defects. The scope of the Thalidomide tragedy was so awful and incomprehensible that governments around the world, including the United States, proclaimed that they needed to learn a lesson from this tragedy and that such a catastrophe must never be allowed to happen again. Well, guess what, it has happened again, just in a more out of the spotlight, clandestine manner. Accutane is Thalidomide Jr. and the devastation caused by Thalidomide is dwarfed by the devastation caused by Accutane. It has been estimated that in upwards of 50,000 infants have been exposed to the horrific teratogenic (birth defect causing) effects of Accutane during the quarter of a century that Accutane has been on the market. I’m convinced that the only reason Accutane is still on the market today is because of abortion. In the past, if you were a woman on Accutane and you became pregnant, the dermatologists would recommend that you get an abortion. But hold on just one minute. Should having to get an abortion ever be allowed as a result of a side effect of taking an acne medication? Abortion and patient confidentiality are the methods that have been used by Hoffman-LaRoche and the American Academy of Dermatology to suppress the shocking evidence about the real number of infants that have been severely affected by Accutane. Investigative health journalist Bill Sardi sums up this situation by saying,
“Pimpled people have been poisoned with a vitamin/drug. Unlike Thalidomide, a drug that medical doctors were unaware caused birth defects, it was known that Accutane, a synthetic form of vitamin A, caused malformed babies before it was placed on the market. Elisabeth Robert, MD, PhD, at the European Institute of Genomutations in France, says Accutane is not well-known for its link to brith defects whereas thalidomide is. So one drug, thalidomide, has been removed from the marketplace, while a similar drug, Accutane, experiences robust sales” (Accutane: A modern horror story, www.knowledgeofhealth.com)
In 1990, an internal FDA memo by Dr. David Graham (the same FDA drug safety scientist who later blew the whistle on Vioxx in 2004) stated that Accutane was an “imminent hazard” to public health and needed to be withdrawn from the market immediately. Graham said in the memo,
“As our data on drug use and contraceptive failure show, there probably have been between 15,000 and 18,000 pregnancy exposures to Accutane since its appearance on the market in 1982. The magnitude to fetal injury and death has been great and permanent, with 11,000 to 13,000 Accutane-related abortions, and 900 to 1,100 Accutane related birth defects.”
The information I have provided so far just scratches the surface. I have a lot more dirt on the pharmaceutical company Hoffman-LaRoche and their drug Accutane, the worst drug ever to be approved by the FDA. Just let me know and I’ll keep it commin.
What happened to David Cornbleet is a terrible tragedy and he should not have been murdered, BUT, David Cornbleet should not have given Hans
Peterson Accutane for his mild acne, PERIOD.
I'm going to call you on that "BUT". You can't put a "PERIOD" at the end of that sentence because Hans's initial visit to Dr. Cornbleet was the beginning of this story not the end. It's more like a horrible, fateful comma.
NC/Anonymous, you have worn me down with assertions that I have neither the time nor the inclination to track down. And even though many of your sources are dubious ("a doctor on the internet?" Seriously?) let's say for the sake of argument that everything you say is true. It might shed some light on the source of Hans's rage but it hardly shows "this incident for what it really is." In fact all your doing here is changing the subject.
Maybe Dr. Cornbleet prescribed Accutane to Hans Peterson (I have only yours and, apparently, Hans's word). Maybe Dr. Cornbleet did so improperly (I have only your accusation, but you've given me no reason to believe you know the specifics of Hans's first visit). Maybe Hans was angry about Accutane and maybe that's why he killed Dr. Cornbleet. But the fact that in Hans's mind he seemed to think he had a good reason for stabbing him is not the same as establishing mitigating circumstances for the crime. It's still first-degree murder.
Heck, every killer thinks he has a reason. But stomach problems, diarrhea, dark urine and even impotence aside, it's still first-degree murder.
As for your lengthy discourse on abortion and birth defects, I hadn't known Hans was pregnant. That's quite a scoop.
