CCHR International » Fort Hood

12-year old’s suicide while on antidepressant highlights alarming rise in psychiatric drugging of military kids

admin — Mon, 03 Jan 2011 20:09:17 +0000

Click image to watch video: Psychiatric Drug Side Effects

Note from CCHR: This article highlights the self-harm and suicide of a 5th grade boy who was prescribed an antidepressant by a psychiatrist at Fort Hood’s Darnall Army Medical Center. More than 30 international drug regulatory agencies and studies have documented that antidepressants (and other psychiatric drugs) can cause self-harm (such as cutting) and suicide in under 18-year-olds. Click here for international warnings/studies http://www.cchrint.org/psychdrugdangers/ Also see this video, Psychiatric Drug Side Effects

The Army Times – Jan 3, 2011

by Karen Jowers and Andrew Tilghman

Prescriptions increase as families struggle with repeated deployments

Before his father deployed to Iraq, Daniel Radenz was a well-adjusted fifth-grader earning straight A’s and B’s in school near Fort Hood, Texas.

But shortly after Army Lt. Col. Blaine Radenz left home in June 2008, his 11-year-old son became withdrawn and anxious. His grades at school slipped and his mother noticed mood swings. The child’s longtime pediatrician referred him for counseling.

A psychiatrist at Fort Hood’s Darnall Army Medical Center prescribed the antidepressant Celexa. Daniel also saw a psychologist there. Doctors added to and changed Daniel’s drug regimen, but his problems grew worse, said his mother, Tricia Radenz.

Daniel started cutting himself and once used his own blood to write “the end” on a bathroom wall at school. One day in band class, he began hallucinating and ran into the hall, where teachers found him crouched and hitting and scratching his face.

On June 9, 2009, Daniel hanged himself from a bunk bed in his home.

“I really feel the drugs played a significant role in Daniel’s death,” said Tricia Radenz, a 41-year-old emergency-room nurse.

It’s impossible to know precisely why a 12-year-old chose to take his own life. But the boy’s problems — and the use of powerful psychiatric drugs to treat them — highlight a concern for a growing number of military families who are struggling with the impact of long, frequent deployments on their children left at home.

The use of psychiatric medications by military children is on the rise. Overall, in 2009, more than 300,000 prescriptions for psychiatric drugs were provided to children under 18 who are Tricare beneficiaries.

That’s up 18 percent since 2005, according to data provided to Military Times — a period when the under-18 population increased by less than 1 percent. And some drug categories have shown even higher rates of increase — antipsychotic drugs are up about 50 percent and anti-anxiety drugs are up about 40 percent.

That mirrors a similar trend in the active-duty force, which has seen a 76 percent increase in prescriptions for psychiatric medications since the start of the war in Afghanistan.

Dr. Patricia Lester, a psychiatrist at University of California, Los Angeles, said the rise in drug use among children tracks with studies she and others have done showing how repeated deployments are taking a toll on military kids.

“There is a consistent story coming out showing that these kids have more distress,” Lester said. “And it’s not just the period of deployment. It appears to be during re-integration as well.”

Two studies link parents’ deployments to their children’s lower academic achievement scores, and to increased mental and behavioral health problems.

In one study, Rand Corp. researchers matched soldiers’ records with children’s academic achievement records and found lower scores among military children whose parents were cumulatively deployed for 19 months or more since 2001.

In the mental health study, led by a professor of pediatrics at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, researchers found that when a parent was deployed, outpatient visits among children ages 3 to 8 for pediatric behavioral disorders rose 18 percent, and for stress disorders by 19 percent, compared with military children whose parents were not deployed.

Prescription psychiatric drugs can help treat some of those behavioral disorders. But many of those drugs come with potential side effects, Lester said.

“Whenever one is prescribing medication, there is a risk-benefit analysis that has to occur, and the parents and patient need to be included in that,” Lester said.

Suicide risks

Tricia Radenz said nobody ever warned her about the suicide risks associated with the drugs her son was taking.

