Fwd: [drugawareness] Judge Wants Columbine Evidence Destroyed

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Mon, 29 Sep 2003 01:57:02 EDT

[drugawareness] Judge Wants Columbine Evidence Destroyed

 

The following two articles from the Denver Post will alert you to the serious

problems that have come up this past week in the Columbine tragedy.

 

The first article states: " The two cases involved in the order are Mark Allen

Taylor vs. Solvay Pharmaceuticals Inc.; and Brian Rohrbough and four other

victims' families vs. the parents of Harris and Klebold " - both cases brought

out critical information to protect the public from anything like this in the

future yet this information has been sealed. And now they want do destroy it to

make sure no one ever gets that information.

 

Someone had better start asking hard questions quickly! For instance:

 

Why destroy the evidence now when it clearly should have been made public

years ago?

 

Why does this judge want it destroyed!?

 

Why did she push so hard to get a settlement in the Taylor case rather than

have them go to court?

 

Why did Mark Taylor believe he would go to jail if he did not sign a

settlement agreement after being badgered in a room for nearly five hours by

this

judge and drug company attorneys?

 

Why did she allow Mark Taylor to sign those documents when he was not legally

capable of signing that settlement agreement making it not legally binding?

In fact, the whole case was a farce from the beginning.

 

What is she trying to hide?

 

Who is she trying to protect?

 

What vested interests, if any, might she have?

 

Who is really behind all this?

 

Why would Lauren Townsend's brother have to threaten to go public and chance

going to jail after all that family has been through?

 

Some of the families have not had their time to file cases run out yet and

could still file suit so why destroy the evidence they need in their cases?

 

Almost all evidence is to be destroyed even though the toxicology report and

medical records for Dylan Klebold have never been made public.

 

Dylan had attended the " anger management " classes also - where Eric Harris

received, first, the Zoloft and then the Luvox. And we do know that he had taken

St. John's Wort so he must have been struggling with simlar issues for which

these drugs are so often prescribed.

 

Why would anyone want these records destroyed just as the truth is beginning

to come out on the severe adverse reactions of suicide, psychosis and violence

produced by SSRIs at more than double the rate in teens?

 

In over a decade of acting as an expert in cases like this I have repeatedly

stated that I have NEVER seen a case handled the way Columbine has been

handled. When someone commits murder, their toxicology report is generally open

to

the public. Dylan Klebold's never was made public, nor was it ever disclosed to

the families of those he killed. WHY?

 

We almost never did find out what Eric was taking. Had it not been for an

alert neighbor who mentioned his use of an antidepressant, we may never have

known that Eric was on the SSRI, Luvox. It took an additional test after the

release of the initial toxicology report to find the Luvox in his system. This

is

not a routine test in many coroner's offices.

 

Although the test was redone for Eric, was one ever done on Dylan? FOUR AND A

HALF YEARS LATER WE STILL DO NOT KNOW! Yet everyone knows teens often share

drugs. Eric and Dylan were close friends who likely shared many things. Did

they share Eric's Luvox which Eric stated would provide the fuel for the rage he

needed to accomplish his psychotic " mission " at Columbine? Considering the

information coming out now on two serotonergic antidepressants potential to

produce violence, suicide, psychosis, self mutliation and medical damage at

between two and three times greater rate than placebo, the public should be

given

this information.

 

Last fall the Denver Post hired four independent experts to review Eric's

records (which came out due to Mark Taylor's lawsuit) and they all concluded

that

Eric suffered a manic psychosis that led to his actions at Columbine. This

manic psychosis is an adverse effect of Luvox occuring in 1 out of 25 patients

according to the Physician's Desk Reference.

 

Too many questions about Columbine remain unanswered. These families

(including the Harris and Klebold families) had their children ripped from them

in the

most horrific manner imaginable. They all deserve answers. What they do not

deserve is the burying of the answers via the destruction of these documents.

Rather, after four and a half years, this evidence that could provide answers

should DEFINATELY be brought out of that locked room.