I'm curious what your interest is in this case? Earlier you seemed to imply you knew specific details about Hans but in later posts you seem less interested in murder but more interested in Roche.
Do you know Hans? If you do, I'm interested in knowing specifically what "changes" took place in Hans's personality after his first visit to Dr. Cornbleet. The fact that "something radical" occurred to him has been asserted again and again but I have asked that question both publicly and privately to people who claim to know Hans and so far every person has refused to answer.
If you don't know Hans are you engaed in some sort of litigation against Roche or other drug comapnies? I don't care who you are specifically, I just want to get everybody's angle out in the open before I can take what they seriously.
(My apologies for the many typos in the last post. Apparently I'm incapable of typing while standing up.)
Hey NC and Accutane Peterson
Great way to go off into a direction of smoke and mirrors. A man was murdered. That is what we are investigating and why the case is profiled.
IF Hans Peterson had a problem with the drug he was prescribed, he should have sought out legal action and not stabbed a man to death. I think this is a pathetic way to take the case in another direction.
Let’s get something clear. I have a ton of sympathy towards the Cornbleets, the Petersons, the Stupaks, the Days, the Bishops, the Baumanns, the Benczs, the Turneys, and the countless number of other families who have been tragically affected by the extremely horrible substance known as Accutane. I do not condone any type of murder for any reason, but I also do not condone the actions of pharmaceutical companies (the perfect example being Hoffman-LaRoche) that engage in criminal murderous behavior by not disclosing the horrible side effects of extremely dangerous drugs to patients, especially vulnerable and naïve young adults who are just looking to clear up pimples. Listen, I have a background in nutrition, I’ve researched the hell out of Accutane because of what I’ve seen it do to some of my friends. I don’t mean to sound harsh in any of my posts here, I just got very annoyed because people were making statements about Accutane that have no validity whatsoever. This is one of the reasons that this horrible poison has managed to remain on the market for so long. People talk about Accutane like it’s an over-the-counter cough syrup. It’s not, it’s a very dangerous and powerful chemotherapy drug that is only supposed to be given to the small minority of people with severe cystic acne, not mild to moderate acne like what Hans Peterson had. These indisputable facts can be found by reading the Physician’s Desk Reference and reading over Congressman Bart Stupak’s website including the transcripts for the two Congressional Hearings that have been held on Accutane. You’re a smart guy, this will take you 45 minutes, I double dare you. Anyone who thinks or says that Accutane is safe, normal drug is extremely ignorant and badly needs a lesson in nutrition and pharmacology. Accutane has been linked to 600 deaths, 240 being suicide, and these are only the cases that have been reported. Due to under-reporting, the FDA says that these reported adverse drug reactions only represent 1 to 10 percent of the actual number that have occurred. If any member of the Cornbleet family is reading this, I strongly suggest you familiarize yourself with the outrageous criminal behavior of Hoffman-LaRoche and their drug Accutane and contact other families who have had their lives tragically affected by Accutane. I’m just providing background information here, because people create the best decisions and form the best opinions when they have the most background information. Am I right?
The Peterson family said it best when they issued this statement,
"So...who are the [villains] in this tragedy?," the e-mail said. "Roche Pharmaceuticals for continuing to have this drug on the market ...The FDA for allowing this drug to remain on the market ...Any physician that would prescribe this drug without heeding the warnings."
In case you’re all wondering where I’m getting the majority of my information about Accutane, it is coming from the Physician’s Desk Reference and the following links I have listed below. Copy and paste these links into your browser so you can learn about this horrible drug and then go on to tell your friends and loved ones to avoid it like the plague. After reading this information you will know more about Accutane than 99 % of the population.