“The psychiatrist never once told me Celexa was a risk. He said he’d had great success with this drug,” Radenz said in an interview.

“Any antidepressant carries the warning, but I didn’t find out the seriousness until after he died,” she said.

Celexa, along with Wellbutrin, which Daniel was also taking at the time of his death, carry “black box” warnings from the Food and Drug Administration — the FDA’s most serious warning — about increased risks for suicidal thoughts and behavior.

Moreover, neither drug is recommended for children, although doctors may legally prescribe them after determining that they may benefit individual patients.

Experts say any medication should be matched with intensive therapy or counseling as a way to monitor for side effects and treat underlying problems that drugs cannot address.

Radenz said Daniel saw the psychologist and psychiatrist once or twice a month. She said the psychiatry department didn’t respond to her pleas for help when she called after Daniel had cut himself at school and used his blood to write on the bathroom wall.

The mother left a phone message with the psychiatry department, with details about what had happened, asking that someone call back for an appointment. Nobody returned her call, she said.

“I was essentially staying with him 24/7,” Radenz said. “I was outside the bathroom if he was in there. He was sleeping with me.”

She said that after she was unable to get help from the child psychiatry department, she e-mailed her husband in desperation, and he came home from Iraq on emergency leave May 25.

Daniel was thrilled to see his father. For days as the family spent time together, Radenz said, Daniel laughed and joked and said many times: “I’m so glad Dad is home.”

Daniel’s father went to the local clinic and asked why his wife’s phone calls had not been returned, even by June 1. He told them he was on emergency leave because of his son’s decline.

The clinic staff apologized, Tricia Radenz said, and explained that no one was checking the answering machine because the staff was overwhelmed.

Her son’s death a week later “was completely preventable, had he received competent care instead of being herded through the system like a piece of cattle at an auction,” she said. “I want someone held accountable, and I don’t want anyone to ever have to go through this again.”

Officials at Darnall Army Medical Center said they conducted an investigation into Daniel’s treatment, but a spokeswoman declined to disclose any of its findings. However, the spokeswoman said, “rest assured that all medical treatment was thoroughly evaluated” and “any lessons learned as a result of that review have been incorporated into our practices here at Fort Hood.”

Tricia Radenz knows nothing can bring her son back.

“But why can’t they say they were wrong? That they’ve made changes? All I want is to know they’ve corrected their process that cost me my son.

“No other family should ever have to endure the agony my family suffers daily. My husband made more than the ‘ultimate sacrifice’ … he sacrificed his son to serve.”

Read the rest of the article here: http://www.armytimes.com/news/2011/01/military-children-taking-more-psychiatric-drugs-010211w/

« Return to news items

News Feed

Johnny Got His Pills

admin — Wed, 27 Oct 2010 17:49:12 +0000

SF Weekly, October 27, 2010

by E.R. BILLS

After U.S. Army Sgt. Douglas Hale, Jr. finished 15 months in Iraq for his second combat tour, it was obvious that things in his life were awry. In 2007, he was diagnosed with severe depression and post-traumatic stress disorder. He began drinking heavily, and his marriage fell apart. In early 2009, Hale abandoned his post at Fort Hood. Last May, he was arrested for being absent without leave and returned to Fort Hood. Before the month was out, he tried to kill himself.

The Army sent Hale for treatment at a psychiatric hospital in Denton, and it seemed to help. He spent the Fourthof July weekend with his mother, and she drove him back to Fort Hood the next day. On July 6, his mother received a text message from him that said, “I love you mom im so sorry I hope u and family and god can forgive me.” She immediately contacted Army officials at Fort Hood and started driving back. But Hale had already shot himself in the head.

Army officials are reportedly searching for solutions regarding the suicides of soldiers like Hale, but they’re not looking real hard. The answers are right under their noses.

War is hell under any circumstances. But in the case of Americans serving these days in the Middle East, it’s worse than that — it’s a planned, coordinated societal psychosis.

