Coroner warns against antidepressants after suicide of Royal’s husband
A coroner has issued a warning about the effects of antidepressants prescribed by a Buckingham Palace doctor to the son-in-law of Prince and Princess Michael of Kent before his suicide.
Thomas Kingston, 45, whose 2019 wedding to Lady Gabriella at Windsor Castle was attended by the late queen, committed suicide last February after “suffering adverse effects from medications recently prescribed to him”, an inquest heard last month was found.
On Friday, the coroner, Katy Skerrett, warned that the medication used could lead to more deaths without changes to guidelines and labeling about the risks.
The inquest at Gloucestershire Coroner’s Court heard that after complaining of poor sleep and stress at work as a financier, Kingston had initially been given the antidepressant sertraline and zopiclone, a sleeping tablet, by a GP at Royal Mews surgery, a practice at Buckingham Palace. used by royal household staff.
Kingston returned to the surgery saying it didn’t make him feel any better, and his doctor switched him from sertraline to citalopram, a similar drug in a type known as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs).
In the days leading up to his death, Kingston had stopped taking medications and toxicology tests revealed caffeine and small amounts of zopiclone in his system.
In one prevention of future deaths reportSkerrett questioned whether there was enough communication about the suicide risks associated with such drugs.
She also raised concerns about whether the current guidance to continue taking SSRI medications or switch to an alternative SSRI medication was appropriate if no benefit had been achieved.
Skerrett said this was particularly concerning if “negative side effects are experienced”.
The report was sent to the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (Nice), the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency and the Royal College of General Practitioners, who have 56 days to respond.
The coroner’s concerns echo those of Kingston’s widow, Lady Gabriella, who warned about the effects of the drugs during the inquest. In a statement read out by Skerrett, she said: “I believe that anyone taking these types of pills should be made more aware of the side effects to prevent future deaths.
“If this could happen to Tom, this could happen to anyone.”
Writing a narrative conclusion, Skerrett said Kingston committed suicide while “suffering the ill effects of the medications he had recently been prescribed.”
The inquest found that the antidepressants prescribed to Kingston by his doctor were in line with Nice guidelines.
In evidence to the inquest, Dr. David Healy, a psychiatric medical expert, that zopiclone could also cause anxiety, while sertraline and citalopram were both SSRIs, and essentially the same.
Healy said Kingston’s complaints that sertraline continued to make him anxious were a sign that SSRIs were “not right for him” and that he should not have been prescribed the same thing again.
He said the guidelines and labels for SSRIs weren’t clear enough in the first place about the risks of using the drugs or what the effect might be if you switched from one to the other.
“We need a much more explicit statement that these drugs can cause people to commit suicide who otherwise would not have done so,” he said.