Heath Ledger - News Accounts

[oilgun]

I just reads a few of the preceding posts and maybe it's just me but I don't see any age progression at all in the Heath figures and I find the likeness amazingly accurate, almost photorealist.

Anyway the painting is now one of the finalists and we'll find out on Friday if it gets honoured with the Archibald Prize

[ednbarby]

She seems like a clever girl. I have always wondered why people hated the fact that Heath and she were linked together, and couldn't believe that someone like Heath would go out with somebody like Ward. Is that because she was a model? I think they might have had a lot in common and Heath was probably someone she went to for advice. I can totally see that.

I think she sounds like an incredibly lovely person - grounded in her family.  That's so important.  Mandy Moore started out here in Florida the same way (and at the same time, I think) as Britney Spears.  Her father is an American Airlines captain - my husband has flown with him.  He commuted from Orlando to Miami for years so he and her Mom could live with Mandy in Orlando while her singing, and then acting, career was burgeoning.  When she first moved out to California, her Mom went with her, and her Dad visited whenever he could.  You can see what a difference having strong family support and the constant presence of family means in the life of someone like this.

Anyway, Gemma seems great.  I think I would really like her if I knew her personally.

[Kelda]

I just had the niomi, kate immage in my head but she seems very suitable for Heath. *sigh*

[Artiste]

There was just a TV special on Heath half hour ago.

It sure presented Heath's life, in many ways, plus his films.

Did anyone see that?

Hugs!

[gee mm willikers]

From Salon:

http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/2008/03/06/heath_ledger_overdose/


Understanding Heath Ledger's death

How drug company advertisements, doctors, pharmacies and patients intertwine to cause an overdose.

By Larry Zaroff, M.D., Ph.D.


Heath Ledger in "Brokeback Mountain"

March 6, 2008 | Heath Ledger stopped breathing. An accidental overdose of prescribed medicines is the presumed cause of death. Ledger's toxicology report revealed that he had ingested two sleep medications (Restoril and Unisom), two potent narcotics (oxycodone and hydrocodone) and two tranquilizers (Valium and Xanax). The dosages, not documented, were enough to kill him.

The public occasionally hears of drug-related deaths among the famous. Often the drugs involved are illegal: heroin or cocaine. But death or near death from prescribed drugs, as in the cases of Judy Garland and Anna Nicole Smith, is not unusual, and may not be related to addiction or suicide. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, motor-vehicle crashes rank first among unintentional deaths in America. But poisoning is second, most commonly from the abuse of prescription and illegal drugs. Unintentional deaths from accidental drug ingestion rose significantly from 1999 to 2004. This trend is primarily due to increasing use of prescription opioid analgesics, and not heroin, methamphetamines or other illegal drugs.

Where does the problem start? How do drug company advertisements, doctors, pharmacies and patients intertwine to cause an overdose?

If a tired, stressed-at-work patient is sick, depressed over a relationship, having pain and develops insomnia -- as Ledger apparently did -- what does he do? He has no doubt been exposed to a media blitz, a tsunami of public proclamations asserting the prowess of a sleeping medication. Pop a pill and you get a perfect night's sleep, eight hours of bliss. Only after you see the beautiful people sleeping and waking refreshed to win a Nobel, and after a sweet voice describes the pill's perfection, do you hear a mellow reminder of the side effects. Be careful, don't drive or drink and, oh, yes, sleeping pills can be addictive. The warning may even advise you to talk to your doctor about other medications.

However, no notation is made that with prolonged use, the pills tend to be less effective so that you will want to increase the dose. For the average person, without knowledge of pharmacology, the risk of such blandishments can be high -- serious side effects and death. The risks are also high for the pharmaceutical companies: millions spent for media buys and billions in revenue accrued from the sales.

Now, any patient, unable to sleep because her back aches or her work overwhelms, feeling protected by the Kevlar of information from Big Pharma, goes to her doctor -- internist or family doctor -- or maybe in the case of a prominent athlete or actor, a physician-friend.

