Posts Tagged ‘prozac’

« Older Entries

Prozac is now a defense for murder, writes Australian Member of Parliament Martin Whitely

Wednesday, December 21st, 2011

For the first time in criminal history, a murder was attributed to an anti-depressant drug. (Photo Credit -The Daily Telegraph)

Perth Now – December 21, 2011

FIRST it was ADHD drugs, then organ donation, now WA Labor MP Martin Whitely is hoping to get some action on the fatal risks of antidepressant drugs, such as Prozac, to children.

Anti-depressant manufacturers warn that products such as Prozac should not be given to children, because of the potentially tragic consequences, but they are prescribed every day to Australian kids.

Some anti-depressants, prescribed to help lift people out of a depressive state, actually have the opposite effect and make things worse.

This is what happened, with fatal results, in the case of a 16-year-old boy in Canada who stabbed a friend to death.

For the first time in criminal history, a murder was attributed to an anti-depressant drug.

In the finding, handed down on the 16th of September 2011, a Canadian Judge said a 16-year-old boy, who stabbed his brother’s friend in the stomach, would not have committed the offence had he not been treated with the drug Prozac (a brand of Fluoxetine).

The judge accepted the evidence of psychiatrist, Dr Peter Breggin, who told the court the boy’s symptoms were consistent with a Prozac-Induced Mood Disorder with Manic Features.

In delivering his decision the judge stated, “his basic normalcy now further confirms he no longer poses a risk of violence to anyone and that his mental deterioration and resulting violence would not have taken place without exposure to Prozac”.

The boy, who had no history of violence, had been taking Prozac for three months, during which his parents observed a marked deterioration in his behaviour and mood, which included acts of violence and self-harm where previously no such signs existed.

His alarmed parents returned to his doctor for advice, but instead of taking him off Prozac or reducing his dosage, his doctor increased the dose, obviously believing more of what appeared to be causing these dangerous behaviours, would solve the problem.

Fluoxetine is a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) and is approved for use in Australia for the treatment of depression, obsessive compulsive disorder and premenstrual dysphoric disorder.

However, it is routinely prescribed ‘off label’ for a range of other conditions including panic and eating disorders.

Australian Government Department of Health and Ageing figures revealed that in the 2008 financial year, 110,848 Australians received Fluoxetine scripts that were subsidised via the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme.

Concerns about possible aggression and manic side effects of Prozac were first raised in Australia in the New South Wales parliament in 1995, just five years after the release of the drug in Australia.

Since 2007, the US Food and Drug Administration has labelled SSRI antidepressants including Prozac with the highest possible ‘black box’ warning stating:

“All patients being treated with antidepressants for any indication should be monitored appropriately and observed closely for clinical worsening, suicidality, and unusual changes in behavior, especially during the initial few months of a course of drug therapy, or at times of dose changes, either increases or decreases. The following symptoms, 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 non-psychiatric.”

The US Black Box warning was followed by similar warnings in Australia. The evidence that led to these warnings came from, ‘pooled analyses of short-term placebo-controlled trials of anti-depressant drugs (SSRIs and others)’ which ‘showed that these drugs increase the risk of suicidal thinking and behavior (suicidality) in children, adolescents [by 100%], and young adults ages 18-24 (by 50 per cent) with major depressive disorder (MDD) and other psychiatric disorders.’ The fact that SSRI antidepressants like Prozac are supposed to manage severe depression in young people but increase the risk of suicidality poses obvious questions.

Over a 10 year period, up until 30 June 2011, more than 40 adverse events of self-harm and violence, including suicides, homicides and suicidal or homicidal ideation, for Fluoxetine were reported to the Australian Therapeutic Drugs Administration (examples are listed below).

Hundreds of reports were recorded by the TGA for other antidepressants however, it is impossible to know the true number of actual events, as the voluntary nature of the reporting system means only a fraction of actual incidents gets reported.

Despite the fact that the manufacturers advise that Prozac and other SSRI antidepressants are ‘not recommended for use in children and adolescents under 18 years of age’ they are frequently prescribed ‘off label’ to even very young children.

Data provided by the Commonwealth Department of Health revealed that in the 2007-8 financial year 3,752 Australian children 15-years-old or younger (863 were 10 or younger, 117 were six or younger) were prescribed Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme-funded Fluoxetine.

Furthermore all the expense and risks of adverse side effects may be for little or no benefit. The efficacy of antidepressants are being questioned – with some high profile, mainstream critics, arguing that placebos are just as effective and much safer in treating moderate depression.

One such critic, Marcia Angell, MD, Senior Lecturer on Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School and former Editor-in-Chief of The New England Journal of Medicine, contends; ‘that clinical trials have failed to find antidepressants effective at all in mild to moderate depression; that many psychiatric drugs have devastating adverse effects, especially in children and when used long-term; and that despite the risks and uncertain benefits, use of psychiatric drugs is soaring and the heavy reliance on drugs diverts resources better spent on improving treatment’.