This is a very good informational report on Accutane by Bill Sardi, an investigative health journalist. This report came out in 2003, so some of the statistics might be outdated, but its still very thorough and well referenced
http://www.knowledgeofhealth.com/report.asp?story=Accutane%20a%20modern%20horror%20story&catagory=Drugs,%20Accutane,%20Acne
This is the most thorough historical summary of Accutane I have ever come across
http://leda.law.harvard.edu/leda/data/472/Green.html
Congressman Bart Stupak's page on Accutane
http://www.house.gov/stupak/accutane.shtml
Michigan Congressman Bart Stupak, who’s sun committed suicide while on Accutane, gives an in depth interview about the disturbing patterns that are seen in Accutane’s psychiatric side effects and how Roche has suppressed and twisted around the evidence.
Part 1
http://suicideandmentalhealthassociationinternational.org/acba.html
Part 2
http://suicideandmentalhealthassociationinternational.org/acba1.html
The Accutane litigation group websites
http://accutane.poweradvocates.com/accutane_side_effects.html
http://www.accutane-injuries.com/side_effects.html
Here’s two links about the pending lawsuits associated with Inflammatory Bowel Disease
http://www.cantonrep.com/index.php?ID=348648&Category=23&subCategoryID=
http://www.yourlawyer.com/articles/read/12872
The Ro/Accutane action group website based out of the UK, information about the pharmaceutical company Hoffman-LaRoche's criminal history and scientific studies and info about Accutane.
http://www.accutaneaction.com/
The pharmaceutical company Hoffman-LaRoche is a criminal organization. This link has background info about their criminal history, including being handed down the largest fine in history by United States and European governments for breaking Anti-Trust laws back in 1990's http://www.accutaneaction.com/Frauds/roche_finc_frauds.html
Dr. Kevin Pezzi's website about Accutane's severe sexual side effects
http://www.erbook.net/accutane
More Accutane info on Dr. Pezzi's website. In this link below, scroll down to where it says "Accutane causing vaginal pain and fragility"
http://www.erbook.net/moreqanda–sex_and_loveQ.htm
One thing is definitely for sure about Accutane, the truth begins to reveal itself right when you start to dig deeper and deeper. Reading about all of the horrible stuff that this supposed safe and effective acne treatment has caused people will blow you away.
NC,
How do you know that Hans had only "mild to moderate acne"? And how do you know the nature of the discussion between Dr. Cornbleet and Hans on his initial visit?
Here's something that I know you'll definitely want to check out, it's the Ro/Accutane action group (www.accutaneaction.com) internet forum located overseas in the UK. The web address for this forum is www.ragforum.eu It was set up by families of people who have suffered severe and permanent side effects from Accutane (also called RoAccutane in the UK and Australia) Hans posted on this forum all the way back in 2002 and even recently before and after the murder! I just finished reading through all of his posts, and you can definitely tell that he was angry about what had happened to him, but I didn't come across any clues that would've suggested he was planning to commit murder. A lot of people think Hans is full of shit about Accutane, but really, he's not. There's hundreds if not thousands of other stories similar to his about people getting brain damage and other side effects. Read through his posts about him interacting with others who have side effects and his comments on the Accutane Congressional Hearing that was held on December 2002 here in the United States.
Although nothing justifies committing murder, these posts describe Hans Peterson as an individual who was driven over the edge and extremely pissed off that Hoffman-LaRoche exploited his ignorance and his body for economic gain with a dangerous drug that causes many unpredictable side effects. His username is HansP, when you get there, do a search, find a link to his username, click on it, and there's an option to view all of his posts.
The Accutane atrocity is an extremely terrible thing that has been occurring for the past 25 years, but hardly anybody knows about it because its been covered-up and kept out of the spotlight. By the way, its not going to remain on the market for very much longer, Congressman Bart Stupak is again calling for it to be taken off the market. Ever since his son committed suicide back in the summer of 2000, he has been working relentlessly to create more awareness about the dangers of Accutane. Read his latest statement to the FDA advisory committee here at this link, and prepare yourself to be shocked.
http://www.house.gov/stupak/accutane_ipledge_080107.shtml
This can be found on document number 24 here at
http://www.house.gov/stupak/accutane.shtml
Documents 20 and 21 show the results of a scientific study conducted by Dr. Douglas Bremner of Emory University showing how Accutane reduces brain metabolism in the frontal cortex.