 

Dr. Ann Blake Tracy,

Executive Director, International Coalition For Drug Awareness

& author of Prozac: Panacea or Pandora? - Our Serotonin Nightmare

& tape on safe withdrawal " Help! I Can't Get Off My Antidepressant! "

 

Order Number: 800-280-0730

Website: www.drugawareness.org

 

 

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HREF= " http://www.denverpost.com/Stories/0,1413,36~54~1656936,00.html " >http://www\

..denverpost.com/Stories/0,1413,36~54~1656936,00.html</A>

 

 

Columbine files to be destroyed

Victims' families want depositions made public

 

By Kieran Nicholson

Denver Post Staff Writer

 

A special room under strict lock-and-key, filled with evidence from two

settled Columbine cases, is being shut down and a federal magistrate has ordered

some of the materials - including depositions of the killers' parents -

destroyed.

 

The room, in the federal courthouse in downtown Denver, was set aside in 2002

to " house particular documents and materials deemed to be worthy of special

handling and security, " according to court documents.

 

Now that the two cases have been settled, U.S. Magistrate Judge Patricia Coan

is apparently cleaning house.

 

But her order has angered families of Columbine victims and others who want

information from depositions of the parents of killers Eric Harris and Dylan

Klebold to be made public.

 

" Who are they protecting? " asked Rich Petrone, the stepfather of slain

student Daniel Rohrbough. " Are they protecting the murderers' families? There

should

be a public outcry. "

 

Petrone and others believe that information gleaned from the depositions

could possibly prevent another Columbine tragedy from happening.

 

Reflecting on recent school shootings throughout the county, Petrone called

the destruction order by Coan " ridiculous. "

 

Barry Arrington, attorney for the five families who sued the Harris and

Klebold families, said he'll file an appeal of the order. He has until Oct. 7.

 

" I am extremely frustrated and my clients are extremely frustrated, "

Arrington said.

 

Arrington said his clients paid $3,000 to record the depositions of the

killers' parents.

 

" The government is essentially destroying our property without paying for

it, " Arrington said.

 

In the order, handed down by Coan on Tuesday, the court found that " there

would be no further purpose, need or use for any of the five depositions to

remain in existence because the case has been settled. "

 

The two cases involved in the order are Mark Allen Taylor vs. Solvay

Pharmaceuticals Inc.; and Brian Rohrbough and four other victims' families vs.

the

parents of Harris and Klebold.

 

In the Rohrbough case, plantiffs took the depositions of Susan Klebold on

July 29; Thomas Klebold, July 30; Wayne Harris, July 31 and Aug. 1; and

Katherine

Harris, Aug. 1.

 

On July 28, the defendants deposed Judy Brown, parent of a Columbine student

at the time of the shootings. She has been a critic of how authorities,

including the Jefferson County Sheriff's Office, handled the department's

initial

response to the shooting and the subsequent investigation.

 

Brown tried to review her deposition at the courthouse several times since

giving it, but was turned away by the custodian of the evidence room, known as

the " Special Master, " she said.

 

" I wanted to go review my deposition because I had a right to do it, " she

said.

Brown, like Petrone, believes the depositions should be in the public realm.

 

" The Harrisses have never answered questions publicly and I think they

should, " Brown said. " We are upset. It is disturbing that they are trying to get

rid

of evidence so fast in this. It's a coverup. "

 

In the order, Coan ruled that " Mrs. Brown was deposed by the Defendants as a

fact witness and her testimony is no longer of any relevance or import to the

case. "

Destroying transcripts of depositions is an unusual step, noted Craig

Silverman, a local attorney and former prosecutor who has followed the Columbine

case.

" I have never heard of that happening before, " Silverman said.

 

After the case against the parents of the killers was settled on Aug. 12,

Dawn Anna, the mother of slain student Lauren Townsend, released a statement on

behalf of all five victims' families. It said that they were " not satisfied

with many of the answers " the parents of Harris and Klebold gave.

 

At that time, Anna urged the public and the media to seek the release of the

depositions, which were sealed.

 

" When the families publicly stated that they wanted the information released

despite a protective order, that had to raise red flags with the judges

overseeing the case, " Silverman said Thursday.

 

That may have played a part in the order to destroy the depositions,

Silverman said.

" You can't leak what doesn't exist anymore, " he said.

 

On Aug. 26, documents and materials in the evidence room that had belonged to

the Harris family were removed by their attorneys.

 

Case materials turned over by the Klebolds - including family photographs,

videotapes and other documents - were not kept in the evidence room. Instead,

they were housed in the office of the Klebolds' attorney, Gary Lozow.

 

Evidence submitted by the Jefferson County School District will be destroyed

by the court, with the district's permission, according to the order.

 

Representatives of the county and the sheriff's office retrieved material

from the evidence room.