In summary, taxpayers are subsidising the ‘off label’ use by children and adolescents of antidepressants, with questionable efficacy, that double their risk of suicidality. This invites some obvious questions: Is this the best way to spend our taxes? And more importantly, is this the best way to help troubled young people?

* A sample from the Adverse Drug Reactions Committee (ADRAC) adverse event reports for Fluoxetine Hydrochloride:

  • A 54 year old woman attempted suicide. She was also suffering from mania and a confusional state.
  • A 36 year old woman “attempted suicide”.
  • A 36 year old woman was admitted to intensive care in a coma following a suicide attempt.
  • A 51 year old woman “had sudden urge to murder someone”.
  • A 37 year old woman was admitted to a psychiatric hospital suffering from “suicidal ideation, nausea, trembling, feelings of despair, anxiety, paranoia and fear”.
  • A 16 year old boy suffering from agitation and auditory hallucinations heard voices “telling him to kill his mother, father, sister and himself”.
  • A 45 year old man “became obsessively suicidal and cut his throat” 3/7 days after Prozac was stopped.
  • A 17 year old girl “became manic half an hour after commencing antidepressant.”
  • A 40 year old patient “experienced trembling, cramps, heard voices and had suicidal ideation.”
  • A patient of unrecorded gender and age experienced “homicidal and suicidal ideation.”
  • A patient of unrecorded gender and age attempted suicide after experiencing suicidal ideation.
  • A 44 year old patient “experienced akathisia, suicidal ideation and suicide attempt.”
  • A patient of unrecorded gender and age experienced “suicidal violence” and “aggression.”
  • A patient of unrecorded gender and age experienced “suicidal ideation.”
  • A patient of unrecorded gender and age experienced “suicidal ideation and “suicide attempt.”
  • A 50 year old patient experienced “suicidal ideation, suicide attempt and akathisia.”
  • A 37 year old patient attempted suicide.
  • A patient of unrecorded gender and age experienced “suicidal ideation and suicide attempt.”
  • A patient of unrecorded gender and age made a suicide attempt and was violent.
  • A 16 year old girl “attempted to hang herself with television cord from curtain rail in hospital bedroom. Nurse said she found her at the last moment.”
  • A 16year old girl “ingested 40 Panadol tablets. Also frequent self-harming.”
  • A 16 year old girl “attempted suicide by ingestion of 80 Panadol, 20 Panadeine, 7 Olanzapine.”
  • A 29 year old patient “developed acute suicidal akathisia” and made a suicide attempt.
  • A 73 year old patient “experienced homicidal ideation and made a suicide attempt.”
  • A 60 year old woman “experienced suicidal ideation, suicide attempt and homicidal ideation – she attempted to kill her parents.”
  • A 69 year old patient “experienced suicidal ideation and was very anxious.”
  • A 16 year old girl attempted to “strangle herself with and IPod cord in the bathroom of the hospital. Agitation. She ran around crying and banging her fists of the walls and windows begging to be let out. … it lasted about 10 minutes before I could settle her.”
  • A patient of unrecorded gender and age “took a fistful of sleeping pills.”
  • A 35 year old patient “murdered his wife whilst on Prozac. He had also experienced suicidal thoughts.”
  • A female patient of unrecorded age “became seriously depressed, complained of headaches, and clenching jaw, was unable to sleep and started to self-harm. She began to have suicidal thoughts, was hyperventilating, agoraphobic, had five suicide attempts, was confused, tearful, phobic, aggressive, experienced akathisia and suspected serotonin syndrome. She experienced weird dreams, was impulsive, light headed, had numbness and tingling limbs and committed suicide by hanging on 11 September 2000 on the second attempt.”
  • A 50 year old woman “became more depressed whilst taking Prozac. She wanted to throw herself off a train or bus, had difficulty sleeping, was pacing and restless, had voice hallucinations, would look in the mirror and see a different person, had murderous thoughts, stiff legs, was hot a lot, felt she was in a delirium, could not concentrate, was angry, had numbness in her hands and pins and needles a lot in her body.”
  • A 19 year old male “had thoughts about killing himself which made him violent, tried to hit someone else, tried to hit a security guard with feelings of killing and tried to do physical damage. Tried to hurt himself and had thoughts of hurting other people. He was walking faster than normal. Experienced aggression, insomnia and was feeling high on Prozac. Also felt anxious and put on more than 20kg.”
  • A male of unreported age “experienced severe depression, cognitive impairment and was acutely suicidal.”
  • A 16 year old girl was “cutting herself, throwing herself against the walls while an inpatient”. She “intentionally overdosed on Fluroxetine” and “developed severe levels of aggression and violence.”
  • A 14 year old boy experienced “suicidal ideation.”
  • A female of unreported age “experienced suicidal ideation”.
  • A 16 year old girl experienced “excessive bleeding, psychosis, high blood pressure, severe diarrhea, sweating, tremors, violent, aggressive and suicidal behavior, serotonin syndrome.”
  • A 14 year old male experienced “severely increased suicidal ideation in two days with high level of intent and plan to jump in front of train. Previously no suicidal ideation and settled spontaneously within four days of ceasing Fluoxetine”.
  • A female patient experienced a “sudden and marked increase in hostility and verbal abuse of others and describes intrusive suicidal ideation. Seems agitated and restless”.
  • A 32 year old woman experienced “audio hallucinations, bright and blurred vision, made everything sound louder, constipation, increased suicidal thoughts and increased anxiety”

http://www.perthnow.com.au/news/western-australia/prozac-is-now-a-defence-for-murder/story-e6frg13u-1226227796937

