By Maryanne Demasi at Brownstone dot org.
It began with a lie.
In 2001, the Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry (JAACAP) published a paper declaring that the antidepressant paroxetine (Paxil) was "generally well tolerated and effective" for adolescent depression.
That conclusion was false.
The manufacturer, GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), knew from its own data that the drug failed to outperform placebo and carried a serious risk of suicidal behaviour.
Instead of telling the truth, GSK hired a public-relations firm to ghostwrite the paper, enlisted academic co-authors who never saw the raw data, and used the publication to promote Paxil to doctors treating children.
It became known as Study 329 - one of the most infamous cases of scientific fraud in modern psychiatry.
For years, the fraud stood unchallenged. Regulators issued warnings but never forced a correction. The journal refused to retract. The paper remained in circulation - cited hundreds of times, shaping prescribing habits, and legitimising a lie that cost young lives.
Now, more than 20 years later, one lawyer is taking on the medical establishment to hold the journal and its publisher accountable.
His lawsuit alleges they knowingly sold and profited from a false and deceptive scientific article - one that continues to mislead the public and endanger adolescent mental health.
Could Study 329 finally be retracted from the scientific record?
How GSK Rewrote Failure as Success
By the late 1990s, GSK had completed clinical trials testing Paxil in adolescents. The first, known as Study 329, failed to show any meaningful benefit.
In one internal email, company executives admitted the results were "commercially unacceptable" and that disclosure of the poor efficacy data would "undermine the profile of paroxetine."
Rather than accept the failure, GSK set out to disguise it as success. The company hired a PR firm to draft a manuscript that cherry-picked favourable outcomes and buried unfavourable data.
None of the drug's primary endpoints were met, but by selectively analysing secondary measures, the authors claimed Paxil was "effective and well tolerated."
The paper listed 22 authors - two were GSK employees, and most had never reviewed the raw data or disclosed their financial ties to the company.
Once the article appeared in print, GSK's sales force distributed it to thousands of doctors as "proof" that Paxil worked in teens.
Within three years, the company made more than a billion dollars from what it called the "adolescent market."
Fraud and Fatalities
The deception didn't stay hidden.
Regulators in the UK, Europe, and the US soon uncovered the safety concerns and warned that Paxil increased suicidal thoughts and offered no therapeutic benefit for young people.
In 2003, the FDA concluded: "There is currently no evidence that Paxil is effective in children and adolescents with major depressive disorder."
Nearly a decade later, in 2012, GSK pleaded guilty and paid a $3 billion settlement to resolve criminal and civil charges brought by the US Department of Justice (DOJ).
The DOJ explicitly cited Study 329 as evidence of fraud in promoting Paxil for adolescents, marking one of the largest healthcare fraud settlements at the time.
But here's the kicker.
JAACAP refused to retract the article - protecting its reputation, and its profits, while the fraudulent science stayed in print.
A Lawyer Takes on the Publishers
In September 2025, attorney George W. Murgatroyd III filed a complaint in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia under the 'DC Consumer Protection Procedures Act.'
The filing seeks to "redress the knowing publication, distribution, and continued sale of a false and deceptive medical article that has misled physicians, consumers, and institutions for over two decades and continues to endanger adolescent mental health and safety as well as public trust in scientific integrity."
The 2001 article - Efficacy of Paroxetine in the Treatment o...