Jewish Invention Myths: Prozac
Jewish invention myths come in all shapes and sizes. In particular there are a lot of invention myths related to drugs and medical inventions – some of which I’ve addressed so far but many I haven’t as yet – but another one of these is the claim that jews invented the well-known antidepressant Prozac. (1)
This simply isn’t true since the discoverers of Fluoxetine – for which ‘Prozac’ is only the brand name – was first brought to market in the United States in 1988 (2) after being first marketed in Belgium in 1986. (3)
Fluoxetine was discovered in the United States by Bryan Molloy, Ray Fuller and David Wong in 1974 while they were working for the pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly. (4) Molloy was from Scotland, Fuller was a non-jew from Illinois and Wong was a Chinese man from Hong Kong. (5)
Eli Lilly filed a new drug application for the US Food and Drug Administration in 1974 (6) which was accepted in 1977. (7)
You’ll notice that there is absolutely no mention of jews and the only link with jews that I can find is that Molloy, Fuller and Wong used a test that was invented by a jew named Solomon Snyder to help them discover fluoxetine. (8)
So no Prozac wasn’t discovered or invented by jews.
References
(1) https://boulderjewishnews.org/2009/an-informal-list-of-jewish-inventions-innovations-and-radical-ideas/
(2) https://www.sciencehistory.org/education/scientific-biographies/ray-w-fuller-david-t-wong-and-bryan-b-molloy/
(3) https://web.archive.org/web/20070818163109/http://www2.indystar.com/library/factfiles/business/companies/lilly/stories/2001_0802.html
(4) https://www.sciencehistory.org/education/scientific-biographies/ray-w-fuller-david-t-wong-and-bryan-b-molloy/; Peter Breggin, Ginger Breggin, 1994, ‘Talking Back to Prozac’, 1st Edition, St. Martin’s Press: New York, pp. 1-2.
(5) https://www.sciencehistory.org/education/scientific-biographies/ray-w-fuller-david-t-wong-and-bryan-b-molloy/; also https://www.nytimes.com/1996/08/14/us/ray-w-fuller-60-biochemist-and-co-discoverer-of-prozac.html
(6) Breggin, Breggin, Op. Cit., pp. 1-2
(7) Ibid., p. 2
(8) https://www.sciencehistory.org/education/scientific-biographies/ray-w-fuller-david-t-wong-and-bryan-b-molloy/