During the Accutane Congressional Hearing back in December of 2002, Stupak blasted the FDA, Hoffman-LaRoche and Dermatologists for failing to protect people from the side effects of Accutane. Here are several examples of what he said,
"We cannot allow the drug manufacturer and the FDA to continue to turn a blind eye to the lives lost, families devastated and dreams dashed by an acne drug. The American people, our children, are not collateral damage in the scheme of corporate profits!"
"The drug manufacturer, Hoffman-LaRoche, Roche here in the United States, has continued to put profits before people. They have done everything possible to prevent the American people from learning of the psychiatric injuries and deaths associated with Accutane. Even, today, I'm sure Roche will deny any casual effect of Accutane with the abortions, deaths, and suicides caused by their product."
"The FDA's response to the birth defects and psychiatric events has been inadequate, irresponsible and unacceptable. Thousands of babies, teenagers, and young adults have died prematurely. While the FDA has been aware of the birth defects since at least 1982 and the psychiatric injuries since 1985, their responsibility to protect the public has been inconsistent and without direction."
"The Accutane birth defects are similar to Thalidomide, which is a tightly controlled drug in this country and is used by a group unlikely to have children. Yet, Accutane is not tightly controlled like Thalidomide and Accutane is marketed to women of child bearing years despite its horrendous record of causing birth defects."
"If the FDA cannot or will not regulate Accutane, then it is imperative for the US Congress to act to protect the American public. The bottom line remains the safety of our citizens."
"Accutane is a powerful drug that can cause serious physical harm and death. With a drug like this on the market, it needs to be carefully tracked and monitored to reduce the exposures to the drug's harmful side effects. Unfortunately, we can't seem to rely on the FDA and the drug's manufacturers to do the right thing and implement such a plan."
"The scope and depth of Accutane's serious adverse event reports compiled by the FDA are only a fraction of the actual number of deaths, birth defects and devastation caused by this drug. The true number of Accutane victims and their families are real, and once again the FDA has let us down!"
NC
How did you know about Hans postings on that site? Do you know of any other sites he frequented? Thanx...
My friends and I are aware of only one site, www.ragforum.eu that Hans posted on. It's definitely possible there might be others, but we haven't found any yet. Over the past ten years, there have been several anti-accutane forums and posts closed down as a result of legal threats against the servers by you know who. But today, the evidence of all the dangerous side effects is so overwhelming and indisputable Roche can't get away with launching these types of fraudulent legal threats anymore. Throughout Accutane's history, Hoffman-LaRoche has settled a countless number of severe side effects cases out of court and out of the public eye with gagging clauses. Under the terms of the settlement, the victims cannot come forward to tell their story or share it with anyone. This is how the most horrible Accutane side effects and evidence has been continuously suppressed over a long period of time. During a congressional hearing on Accutane, Congressman Bart Stupak demanded that Roche disclose the total amount of money they've spent on settling Accutane litigation cases, but Roche declined to release this information. In 1995, a medical student launched a legal campaign to sue Roche for over 10 million. The lawsuit was later settled privately out of court, here's two links about the story
http://www.accutane-info.com/lawsuits.php
http://www.cbc.ca/consumers/market/files/health/accutane/index.html
Here's an interesting quote from this article
"Hoffmann LaRoche says there is no causal relationship between Accutane and depression or suicide. Experts point out that no one factor causes suicide and that a high percentage of Accutane users -teens and young adults- are already more likely to get depressed.
But some doctors say there's plenty of evidence to support a link between Accutane and depression and suicide. And they argue that evidence of the link dates back to Arctic explorers of the 19th century.
