Are antidepressant drugs an accomplice in the Virginia Tech shootings? (opinion)

April 18, 2007

I've known this for a long time about anti-depressant drugs. This is why

I REFUSE to take them. The LAST thing I NEED is to be more VIOLENT and

AGGRESSIVE than I already am. This is in no offense to those that have

taken these drugs and the drugs have HELPED them. It's just that knowing

my luck, they would have this type of effect on me and I'm not trying to

risk that. If you want to know why I'm so afraid to go on them, this is

why.

S.S.

http://www.newstarget.com/021798.html

<http://www.newstarget.com/021798.html>

NewsTarget.com <http://www.newstarget.com/index.html> printable article

Originally published April 18 2007

Are antidepressant drugs an accomplice in the Virginia Tech shootings?

(opinion)

by Mike Adams <http://www.healthranger.org/>

The Chicago Tribune reports that Cho Seung Hui, the Virginia Tech

shooter who killed 32 fellow students in a shooting rampage, was taking

antidepressant drugs. This is not the first time a school shooting

rampage has been linked to antidepressants. The infamous Colombine High

shootings took place almost exactly eight years ago, and the shooters in

that rampage were also -- you guessed it -- taking antidepressant drugs.

What is it about antidepressant drugs that provokes young men to pick up

pistols, rifles and shotguns, then violently assault their classmates?

Clearly, there's something wrong with the mind of anyone who engages in

such violent acts. Could the drugs be " imbalancing " their minds, priming

them for violence?

The answer is a very sobering, " Yes, they could be. " As we reported in a

previous NewsTarget article on Paxil

<http://www.newstarget.com/020406.html> :

Researchers from Cardiff University in Britain and the Cochrane Centre

examined data on Paxil -- or its generic form, paroxetine -- from

GlaxoSmithKline, legal cases and emails from nearly 1,400 patients who

responded to a British TV program on antidepressants. The researchers

found that 60 out of 9,219 people taking Paxil -- 0.65 percent --

experienced a " hostility event, " compared to 20 out of 6,455 patients

taking placebo, or 0.31 percent.

In that same article, published in September, 2006, I stated, " This

finding helps explain why school shootings are almost always conducted

by children who are taking antidepressants. We also know that SSRIs

cause children to disconnect from reality. When you combine that with a

propensity for violence, you create a dangerous recipe for school

shootings and other adolescent violence. "

Sadly, that explanation rings true once again with the Virginia Tech

shooting. Wherever we see school violence, antidepressant drugs seem to

found at the scene of the crime. The correlation is not coincidence.

There is a causal link between the two.

The links between antidepressants and violence are well documented

A study published in the Public Library of Science Medicine (an open

source medical journal) explored these same links in detail. (See

Antidepressants and Violence: Problems at the Interface of Medicine and

Law, by David Healy, Andrew Herxheimer, David B. Menkes

<http://medicine.plosjournals.org/perlserv/?request=get-document & doi=10.\

1371%2Fjournal.pmed.0030372> )

The authors note that " Some regulators, such as the Canadian regulators,

have also referred to risks of treatment-induced activation leading to

both self-harm and harm to others " and the " United States labels for all

antidepressants as of August 2004 note that 'anxiety, agitation, panic

attacks, insomnia, irritability, hostility, aggressiveness, impulsivity,

akathisia (psychomotor restlessness), hypomania, and mania have been

reported in adult and pediatric patients being treated with

antidepressants for major depressive disorder as well as for other

indications, both psychiatric and nonpsychiatric' " .

In other words, the link between antidepressants and violence has been

known for years by the very people manufacturing, marketing or

prescribing the drugs. As the author of the study mentioned above

concluded, " The new issues highlighted by these cases need urgent

examination jointly by jurists and psychiatrists in all countries where

antidepressants are widely used. "

That was last year, well before this latest shooting. The warning signs

were there, and they've been visible for a long time. Medical

authorities can hardly say they are " shocked " by this violent behavior.

