Book review

摘要

Prozac, as Carl Elliott writes in the introduction to Prozac as a Way of Life, may have begun life as a brand name for the active ingredient fluoxetine, but it now does duty, metonymically, for all the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), and, by extension, for an entire lifestyle. When people say Prozac they may well be talking about something else, for Prozac has been so successful since it was first put on the market that it has reared offspring: Paxil (paroxetine), Luvox (fluvoxetine), Zoloft (sertraline), Effexor (venlafaxine) and Celexa (citalopram). And the number of disorders which these drugs are licensed to treat has broadened well beyond depression to include conditions all but invisible until the 1990s: social phobia, panic disorders, eating disorders, post-traumatic stress disorder and sexual compulsions. When Eli Lilly's patent for Prozac expired in 2001 it was marketed under a different name, Sarafem, as a treatment for ‘premenstrual dysphoric disorder’.