Prozac didn't cause killer's rampage, Kentucky jury says.

The maker of Prozac, a widely, prescribed antidepressant blamed for turning a small percentage of severely depressed people into killers, has been freed of liability for a Kentucky shooting that left 9 people dead and 13 wounded.

Since its introduction on the market in the late 1980s, the Eli Lilly & Co. drug has been praised as a wonder treatment for psychological problems like depression, bulimia, and obsessive compulsive disorder and scathed as a pin that makes its users act violently toward others or themselves.

The first of more than 160 plaintiffs' lawsuits against Lilly went to trial last year, ending in December in a favorable verdict for the pharmaceutical giant. (Wesbecker P. Eli Lilly & Co., No. 90 CI 007445 (Ky., Jefferson County, Cir. Ct. Dec. 12, 1994).) Scores of defendants in criminal cases also have claimed Prozac caused them to act violently (See Prozac on Trial, TRIAL, May, 1991, at 101.)

The jury hearing the Louisville, Kentucky, case found that Prozac did not cause Joseph Wesbecker to turn his assault rifle on former coworkers, and ultimately, himself, at the Standard Gravure printing plant in 1989.

Wesbecker's history of mental disturbances, including 12 suicide attempts, predated his taking Prozac, according to trial testimony. He had built up an arsenal of weapons and ammunition months before taking Prozac and had talked of killing his bosses for years.

"Lilly got lucky with this one," said Dallas attorney Paul Smith, who represented Wesbecker's estate and his victims. Smith is lead counsel in about 40 civil cases involving Prozac.

"This was our worst case and their best case; it was an easy case for them and a hard case for us," Smith said. "This verdict is certainly not a death knell to Prozac litigation."

Smith said that while Prozac continues to be marketed and generates some $1.3 billion in annual profits for Lilly,, the litigation against the company, has led to better drug administration and follow-up up care by physicians

"We have successfully put into the public's and physicians' minds that Prozac is not without side effects that can result in very harmful behavior," Smith said.

For example, Lilly has begun marketing Prozac capsules in half doses, allowing doctors to prescribe the medication in 10 mg rather than 20 mg increments, he said.

Smith said that physicians are more frequently prescribing Prozac in combination with tranquilizers, which tend to diminish the agitation and impulsive behavior in some people who take Lilly's antidepressant.

He contends that shining a light on Prozac's drawbacks has caused physicians to more carefully monitor their patients who take the drug.

Randall Tobias, chairman and chief executive officer of Eli Lilly, said he was "pleased - although not surprised" by, the Wesbecker verdict. "The verdict represents a reaffirmation of Prozac's well-established safety and efficacy and demonstrates the futility of blaming medications for harmful and criminal acts," he said.