If you plop a normal, all-American boy or girl down in a psychotic situation for months and years at a time, tour after extended tour, psychosis or extreme disturbance is not an abnormal response. And it can lead to suicide. Especially when the nation that sent these men and women into harm’s way still hasn’t clearly justified why this madness was necessary.

I read an Associated Press story the other day that suggested that one of Big Pharma’s wonder drugs was killing American GIs. It said that many of the soldiers serving in and returning home from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq were taking a drug called Seroquel to help them deal with chronic restlessness, severe insomnia, and constant nightmares. If I were a soldier it might have made me laugh.

Seroquel, according to the story, is a “potent antipsychotic.” Instead of reducing combat tours to reasonable timeframes, limiting the number of tours a soldier has to endure, or simply removing unstable soldiers from these ill-conceived wars indefinitely, the U.S. military is apparently using our men and women in uniform as guinea pigs for a soldier’s-little-helper pill that will supposedly desensitize them to the insanity around them.

It doesn’t cure the psychosis. It simply allows unstable soldiers to function within the insanity without being terribly bothered by it. And when you combine Seroquel with antidepressants and anti-anxiety drugs — something military officials suggest is an acceptable “standard of care” for soldiers or veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder — it’s not surprising if they walk around in a cognitive fog.

In this regard, isn’t the military’s attempt to pharmaceutically abridge the humanity of our soldiers plainly evil? If you have to give someone a potent anti-psychotic to help them deal with what they’re doing or what they’ve done for you or God or country, then there’s obviously something wrong with what you’re asking them to do. It reminds me of perhaps the grimmest excerpt from Erich Maria Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front: “We were eighteen and had begun to love life and the world; and we had to shoot it to pieces. The first bomb, the first explosion, burst in our hearts.”

Oh, and did I mention Seroquel is more than just one of the military’s most frequently prescribed drugs? It’s also the fifth best-selling drug in the nation. So if our psychotic naiveté and ignorance ever start to really get to us, we can always knock them back with our own dose of a brain-fuddling stupefacient. In fact, we’ve already been at it.

In 2008, American emergency rooms treated a million people for abusing prescription drugs and over-the-counter medicines, roughly the same number of folks our ERs treated for heroin and cocaine overdoses or abuses of other illegal drugs — and this number doesn’t even factor in alcohol.

We’re taking the edge off our insanity any way we can. The only war more stupid and psychotic than the one in Iraq was the one on drugs. But it’s been going on so long that its mention no longer even penetrates our daze.

The military-pharmaceutical complex is making a killing or, more specifically, making a fortune off the folks we’ve asked to do the killing — and off the rest of us. They dope our unruly kids, they dope the young men and women fighting in and returning home from the war, and they dope the rest of us right here at home for being sick of wars overseas and fearful of war on the middle and lower classes and dreading the reckonings to come and being ashamed of our own sad national shadow.

And the treatment is working. Thank God we’re more susceptible to psychotropic manipulation than Sgt. Hale was.

http://www.fwweekly.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=4294:johnny-got-his-pills&catid=3:second-thought&Itemid=374

« Return to news items

News Feed

Army psychiatrists who supervised psychiatrist/Fort Hood shooter Nidal Hasan face charges for failing to take action

cchrint — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 17:32:59 +0000

NPR
By Daniel Zwerdling
January 21, 2010

The Army has told some of the psychiatrists who supervised Fort Hood shooting suspect Nidal Hasan that it’s investigating them — and they could face punishments from letters of reprimand to court martial.

The Army said it’s going to decide if the doctors at Walter Reed “failed to take appropriate action” against Hasan and were “derelict” in their duties.

Evidence shows a lot of doctors were worried about Hasan — some for years. Evidence also shows that only one supervisor, Scott Moran, actively tried to kick Hasan out of the psychiatry program. Now sources involved in the investigation say Moran is one of the officers who’s in big trouble. Moran wouldn’t comment, but the sources say the supervisors under investigation are fairly low level officers like Moran, who is a major.

“They’re attacking the wrong target,” says Gary Myers, a lawyer who’s representing Col. Charles Engel, another psychiatrist whom Myers says is under investigation.

