Wow-- that's a bit paranoid. I always wonder what people are thinking of when they talk about 'kickbacks'. It is illegal for a doc to accept anything that is not educational and tied to practice. Even if a drug company gives something legal, like a textbook, the value of the gift cannot exceed $100. There are dinners out there one can go to at a nice restaurant to hear a guest speaker, but I have never been to one where they allow a family member, like a spouse, to go along. The trips out there to Orlando for meetings are sometimes partially sponsored by drug companies, but only to pay for the speaker or for the use of the facilities-- they cannot pay for hotel rooms, travel, etc. The Feds have cracked down in the past few years, and the penalties are huge, and the drug companies are scared to death of the fines and bad PR. In my 15 years of practice in a private group and later at a major teaching hospital, the most expensive gift I got was a $200 textbook, before they lowered the limit to $100 several years ago.
The criteria to get approval for a medication is very stringent. Companies waste millions of dollars developing meds that don't show a significant enough treatment effect-- in those cases the drug never gets marketed or produced. To get approved, a med can't just be as good as other treatments-- to get a new drug approved, it has to show advantages to other drugs available. All of the SSRI's (paxil,
zoloft,
celexa,
lexapro, etc) and the SNRI's (effexor and
Remeron) have shown to be effective in treating anxiety and panic attacks. Most patients do well on those meds, but yes, there are always going to be people that for whatever reason do not respond, or respond negatively. People with a 'bipolar' type of make-up often do worse with all of the above drugs.
Package inserts are only useful if one knows how they are developed. If you look at any insert you will see a huge list of scary side effects. Most drugs will be listed as causing opposite effects, such as sedation and insomnia, or diarrhea and constipation. When they do a study of a couple thousand people, the people in the study have to list every single thing that they are experiencing.
It is normal to have unpleasant feelings when any med is started. They are powerful drugs, and it usually takes time for the body to get used to them.
Paxil is one that has more initial side effects, and more withdrawal, than some others. That is because it has a short half-life, and so levels change faster than with other meds like
prozac.
I became a psychiatrist because like many psychiatrists I have had family members with mental illness. I make less money than many of my peers who went into other fields. I don't mind, because a good psychiatrist can make a difference in the lives of people. Not everyone-- just like some infections can't be stopped, and some heart disease is beyond treatment. Anyone going into treatment with an attitude of expecting failure will fail-- in psychiatry as well as in many other areas of medicine. I wish you luck, poison. I recommend that you avoid an attitude of mistrust and paranoia; those characteristics will keep a person miserable no matter what drugs they take.
severe anxiety and really bad panic 
I mean it!
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