After all, the same pattern of violence among antidepressant takers has

been observed, documented and published in numerous previous cases.

How to stop the violence

Following this recent episode of violence, some Americans are renewing

calls for gun control. But I ask, isn't it time we looked at

antidepressants control? Why do we continue to drug up young people in

this country with psychotropic drugs that we know are closely associated

with violent outbursts?

Giving young men antidepressant drugs is, in my opinion, just like

building silent timebombs and waiting around for one to suddenly go off.

Chemically assaulting these young, troubled brains with powerful drugs

-- while denying them real mental health solutions based on nutrition --

is the bread and butter of modern psychiatry, an industry that in my

opinion has sold its soul to drug companies and now serves primarily as

a glorified system of legalized drug dealers that preys upon children

and teenagers.

That doesn't mean the doctor or psychiatrist who prescribed the

antidepressants is directly responsible for the violence committed by

Cho Seung Hui, but they may have very well played a key role in

destabilizing the mind of a young man who was on the verge of insanity.

You don't give another shot of whisky to a drunk driver, and you

shouldn't prescribe antidepressants to troubled young men. Especially

when there are weapons lying around.

<http://www.newstarget.com/020279.html>

(Click the cartoon for the full-sized version.)

How many more Americans will be killed by pharmaceuticals?

FDA-approved prescription drugs kill 100,000 Americans each year. Sadly,

these 32 dead students at Virginia Tech now join the list of those

killed by pharmaecutical side effects. And yet nobody in the mainstream

media seems to be reporting about the drugs.

Don't you find it curious that when 100,000+ Americans are killed in

their homes and beds each year, dying from heart attacks and strokes

caused by pharmaceuticals, there's virtually no news coverage, but when

mind-altering drugs cause a student to pick up guns and blow away 32

classmates, it's suddenly front-page news everywhere? The reason is

because there's violence involved, and violence gets ratings for news

organizations.

Another interesting point in all this is that a Korean diplomat

contacted the Bush Administration to offer his condolences. Does this

seem a bit strange to anyone else? The student was an American citizen,

and he had lived in America for many years. In fact, he got put on

antidepressant drugs in America, following the same fraudulent system of

medicine that is uniquely American in the degree of harm it causes

people. If anybody should be picking up the phone and apologizing, it's

the U.S. diplomats who should be apologizing to the world for exporting

death, disease and western medicine. Drug companies should be

apologizing to the families of those who died, as well as to the family

of the shooter. And the doctor or psychiatrist who prescribed these

drugs to Cho Seung should be apologizing to everybody. Where is the

apology from the drug companies who manufacture these chemicals that

kill?

The question I'm asking is: Who's really at fault here? Sure, it's

primarily the person who pulled the trigger. But it's also the companies

and FDA regulators who allowed dangerous, violence-inducing chemicals to

be prescribed to the person who pulled the trigger. " Chemically-induced

violence, " I call it. And antidepressant drugs make it so much easier

for the shooter because they make people feel dissociated from reality.

One of the Colombine shooters said it was all, " like a video game. "

Or, as described in shocking detail in the PLoS Medicine study mentioned

above, a 12 year old boy was being drugged with antidepressants when the

following took place. As reported: (emphasis added)

The independent forensic report on the case notes CP as saying that that

night: " something told me to shoot them " . He had initially reported this

to be hallucinations and then said he thought it was his own thoughts.

When asked to specifically describe what the experience was like, he

said it was " like echoes in my head saying 'kill, kill', like someone

shouting in a cave " . According to the forensic report, " He reported this

began happening after he went to bed…He reported he had never

considered harming his grandparents before and this was unlike anything

he had previously experienced. He reported that the voices were coming

from inside his head and they bothered him so much that he got up. He

reported that the voices continued until he killed his grandparents. He

reported that he couldn't control himself and reported the echoes

stopped after he shot his grandparents. He set fire to the house but

could not explain these actions saying the thoughts just popped up " . He

then took a vehicle and began driving but reported that he had no idea

where he was going and that it all felt like a dream. He recalled asking

the police about his grandparents after he was picked up because he was

not sure if it had really happened or not.