What determines the doctor's reaction when he hears of chronic pain or inability to sleep night after night? The doctor's education -- four years of college, four years of medical school followed by a residency of four to eight years -- has been focused on science, emphasizing prompt relief of symptoms. Medical students learn that pills solve problems. Commonly only allowed a 20-minute visit with patients, a limit insisted on by administrators, the physician is often quick to prescribe without probing for the underlying problem.

The physician may not take the time to ask the patient what other drugs are stored in her medicine cabinet, or if she has seen additional doctors for her problem. Even if the doctor asks, "What other medicines have you been on?" the patient may have forgotten, or not wish to tell the doctor, wanting to keep a large supply on hand to meet an increasing need or even an addiction.

Consider the best-case scenario: The doctor gives the patient a prescription for a small supply, warns of side effects, cautions against overdose and interactions with other drugs. But the patient, worried, ill, does not pay attention to the doctor's words. Particularly if she is alone, she forgets or discards the information.

Next the patient brings the script to a drugstore to pick up her medicine. The pharmacist is too busy to chat with her or too overworked (a nationwide shortage of pharmacists exists) to warn of side effects, or the patient is in too great a hurry to listen, so a clerk hands over the pills without any information. Along with the pills, the manufacturer has inserted a parchment, often written in small hieroglyphics, that lists all the information a patient should absorb before absorbing the pills. Stand outside any pharmacy and ask 10 patrons if they have read or plan to digest the onion skin that tells all. You will find, I venture, nine who have no plans to even glance at the printout.

After leaving the drugstore, the patient realizes the wise doctor has given her only 30 pills, not enough, since one pill no longer gives her what she requires: deep, worry-free sleep or relief of pain or anxiety. If she has all three problems, she will need more pills or other kinds. She goes to another doctor and gets a second supply. She is set for the moment. But her work requires travel, sometimes out of the country. She can locate other doctors in other places who will prescribe. Now she has a fine stash both in her medicine cabinet and in her suitcase.

She is young, smart, well regarded by her associates. She is the opposite of careless. But she has no understanding of physiology, how the body works, what controls vital functions -- breathing, heartbeat, circulation -- and how drugs can affect these functions. How drugs work, their rate of absorption, their peak level of activity, is of no interest to her. She only wants relief of her insomnia, her pain, her worries. She has no idea that drugs have an optimum dose, that combinations of drugs might be like taking too much of a single drug, that often dissimilar medicines can affect the same organs and stop their activities. Unknown to her, she may even have a genetic abnormality that makes her more susceptible to the synergistic effects of the drugs.

The patient is not an addict and suicide is the last thing she would consider. But she has a tough day ahead of her. She needs her sleep. She decides to take two sleeping pills since one did not work well enough the previous night. Because she strained her back yesterday and feared the pain might keep her awake, she takes a narcotic, a single dose. She feels edgy despite the sleeping pills and the narcotic, and so she takes a tranquilizer. The witches' brew works. She dozes off but awakes in two hours, her mind jumbled. She must sleep. She slips into the bathroom and repeats the doses. She lies down, sleeps soon, too deeply. An hour later she stops breathing. She is alone, no one to aid her.

What is the answer to prescription drug overdoses? There is no perfect solution, any more than there is a drug without side effects. But a nationwide database of patient records, including a list of prescribed drugs, would help. The database would be available to all prescribing professionals and pharmacists. A similar program is in place in the Kaiser system. Of course, many patients would object vehemently for privacy reasons. A patient who needed codeine for an episode of acute back pain might worry how a prospective employer would interpret the information. Safeguards to protect patient data would need to be maximized.

The prevalence of increasing drug use in our society with the complication of overdose demands a solution. At a minimum, patients need to learn and understand the dangers of mixing and overdosing drugs, which can lead to the collapse of lung, heart and nervous systems. More informative commercials would help. Using Ledger's tragic death as a case study to educate students and other medical personal would be a powerful reminder.

[optom3]

From Salon:

http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/2008/03/06/heath_ledger_overdose/


Understanding Heath Ledger's death

How drug company advertisements, doctors, pharmacies and patients intertwine to cause an overdose.

By Larry Zaroff, M.D., Ph.D.