Diaries tell of how some sailors suffered polar madness. Experts today say it was from eating polar bear liver, which is full of vitamin A. In large doses Vitamin A can cause brain toxicity, seizures, and behavioural changes.
Accutane is a derivative of vitamin A."
In a January 2003 interview with Jamie Kosar about the psychiatric side effects of Accutane, Bart Stupak had this to say when he was asked if there had been other types of brain damage or psyciatric injury such as anxiety and panic attacks associated with Accutane, (the link to this interview is in another one of my posts above)
"Yes. It's there. It's all there. They're changing their labeling you know. And it wasn't clear yesterday and maybe we didn't do a good job on this part. They've had to change their label. The new label talks about "aggressive, violent behavior."
The "depression" that you see with this, if you want to use that word, is not your garden type depression that we all see. It's not that kind at all. It comes on [snaps fingers] like that. And it's a violent outburst. We didn't get into it yesterday because I had so many areas I could go. They talked about SIB's throughout the whole thing. "Self-inflicted bodily harm." These kids, there's one kid who set himself on fire and jumped off a cliff. He lived. He can't tell you today why he did it. An Accutane kid. He left a note that doesn't make any sense whatsoever. There's a service man that was taking Accutane. Came home. He was probably about twenty years old. He was in boot camp. He knew his parents would be gone. They would be home on Sunday. He came home and ransacked the house looking for a gun to shoot himself. Couldn't find one, so instead, he took a big knife and started stabbing himself. And his buddies happened to come through the kitchen door and found him on the kitchen floor full of blood all over the place. And to this day he doesn't know why he did it. If he could've found a gun that day he would've killed himself."
At the end of this interview when Stupak was asked if there was anything he'd like to tell a parent or any young adult or teenager who was considering Accutane for their acne, he responded with,
"Don't do it. It's not worth the consequences. What is the benefit you're receiving clean skin. But, you may have a child who is forever scarred mentally, physically. We talked about the strokes yesterday. Young people dying of strokes. We talked about the heart attacks. We talked about the lymphoma. We talked about the acute pancreatitis. Even if you don't die from pancreatitis it's very painful. We talked about the hearing loss. There's vision problems. There are eighteen different warnings with this drug. Read them. And if you still think it's worth it, that's your decision. It's just not worth it."
If anyone reading this has friends with acne, show them the evidence and keep them away from Accutane, don't let it ruin their lives.
While reading through Hans' posts on www.ragforum.eu I came across some articles he posted about another drug made by Hoffman-LaRoche called Lariam, which is used to prevent malaria. Just like Accutane, Lariam has been linked to several cases of permanent brain damage and severe psychiatric side effects. Interestingly, Roche is also responsible for developing the date-rape drug Rohypnol, and the dangerously addictive tranquilizer Valium. It is clear that creating deadly drugs with mind-altering side effects seems to be their forte.
Articles about Lariam's permanent brain damage/inner-ear damage
http://www.nbcsandiego.com/health/3354812/detail.html
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0405/26/i_ins.00.html
http://www.estripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=21624&archive=true
Just finished posting more info about Accutane on another blog here on this site, here’s the link for those who desire to check it out. I've included all of my sources where I obtained information about Accutane so that everyone can verify that what I'm saying is true.
http://theoutfitcollective.blogspot.com/2007/09/cause-sorrow-is-just-all-rage.html
If all of you would conduct some more research, you would discover that the murder of David Cornbleet was not the first murder caused by the use of Accutane. According to Congressman Bart Stupak, there have been others in the past, and you can read about it in the example quotes I’ve put below. But as usual, Roche has done a remarkable job of concealing the evidence and denying the association between Accutane and these acts of violent, aggressive behavior.