My heart goes out to those who died... ALL of them

Yes, I mourn the dead. Do not mistake my skeptical thinking with a lack

of compassion for those individuals and families traumatized by this

event. But unlike most tabloid reporters, I don't end my story with the

32 dead at Virginia Tech. I mourn the 100,000 Americans killed every

year by FDA-approved prescription drugs, and the millions more killed

all around the world by pharmaceuticals, regardless of whether they were

killed in a headline-grabbing act of extreme violence. And unless we

restrict the use of antidepressant drugs and find a way to help young

men achieve genuine mental health through nutrition, sunlight, and

avoidance of toxic chemicals, mark my words: We will see more

antidepressant-induced violence in America.

The shootings will not stop until the pills are banned.

You can bank on it. The next attempted shooting is likely only days or

weeks away.

If we want to end this violence, we must end the chemical warfare being

waged against the minds of our young men and children by the drug

companies.

Study summary:

Here's the summary of the study, mentioned above, published in PLoS

Medicine:

Recent regulatory warnings about adverse behavioural effects of

antidepressants in susceptible individuals have raised the profile of

these issues with clinicians, patients, and the public. We review

available clinical trial data on paroxetine and sertraline and

pharmacovigilance studies of paroxetine and fluoxetine, and outline a

series of medico-legal cases involving antidepressants and violence.

Both clinical trial and pharmacovigilance data point to possible links

between these drugs and violent behaviours. The legal cases outlined

returned a variety of verdicts that may in part have stemmed from

different judicial processes. Many jurisdictions appear not to have

considered the possibility that a prescription drug may induce violence.

The association of antidepressant treatment with aggression and violence

reported here calls for more clinical trial and epidemiological data to

be made available and for good clinical descriptions of the adverse

outcomes of treatment. Legal systems are likely to continue to be faced

with cases of violence associated with the use of psychotropic drugs,

and it may fall to the courts to demand access to currently unavailable

data. The problem is international and calls for an international

response.

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April 19, 2007

Hi,

I wonder if he had had been perscribed antidepressants and like many people

stopped taking them without realizing the impact it could cause. This could

also make a person go to an extreme. I will speak for myself when i've

become my own doctor and decided i would take my meds ONLY at my own

convenience. For 30 years i played with my medication only to tell you the

results are very damaging. I now work at listening to what the doc may say.

I stopped playing with the medication since withdrawals have taken a toll

on me. I was NOT the person i knew coming off of them on my own. This is

serious stuff when i decide to take them " when i feel like taking them " and

not as perscribed. Nurses had to chase me around the hospital in order to

give me my meds. I would hide on them cause i didn't want to take pills and

still don't but at least i now know the danger signs if i don't. I am also

tired of telling my doctor this med and that med doesn't work for me when i

didn't even give it a try. This is a really touchy situation and i don't

think a person should just blame it all on the medication. I'm not saying

meds are not to blame here, just to look at the overall picture. We don't

know what he was on and if it were or were not working for him. We don't

know if he were perscribled meds and just didn't bother taking them at all.

I hope not to offend anyone. I just know not taking my meds create havoc

with my body. There still are no excuses for his actions. If he weren't on

meds, maybe he should have been. Who knows for sure... Again, this is

only my opinion....a damn if you do - damn if you don't opinion.

My prayers go out to all family and friends of the victims. I am so sorry

this happened.

hugs,

C

----Original Message Follows----

" dontae980 " <dontae980

Are antidepressant drugs an accomplice in the

Virginia Tech shootings? (opinion)

Wed, 18 Apr 2007 14:36:12 -0000