Researchers at the University of Chicago, say what we're seeing is brain damage. Similar work elsewhere has shown the same seratonin loss in monkeys as much as 17 months after they were given dexfenfluramine. Dr. Lewis Seiden is a neuro pharmacologist at the university and his lab has been researching these drugs for more than a decade. He was furious when the Food and Drug Administration approved Redux for sale in the United States. He's convinced the damage he's seen in animal brains could happen in people resulting in some repression, some impulsivity, possible cytosis, and changes in memory.
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He's the director of clinical research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he developed dexfenfluramine. He founded a company that marketed the drug. Wurtman acknowledges the research on animals but he insists it doesn't prove brain damage. He claims that if such a problem existed it would have been picked up in the post-marketing surveillance the way pulmonary hypertension was. Dr. Seiden says that they are incidences of depressions, psychotic episodes, changes in mood.