 

Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold killed 12 Columbine High School students and

one teacher on April 20, 1999, before taking their own lives.

____

 

In fact, American consumers, mostly children, account for more than 90% of

global consumption of such stimulants. " If we have four or five times the

learning disability or depression or other neurotic illnesses that the Europeans

do, " Caplan says, " then either we got a really bad gene pool through immigration

or we're overmedicating.

 

In June, British drug officials, later endorsed by the U.S. Food and Drug

Administration, warned physicians and consumers that GlaxoSmithKline's

anti-depressant Paxil carries a substantial risk of prompting teenagers and

children to

consider suicide. Two months later, Wyeth warned doctors of the same risks in

its Effexor. U.S. sales of both drugs totaled nearly $4 billion last year.

 

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..nydailynews.com/business/story/121404p-109207c.html</A>

 

 

We need a war vs. legal drugs

 

The federal government spends nearly $1 billion a month to fight the war on

drugs. But while we focus on eradicating illicit drugs, we ignore the worsening

problem of overmedication.

 

National sales figures indicate that from 1998 to 2002, sales of

anti-depressants increased 73% to more than $12 billion, while analeptics, drugs

like

Ritalin and Adderall that stimulate the central nervous system, increased 167%,

according to IMS Health, a pharmaceutical information and consulting company.

Even more distressing, physicians wrote more than 1 million prescriptions for

Strattera, a nonstimulant treatment for attention deficit hyperactivity

disorder, in its first six months on the market.

 

But something is very wrong here. The dramatic increase in the sale of these

pharmaceuticals suggest that Americans are well on the way to becoming not

only depressed, anxiety-ridden and incapable of the meaningful focus necessary

to

understand the world in which we live, but also on our way to becoming a

drug-dependent nation.

 

Doping up kids

 

No one would deny that ADHD, depression and anxiety disorders afflict

millions of Americans. But to what degree? Through a combination of

pharmaceutical

companies' increased marketing, quick diagnoses from physicians and a lack of

proper referrals from doctors, we are simply inundating huge numbers of people

with unprecedented amounts of medication.

 

The issue is all the more sensitive and heartrending when it comes to our

children. According to the Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine, a

study

of 900,000 youths showed that the number of children taking psychiatric drugs

more than doubled in one group and tripled in the two others for the decade

ending 1996.

 

" Any time a child reads a little more slowly, we're talking learning

disability and administering Ritalin, or any time a kid acts up a bit, instead

of

giving him detention, we're drugging him, " says Dr. Arthur Caplan, chairman of

the

medical ethics department at the University of Pennsylvania School of

Medicine. He adds, " These are definitely problems, in that it's expensive, it

may not

address the cause of the problem and I've never met a drug yet, including

aspirin, that didn't have some side effects. "

 

In other words, some pharmaceuticals create greater problems than they treat.

In June, British drug officials, later endorsed by the U.S. Food and Drug

Administration, warned physicians and consumers that GlaxoSmithKline's

anti-depressant Paxil carries a substantial risk of prompting teenagers and

children to

consider suicide. Two months later, Wyeth warned doctors of the same risks in

its Effexor. U.S. sales of both drugs totaled nearly $4 billion last year.

 

The driving force behind the surge is aggressive direct-to-consumer

advertising, Caplan says. Following the relaxation of a 30-year drug marketing

agreement in 1997, pharmaceutical companies have tripled their annual

advertising to

consumers, resulting in a 37% increase in sales of prescription stimulants for

children. Also, roughly one-third of all adults have asked their doctor about

a drug they saw advertised, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.

 

And those doctors are quick to dole out prescriptions. According to the

American Psychiatric Association, primary care physicians now write upward of

60%

of anti-depressant prescriptions. Says Caplan, " I think [doctors are] just

overwhelmed now with too much marketing, and it drives them toward too much

prescribing. "

 

Uniquely American

 

In fact, American consumers, mostly children, account for more than 90% of

global consumption of such stimulants. " If we have four or five times the

learning disability or depression or other neurotic illnesses that the Europeans

do, " Caplan says, " then either we got a really bad gene pool through immigration

or we're overmedicating.

 

" In either case, a crisis looms. The pharmaceutical companies, the FDA and

Congress must confront this issue now, and the physicians' credo is an

appropriate starting point: First, do no harm. That credo simply must take

precedence

over profit motives, casual prescriptions and expedient parenting.

 

Originally published on September 28, 2003

 

 

 

 

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