To give everyone an idea of what I’m talking about, here are a few example quotes from Congressman Bart Stupak’s meticulous analysis of Accutane’s dangers that he has just recently submitted. This document can be found at this link
http://www.house.gov/stupak/accutane/p3_21.pdf
Or as document number 22 titled “Supplemental Review of Accutane Safety Issues” at Stupak’s page about Accutane
http://www.house.gov/stupak/accutane.shtml
If there was ever one document to read about Accutane, this would be it. In the quotes from this document I’ve listed below, HLR stands for Hoffman-LaRoche.
“In regard to psychiatric injuries, HLR’s efforts have been to suppress adverse events reports and medical/scientific evidence. HLR withheld its own studies that shed light on Accutane’s effect on the central nervous system. Further, HLR failed to submit safety precautions employed by other countries, provided “junk science”, and denied any biological causation between Accutane and psychiatric injuries. The only consistent explanation of these psychiatric injuries put forth by HLR is to blame the patients for their psychiatric problems. Throughout the history of Accutane, HLR claims it does not know how Accutane works. Therefore, HLR cannot claim that Accutane does not cause psychiatric injuries. HLR cannot have it both ways. It is obvious HLR is more interested in protecting its profits than in finding the cause of psychiatric injuries in Accutane therapy. Exhibit #77, 78, and 79”
“HLR cannot claim that it was not aware of the requirement to inform the FDA of recent scientific and medical studies showing that Accutane, vitamin A, retinoids or retinoic acid affect the central nervous system. As part of it’s annual report to the FDA, HLR submits a list of medical studies and scientific research on Accutane therapy, vitamin A, retinoids, and retinoic acid. Some of these studies and research demonstrate a cause-effect relationship between Accutane therapy and psychiatric injuries. For example, some of these studies and research from as early as 1980 raise the concern of vitamin A toxicity from retinoid use affecting the central nervous system. Exhibit #51, 52, and 53”
“HLR will put out information they know is wrong and very little is done to correct it. For example, when Charles Bishop flew his airplane into the bank in Tampa and Accutane was mentioned as a possible cause in Bishop’s behavior, HLR cranked up its PR machine. The thought was planted that we would have to wait until the autopsy report to see if Accutane was present in Bishop’s body. HLR knows full well that standard autopsies do not test for the presence of Accutane. As the FDA pointed out in an email, “Given the bad news about the poor kid in Florida, it is even MORE urgent that we get the letter out to JAAD (Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology)…....The derms are being poisoned with absolute nonsense and it is downright dangerous in my book…...I know we can’t compete with the Roche machine for their attention, but we have to try anyway!” Exhibit #101 and 102.”
“In 1999, the FDA was so concerned about HLR’s reporting and “soft coding” of Accutane psychiatric injuries that they did a “surprise” inspection of HLR’s plant and its adverse events database. The inspection resulted in a Warning Letter from the FDA for not timely submitting adverse event reports for several years and failing to disclose over 2,000 more Accutane adverse event reports. Exhibit #91,92, and 93.”
“As the June 25, 2002 FDA states, “So….even if you make a VERY conservative guess at the number of waived cases, adding this up for just this ONE year exceeds the numbers derms have available on their radar since the drug was approved in 1982……AS it stands right now, we do not even know how many such reports fall under each Body System. I am very concerned that someone “outside” is going to get their hands on, and publish, the real numbers of psych reports obtained during the legal discovery processes no doubt going on……FDA is going to look pretty sad if someone else points out there are thousands more than we acknowledge publicly!!” Exhibit #42”
“At our December 11, 2002 hearing, our colleague Ted Strickland picked up on the deadly spontaneous action caused by Accutane in young people when he asked, “Is it possible that this medication has an effect, an action that results in spontaneous, impulsive, self-destructive behavior that is different from that which occurs from a clinical depression”?
“The “spontaneous action” mentioned by Congressman Strickland and testified to by the Turney and Benz family members at our December 11, 2002 hearing separates Accutane caused psychiatric injuries from clinical depression. Even the dermatologist at the hearing testified that she could not predict when spontaneous events may occur in Accutane patients.”