Engel was Hasan’s main supervisor in the fellowship program at the military’s medical school, the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences. Myers says the Army is trying to find scapegoats and that everybody knows officials in the nation’s intelligence agencies bear at least some responsibility for what happened at Fort Hood.

Read entire article: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=122778372

« Return to news items

News Feed

Duty to Warn: The Fort Hood Murders/Suicide and the Taboo Question – Were brain & behavior-altering drugs involved?

cchrint — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 02:42:27 +0000

Gary G. Kohls, MD
Baltimore Chronicle & Sentinel
November 11, 2009

Most of us have been listening to the massive, round-the-clock press coverage of the latest mass shooting incident at Fort Hood, Texas. Seemingly all the possible root causes of such a horrific act of violence have been raised and discussed. However, there is an elephant in the room, and it’s something that should be obvious in this age of the school shooter pandemic.

We should be outraged at the failure of the investigative journalists, the psychiatric professionals, the medical community and the military spokespersons who seem to be studiously avoiding the major factor that helps to explain these senseless acts. Why would someone unexpectedly, irrationally and randomly shoot up a school, a workplace or, in this case, an army post? Why would someone who used to be known as a seemingly rational person suddenly perpetrate a gruesome, irrational act of violence?

The answer to the question, as demonstrated again and again in so many of such recent acts of “senseless” violence, is brain- and behavior-altering drugs.

Read entire article: http://baltimorechronicle.com/2009/111109Kohls.shtml

« Return to news items

News Feed

Psychiatrist Peter Breggin on the Texas, Fort Hood Shooter “Let’s also see through yet another media smoke screen”

cchrint — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 00:41:52 +0000

Dr. Peter Breggin
The Huffington Post
Nov. 8, 2009

Before I begin to look at his role as a psychiatrist, I want to confirm that Major Nidal Malik Hasan was driven by religious ideology. For years he openly claimed that the War on Terror is a war on Muslims. He announced on the Internet and to his fellow soldiers in a course on public health that a Muslim suicide bomber should be praised for killing a hundred soldiers. It’s reported that fellow soldiers warned his superiors that he was a ticking time bomb.

One wonders how and why the army failed to relieve him from active duty. One ridiculous explanation is that they had a lot invested him–his complete medical and psychiatric training. Much more likely, the army was hamstrung by the political correctness that’s been imposed upon it.

Let’s also see through yet another media smoke screen–that Hasan was more a crazy person than a terrorist. During the American revolution Samuel Adams pointed out that he’d never seen a man commit treason without first losing his moral footing in his personal life. As for being a victim of prejudice, Hasan was instead a provocateur whom the army tried to ignore. Hasan is not only a terrorist, he’s a traitor–a man who turned on his nation; on the army that nurtured, educated and paid him; and on his comrades in arms.

Not Surprised He’s a Psychiatrist
Some in the media have expressed surprise that a man whose profession is about caring would turn to violence. According to one theory, poor Dr. Hasan was driven to the breaking point by the stress of counseling returning soldiers and having to listen to their horrific stories. Totally false. Psychiatrists are no longer trained to listen to or to counsel their patients. Nor do they care to.

I’ve given seminars to the staff at both hospitals where Hasan was trained, Walter Reed in DC and the national military medical center in Bethesda, Maryland. The psychiatrists had no interest in anything except medicating their patients.

Modern psychiatry is not about counseling and empowering people. It’s about controlling and suppressing them, and that’s a dismal affair for patients and doctors alike. The armed forces have been taken in by the false claims of modern psychiatry.

Read entire article: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-peter-breggin/the-fort-hood-shooter-a-d_b_349651.html

« Return to news items

News Feed

“Was Fort Hood Killer On Psychotropic Drugs?” – Media fails to ask if Hasan was on SSRI’s

cchrint — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 19:21:50 +0000

Paul Joseph Watson
Alex Jones’ Prison Planet.com
November 6, 2009

Despite the fact that Fort Hood gunman Nidal Malik Hasan was a psychiatrist, the media has failed to even raise the question of whether he was taking psychotropic drugs before he gunned down over a dozen of his colleagues during yesterday’s tragic rampage, a hefty indictment of how the establishment rushes to blame politics, religion, gun rights, or any other factor for mass shootings in order to hide the direct link between such massacres and the use of anti-depressant drugs.