Heath Ledger in "Brokeback Mountain"

March 6, 2008 | Heath Ledger stopped breathing. An accidental overdose of prescribed medicines is the presumed cause of death. Ledger's toxicology report revealed that he had ingested two sleep medications (Restoril and Unisom), two potent narcotics (oxycodone and hydrocodone) and two tranquilizers (Valium and Xanax). The dosages, not documented, were enough to kill him.

The public occasionally hears of drug-related deaths among the famous. Often the drugs involved are illegal: heroin or cocaine. But death or near death from prescribed drugs, as in the cases of Judy Garland and Anna Nicole Smith, is not unusual, and may not be related to addiction or suicide. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, motor-vehicle crashes rank first among unintentional deaths in America. But poisoning is second, most commonly from the abuse of prescription and illegal drugs. Unintentional deaths from accidental drug ingestion rose significantly from 1999 to 2004. This trend is primarily due to increasing use of prescription opioid analgesics, and not heroin, methamphetamines or other illegal drugs.

Where does the problem start? How do drug company advertisements, doctors, pharmacies and patients intertwine to cause an overdose?

If a tired, stressed-at-work patient is sick, depressed over a relationship, having pain and develops insomnia -- as Ledger apparently did -- what does he do? He has no doubt been exposed to a media blitz, a tsunami of public proclamations asserting the prowess of a sleeping medication. Pop a pill and you get a perfect night's sleep, eight hours of bliss. Only after you see the beautiful people sleeping and waking refreshed to win a Nobel, and after a sweet voice describes the pill's perfection, do you hear a mellow reminder of the side effects. Be careful, don't drive or drink and, oh, yes, sleeping pills can be addictive. The warning may even advise you to talk to your doctor about other medications.

However, no notation is made that with prolonged use, the pills tend to be less effective so that you will want to increase the dose. For the average person, without knowledge of pharmacology, the risk of such blandishments can be high -- serious side effects and death. The risks are also high for the pharmaceutical companies: millions spent for media buys and billions in revenue accrued from the sales.

Now, any patient, unable to sleep because her back aches or her work overwhelms, feeling protected by the Kevlar of information from Big Pharma, goes to her doctor -- internist or family doctor -- or maybe in the case of a prominent athlete or actor, a physician-friend.

What determines the doctor's reaction when he hears of chronic pain or inability to sleep night after night? The doctor's education -- four years of college, four years of medical school followed by a residency of four to eight years -- has been focused on science, emphasizing prompt relief of symptoms. Medical students learn that pills solve problems. Commonly only allowed a 20-minute visit with patients, a limit insisted on by administrators, the physician is often quick to prescribe without probing for the underlying problem.

The physician may not take the time to ask the patient what other drugs are stored in her medicine cabinet, or if she has seen additional doctors for her problem. Even if the doctor asks, "What other medicines have you been on?" the patient may have forgotten, or not wish to tell the doctor, wanting to keep a large supply on hand to meet an increasing need or even an addiction.

Consider the best-case scenario: The doctor gives the patient a prescription for a small supply, warns of side effects, cautions against overdose and interactions with other drugs. But the patient, worried, ill, does not pay attention to the doctor's words. Particularly if she is alone, she forgets or discards the information.

Next the patient brings the script to a drugstore to pick up her medicine. The pharmacist is too busy to chat with her or too overworked (a nationwide shortage of pharmacists exists) to warn of side effects, or the patient is in too great a hurry to listen, so a clerk hands over the pills without any information. Along with the pills, the manufacturer has inserted a parchment, often written in small hieroglyphics, that lists all the information a patient should absorb before absorbing the pills. Stand outside any pharmacy and ask 10 patrons if they have read or plan to digest the onion skin that tells all. You will find, I venture, nine who have no plans to even glance at the printout.

After leaving the drugstore, the patient realizes the wise doctor has given her only 30 pills, not enough, since one pill no longer gives her what she requires: deep, worry-free sleep or relief of pain or anxiety. If she has all three problems, she will need more pills or other kinds. She goes to another doctor and gets a second supply. She is set for the moment. But her work requires travel, sometimes out of the country. She can locate other doctors in other places who will prescribe. Now she has a fine stash both in her medicine cabinet and in her suitcase.