“In the case of Matthew Turney, age 16, he was alone for 10 minutes when he came home from school and shot himself. Matthew and his parents were watching for any signs of depression as they were aware that Accutane may cause psychosis, suicidal ideation, suicide attempts, and suicides. Yet his parents never saw signs of depression and are asking how do parents protect their children when there are no clues as to when the fatal 10 minutes can occur!” Exhibit #60”
“Micheal Benz was a 31 year old fire fighter who never had acne but was prescribed Accutane. A tri-athlete, Michael cried out for help from his physician and was told to come back on Monday. Micheal Benz drowned himself by weighting his body down with weight lifting plates. The investigation into his death showed that he had logged onto an Accutane website the weekend he died. As a fire fighter and an EMT, Michael Benz must have had some idea what was happening to him. Still, he could not resist the sudden urge to take his own life. Exhibit #61”
“A review of the suicide adverse event reports describes young people with no history of psychiatric problems taking their lives. There are reports of young people talking to their parents one minute and then hanging themselves the next minute. There are reports of young people who have fender bender accidents and when law enforcement arrives to discuss the accident with them, they leave to get their driver’s license and instead grab a gun and shoot themselves. Exhibit #62.”
“This aggressive behavior referred to as OIB or SIB (self-inflicted bodily harm) was referenced in a 1999 email where the Accutane Medical Review Officer remarked that “I gave up trying to track all psychiatric reports and just have the self-injurious behavior cases…..sorted into my ‘SIB” stack, which is sadly growing tall.” Exhibit # 63, 64, and 65.”
“This aggressive behavior seen in Accutane patients manifested itself not only in self-inflicted injuries but also in four murders and reported murderous ideation amongst Accutane patients. Exhibit #66.”
“Of course, HLR denied any causation between aggressive behavior and Accutane therapy. Finally, on October 30, 2002 the FDA added “aggressive/violent behavior to the list of events that Accutane may cause”. Exhibit #68.”
“As the FDA noted in its August 31, 2000 email, “The population for whom Accutane is prescribed is overwhelmingly young and healthy. Accutane has been associated with many adverse events affecting nearly every organ system, and is a potent teratogen. Some of these adverse events are serious/life-threatening and the current labeling include a Black Box Warning, 11 additional Warnings, and 18 Precautions”. Even with this growing list of Accutane warnings/precautions, patients and their families are never told of its hidden dangers. Exhibit #68.”
Okay, back to my personal blog here. I handed this investigation over to you all on a silver platter by discovering the forum Hans posted at for the past 5 years, www.ragforum.eu but still, it is obvious that the people in Chicago haven't kept up to speed and gotten with the times with regards to their knowledge about Accutane. I highly recommend that you all expand your knowledge about Accutane by reading my detailed blog descriptions of it on the other various related stories here at this site.
Coming late to this party--But how does Hans family know for sure that Dr. Cornbleet didn't ask Hans about his past mental health history and that Hans didn't just LIE about it for a variety of reasons like maintaining his privacy. (Gosh Hans picked his doctor out of phone book when his dad was a physician and might have provided guidance in how to select a physician.)
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Since the Cornbleet murder occurred, I've felt that the case screamed out "gay murder," a possibility never fuly explored by police or family. This gay angle or "gay fog" often distorts investigative vision.
The crime scene alone certainly supports the gay murder premise. And Peterson's own blog statement can easily be viewed as written by a young person confused by sexually equivocal or ambiguous thoughts. And yet, the first impulsive response is always, "No, he wasn't gay, He's married."
This reflexive reply overlooks the rather common MSM population - males of any age who seek out consensual sexual activity with other males (MSM), though frequently disguised becuase of negative societal connotations.
Why this is especially important to acknowledge is that at a future criminal prosecution, I wouldn't be surprised to see Peterson claim an Unwanted Sexual Advance defense; essentially stating that he was sexually victimized by Cornbleet. That gay panic defenses are employed with successful results sometimes.
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