It has been confirmed that Hasan was an Army psychiatrist at Fort Hood. Psychiatrists have a history of “self-medication” because of the easy access they have to psychotropic drugs.

In almost every major mass shooting over the past two decades, since anti-depressant drugs became popular, the killer has been on SSRI’s – serotonin reuptake inhibitors.

The establishment media, allied closely as it is with the pharmaceutical industry, uniformly fails to stress this common factor, preferring instead to blame shootings on gun rights or, as in the case of Hasan, political motives.

Read entire article: http://www.prisonplanet.com/was-fort-hood-killer-on-psychotropic-drugs.html

« Return to news items

News Feed

Was Fort Hood Psychiatrist/Shooter on drugs that cause homicidal/suicidal reactions? 16% of psychiatrists “self medicate”

cchrint — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 00:43:44 +0000

Richard Balon
Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics
Vol. 76, No. 5, 2007

Abstract

Background: Self-treatment and treatments of friends or relatives is a controversial issue, tolerated by some and discouraged by others, including professionals. The author studied the attitudes toward self-treatment of depression among psychiatrists in Michigan. Method: A questionnaire asking whether the psychiatrist would or did self-treat for depression was mailed to 830 members of the Michigan Psychiatric Society. Results: The response rate was 68.3% (567 psychiatrists). Almost 43% of responders would consider self-medication or would self-medicate if afflicted with mild/moderate depression. Seven percent would self-medicate or consider self-medication for severe depression or if suicidal ideation became a component of one’s depression. In the past, 15.7% responders treated themselves for depression. Conclusion: These results suggest that a considerable number of psychiatrists would treat themselves for depression, possibly because of fear of stigma or fear of a permanent record, or other reasons.

Click here for article

« Return to news items

News Feed

Fort Hood Texas Shooter was Army Psychiatrist

cchrint — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 00:19:37 +0000

Adam Arnold
Sky News
November 5, 2009

At least 12 people have been shot dead and 31 others wounded after a US soldier went on the rampage at a military base in Texas.

The suspect, named as Major Malik Nadal Hasan, was killed on site after opening fire at the massive Fort Hood complex in Killeen.

Major Hasan, who was armed with two handguns, was thought to be in his late 30s and was an army psychiatrist.

He was due to be sent to Iraq soon but had aired grievances about the planned deployment, Texas Senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson told CNN.

Two other soldiers are being held as suspects following the mass shooting.

It took place at the Soldier Readiness Centre, where troops preparing for overseas deployment were getting last-minute medical checkups.

The two suspects were detained at a nearby building on the base.

Read entire article

Shootings took place at Soldier Readiness Centre. See this: http://www.crdamc.amedd.army.mil/default.asp?page=behavh

« Return to news items

News Feed

CCHR International » Fort Hood

12-year old’s suicide while on antidepressant highlights alarming rise in psychiatric drugging of military kids

Suicide risks

Related Posts

Johnny Got His Pills

Related Posts

Army psychiatrists who supervised psychiatrist/Fort Hood shooter Nidal Hasan face charges for failing to take action

Related Posts

Duty to Warn: The Fort Hood Murders/Suicide and the Taboo Question – Were brain & behavior-altering drugs involved?

Related Posts

Psychiatrist Peter Breggin on the Texas, Fort Hood Shooter “Let’s also see through yet another media smoke screen”

Related Posts

“Was Fort Hood Killer On Psychotropic Drugs?” – Media fails to ask if Hasan was on SSRI’s

Related Posts

Was Fort Hood Psychiatrist/Shooter on drugs that cause homicidal/suicidal reactions? 16% of psychiatrists “self medicate”

Related Posts

Fort Hood Texas Shooter was Army Psychiatrist

Related Posts