She is young, smart, well regarded by her associates. She is the opposite of careless. But she has no understanding of physiology, how the body works, what controls vital functions -- breathing, heartbeat, circulation -- and how drugs can affect these functions. How drugs work, their rate of absorption, their peak level of activity, is of no interest to her. She only wants relief of her insomnia, her pain, her worries. She has no idea that drugs have an optimum dose, that combinations of drugs might be like taking too much of a single drug, that often dissimilar medicines can affect the same organs and stop their activities. Unknown to her, she may even have a genetic abnormality that makes her more susceptible to the synergistic effects of the drugs.

The patient is not an addict and suicide is the last thing she would consider. But she has a tough day ahead of her. She needs her sleep. She decides to take two sleeping pills since one did not work well enough the previous night. Because she strained her back yesterday and feared the pain might keep her awake, she takes a narcotic, a single dose. She feels edgy despite the sleeping pills and the narcotic, and so she takes a tranquilizer. The witches' brew works. She dozes off but awakes in two hours, her mind jumbled. She must sleep. She slips into the bathroom and repeats the doses. She lies down, sleeps soon, too deeply. An hour later she stops breathing. She is alone, no one to aid her.

What is the answer to prescription drug overdoses? There is no perfect solution, any more than there is a drug without side effects. But a nationwide database of patient records, including a list of prescribed drugs, would help. The database would be available to all prescribing professionals and pharmacists. A similar program is in place in the Kaiser system. Of course, many patients would object vehemently for privacy reasons. A patient who needed codeine for an episode of acute back pain might worry how a prospective employer would interpret the information. Safeguards to protect patient data would need to be maximized.

The prevalence of increasing drug use in our society with the complication of overdose demands a solution. At a minimum, patients need to learn and understand the dangers of mixing and overdosing drugs, which can lead to the collapse of lung, heart and nervous systems. More informative commercials would help. Using Ledger's tragic death as a case study to educate students and other medical personal would be a powerful reminder.

The most sensible article I have yet tp read.Thanks for posting.
I have for several years taken a whole cocktail of Rx medications,for arthritis,2 chronic shoulder injuries and bouts of depressioncaused by bipolar.If you add crippling migraines into the mix,then on a bad day I can be taking opiate based meds,antidepressants,sleeping tablets in large doses.Add to that over 20 years my tolerance has increased.
The difference for me is that because of my previous occupation I have a prescribing book of all meds,so I am careful to check and double check,particularly now ,how much I can take and with what.Because I also realised that I was becomming confused on a bad day,I started to make a list of what I had taken and at what time.Even so in the midle of the night when you cant sleep and the pain is crippling you to the point of tears,added to that a combination of the 2 has made the depression escalate,it is all too easy to think what the hell,Il will just take another couple.
I don,t but it is hard to resist some times.I do not want my kids to find me dead one morning.I too have been tempted to go to different physicians to get further supplies,but again the thought of my kids stops me.
The only way forward I see,is for better patient education.You should have to sign to say you have read and understood the meds you have been given.I realise that with a shortage of pharmacists and doctors time being limited this is idealistic,but it is something to aim for.But above all bigger warnings on meds in large letters,like on cigarette packets  .i.e WARNING  combinations of some drugs can kill!!!!

[SunShadow]

The most sensible article I have yet tp read.Thanks for posting.
I have for several years taken a whole cocktail of Rx medications,for arthritis,2 chronic shoulder injuries and bouts of depressioncaused by bipolar.If you add crippling migraines into the mix,then on a bad day I can be taking opiate based meds,antidepressants,sleeping tablets in large doses.Add to that over 20 years my tolerance has increased.
The difference for me is that because of my previous occupation I have a prescribing book of all meds,so I am careful to check and double check,particularly now ,how much I can take and with what.Because I also realised that I was becomming confused on a bad day,I started to make a list of what I had taken and at what time.Even so in the midle of the night when you cant sleep and the pain is crippling you to the point of tears,added to that a combination of the 2 has made the depression escalate,it is all too easy to think what the hell,Il will just take another couple.
I don,t but it is hard to resist some times.I do not want my kids to find me dead one morning.I too have been tempted to go to different physicians to get further supplies,but again the thought of my kids stops me.
The only way forward I see,is for better patient education.You should have to sign to say you have read and understood the meds you have been given.I realise that with a shortage of pharmacists and doctors time being limited this is idealistic,but it is something to aim for.But above all bigger warnings on meds in large letters,like on cigarette packets  .i.e WARNING  combinations of some drugs can kill!!!!

That was indeed a great and informative article.  I am all for a national database.  I am allergic to at least 5 medications myself, and am careful to list them all every time I go to a new doctor.  I do read the pamphlet included with my prescriptions (and my husband's prescriptions, and my daughter's prescriptions), and I have to admit it is out of fear.  My nursing training combined with my own medication reactions has brought the dangers home to me.  But not too many people I know take it seriously.  Hopefully Heath's death will serve as a wake up call.

I'm not sure if I have said this here elsewhere, but I have a personal rule of thumb - I will not take a medication until it has been on the market for 5 years.  FDA testing before a drug is approved is not at all comprehensive, and I don't want to be a guinea pig.  Years ago, before it was pulled from the market, I briefly took the Phen-Fen weight loss drug combination (which was crazy in and of itself, because at the time I weighed less than 135 pounds, and had to beg the doctor to prescribe it for me, which he did).  I could have died from a drug I didn't even need.  I am much more careful now.

Fiona,

please be very careful with all your meds.  It is really easy to make a mistake.  I have been at that place in the middle of the night (with migraines) where you just don't care and only want the pain to go away.  I know I have taken too many meds or have not waited the appropriate time between doses on occasion.  It is really hard to think clearly through pain and exhaustion.  Here is a crazy story of my own.  One night during a migraine I asked my husband to bring me a couple of extra strength Excedrin.  He did, and I took them.  All of a sudden I had this insane idea that what I had swallowed in the dark seemed too big, and convinced myself I had swallowed the preservative that is included in the bottle with the pills.  When I checked, there was no preservative in the bottle, so I pleaded with my husband to call poison control.  Apparently the silica preservative is non-toxic, so I went back to sleep.  In the light of day, my panic seemed ridiculous.  Of course I hadn't swallowed the preservative.  My thinking was just distorted by grogginess.  Since this incident, I have been a little paranoid about every pill I put in my mouth, even examining each pill for signs for tampering.  I know it sounds a little extreme, but once the pill is swallowed, the deed is done.

[Artiste]

That show about Heath on TV last night mentioned that 3 (different pills kinds) that  he took came from Europe when he was there. And it is known where he got those prescriptions.

But is it still NOT known where he took the prescriptions in the USA? I think that that was it! Still the mystery there.

Is that it?

Hugs!

[Marge_Innavera]

Marge, LauraGigs gets credit for posting the photo. 

Thanks for the correction, Fran -- I fixed it, using a strike-out so it would make sense. Sorry, Laura!

[TOoP/Bruce]

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/06/books/06esqu.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Esquire Publishes a Diary That Isn’t

After Heath Ledger was found dead in his SoHo apartment on Jan. 22, David Granger, the editor in chief of Esquire magazine, dispatched a writer named Lisa Taddeo to report on the actor’s final days.


Her article, published in the April issue, which will be on newstands next week, finds Mr. Ledger eating Moroccan food with Jack Nicholson in London, returning to New York and partying at the downtown nightspot Beatrice Inn, eating steak and eggs at a cafe in Little Italy and wolfing down a banana-nut muffin as his last morsel of food.

None of this is exactly true. “The Last Days of Heath Ledger,” written in the first person as if it were Mr. Ledger’s own diary, is a fictionalized account of his last days in London and New York and ponders the indignities of celebrity.

“It becomes theatrically important, after you die, what your last few days are like,” the article begins.

Skeptical readers might surmise that Ms. Taddeo didn’t turn up anything in her reporting and turned to a gimmick to get the story in print. But Mr. Granger insists that the piece, which is labeled fiction, is neither stunt nor gimmick.

“It’s an earnest effort,” he said, adding that the magazine has tried to tackle fiction using a nonfiction playbook before. “We’ve been trying to assign fiction,” he said, “to make it topical, relevant. To go to writers with a headline or an idea.”

The first project in this vein was published in October 2006 during the baseball playoffs and called “The Death of Derek Jeter,” an extended meditation on sports, celebrity and mortality written from the perspective of Mr. Jeter, the Yankees shortstop.

“We’ve been doing these things to try to make fiction as current and lively as we can,” Mr. Granger said, “to make it as urgent as nonfiction.”

Esquire’s history does brim with journalistic stunts. There was the 1996 cover article on Allegra Coleman, a new Hollywood “it” girl. It was a hoax. Under Mr. Granger there was the 2001 profile of the R.E.M. singer Michael Stipe, seasoned with a good dose of fiction. Then there are the mere gimmicks: Halle Berry interviewing the interviewer, Jon Stewart annotating his own profile.

In those cases the celebrities were either alive, participating or not real. In the case of Mr. Ledger the magazine was channeling someone who very recently died. To avoid accusations that the article was another stunt, Mr. Granger did not promote the article on the magazine’s cover. “I purposely didn’t want it to be seen as exploitative in any way,” he said.

Mara Buxbaum, who was Mr. Ledger’s publicist and now represents the actor’s family, declined to comment. She said the family did not know about the Esquire article until informed about it by The New York Times, after which Ms. Buxbaum called Mr. Granger’s office and was sent a copy.

After Mr. Ledger died from what was later found to be an accidental overdose of prescription medications, Mr. Granger said he was surprised at the public’s outpouring of grief for someone who, in Mr. Granger’s view, was not a huge movie star. “It was born out of curiosity,” he said of the assignment. “I didn’t understand what the fuss was all about.”

Ms. Taddeo, an associate editor at Golf Magazine and an aspiring fiction writer, spent four days in restaurants and cafes and parks near where Mr. Ledger died. Mr. Granger said he had read an unpublished novel written by Ms. Taddeo and had been looking for the right work to give her. When she first got the Ledger assignment it was unclear if the final product would be fiction or nonfiction. Mr. Granger simply wanted a writer on the scene.

Some of what she wrote is true. Mr. Ledger was in London three days before his death. He did return to New York. He did like banana nut muffins from Miro Café, though it’s not certain he ate one for his last meal.

Esquire was among the pioneers in the 1960s in promoting what became known as New Journalism, the style developed by the cadre of writers like Gay Talese, Hunter S. Thompson and Tom Wolfe who used literary techniques — buttressed by voracious reporting — to produce articles of narrative nonfiction. “Frank Sinatra Has a Cold” by Mr. Talese, published in Esquire in 1966, is considered a classic of the genre and the precursor of the modern celebrity profile.

Robert S. Boynton, who teaches magazine writing at New York University and wrote “The New New Journalism,” a collection of interviews with contemporary practitioners of the form, welcomes any innovation to an industry that he said had grown formulaic. “I think magazines should be encouraged to experiment,” he said. “The last thing any of these magazines should be doing is playing it safe.”

Martha Sherrill, a former Esquire writer — her name is still on the masthead, though she no longer writes for the magazine — who wrote the Allegra Coleman story, said the Ledger article fit within Esquire’s record of journalistic tomfoolery.

“If you have a subscription to Esquire, and you’re not on alert for this kind of thing, you’re probably not the right kind of customer,” Ms. Sherrill said. “I think we need more satire, and this is why people turn to Esquire.”

Mr. Granger has been editor of Esquire since 1997. During his tenure, circulation has risen, to 721,000 at the end of last year, according to the Audit Bureau of Circulations, from 658,000. Journalistically, it has won praise, picking up 10 National Magazine Awards under Mr. Granger’s editorship, compared with four in the decade prior to his stewardship. Its closest rival, GQ, where Mr. Granger used to work, had a circulation of 914,000.

The risk of a piece like “The Last Days of Heath Ledger” is that the work winds up in a literary no-man’s land. “The biggest problem I see is you are sacrificing the biggest strengths from each of the genres,” said Edward Wasserman, Knight professor of journalism at Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Va. “You are losing the veracity of journalism, and you are losing the imaginative license of fiction. You run the risk of ending up with something that is neither true nor interesting.”



Link to the Esquire piece (if anyone cares about this kind of pretend news):

http://www.esquire.com/features/heath-ledger-last-days