Note from CCHR International:  CCHR is the only organization to have decrypted the US FDAs Medwatch reports on adverse reactions to psychiatric drugs and compiled them in an easy to search database.    This database is provided here http://www.cchrint.org/psychdrugdangers/medwatch_psych_drug_adverse_reactions.php

CCHR has also compiled all international drug warnings and studies on psychiatric drugs here http://www.cchrint.org/psychdrugdangers/drug_warnings.php

 

« Return to news items

RSS News Feed

Share

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in News | No Comments »

Canadian judge rules antidepressants like Prozac can cause children to commit murder

Monday, December 19th, 2011

NaturalNews – Dec 19, 2011

By Jonathan Benson

11 recent school shooters were under the influence of psychiatric drugs

The use of antidepressant and psychiatric drugs, particularly among children, is an extremely risky activity that could have fatal consequences for both the individuals that use them, as well as their friends and family. According to the National Post, a Canadian judge recently ruled that the extreme mind-altering effects of the antidepressant drug Prozac were in large part responsible for causing a 15-year-old boy to thrust a nine-inch kitchen knife into one of his closest friends.

Though the Winnipeg boy that committed the heinous crime had allegedly abused prescription drugs and “experimented” with cocaine long prior to the incident, he had never had a violent or aggressive personality about him, according to reports. It was only when he began taking Prozac, the very thing doctors had given him as a so-called “solution” to his previous illicit drug problems, that he began to rapidly go off the deep end.

“He had become irritable, restless, agitated, aggressive and unclear in his thinking,” said Justice Robert Heinrichs of the Manitoba Justice Department, who ruled on the case. “It was while in that state he overreacted in an impulsive, explosive and violent way. Now that his body and mind are free and clear of any effects of Prozac, he is simply not the same youth in behavior or character.”

What the judge appears to be implying here is that Prozac is directly responsible for altering the brain of a user and causing them to think irrationally, which in turn can cause them to harm themselves or others. In other words, if it were not for the use of this mind-warping drug, the murderer in this case most likely would never have dreamed of slaughtering one of his best friends.

Judge Heinrichs ultimately determined that, because of the drug’s involvement, the boy who murdered his friend would not be tried in an adult court. Even though the boy pleaded guilty to second-degree murder, the judge only added a ten-month sentence on top of the two years that the boy had already spent in jail pending the trial — and there will apparently be no appeal, which is a first in any North American court.

In a similar outcome back in 2001, a Wyoming jury ruled that the antidepressant drug Paxil had caused a man to murder his wife, daughter, and granddaughter, after which he killed himself. And one of the mass-murderers in the infamous Columbine High School shooting, Eric Harris, had allegedly been taking the antidepressant drug Luvox at the time that he participated in the tragedy (http://www.naturalnews.com/019342.html).

« Return to news items

RSS News Feed

Share

Tags: , , , , , , ,
Posted in News | No Comments »

Can Prozac Cause Kids to Kill? A Canadian Judge Has Ruled it Can

Wednesday, December 7th, 2011

Note from CCHR:

(see videos at the bottom of this post from film maker Michael Moore and Fox National News reporter Douglas Kennedy)

It is well documented that psychiatric drugs, particularly antidepressants, can cause a host of violent side effects including mania, psychosis, aggression, violence and in the case of the antidepressant Effexor, homicidal ideation.   As far back as 1991, CCHR helped organize dozens of individuals and experts testifying before the US FDA that people with no prior history of violence (or suicide) became homicidal and suicidal under the influence of antidepressants (see CCHR’s exclusive footage of the 1991 hearings here).  It would take the FDA another 13 years to admit antidepressants could cause suicide and black box warnings were finally issued in 2004.  However, despite all the documented violence-inducing side effects of these drugs, the FDA has never issued black box warnings on antidepressants causing violence or homicide despite the fact that at least 11 recent school shootings were committed by kids documented to be on or in withdrawal from psychiatric drugs (see Fox News special report on school shootings here).   Therefore, the case cited below, where a Canadian judge ruled that a teenage boy murdered his friend due to being on the antidepressant Prozac, and the fact that the case will not be appealed, is a major turning point in exposing the violence inducing effects of antidepressant drugs.  

National Post
By Tom Blackwell
December 7, 2011

JB Reed/Bloomberg News

A Winnipeg judge’s ruling that a teenage boy murdered his friend because of the effects of Prozac will not be appealed, confirming an apparent North American first and reviving debate around the widespread prescription of anti-depressants to young people.

Justice Robert Heinrichs concluded the 15-year-old boy was under the influence of the medication when he thrust a nine-inch kitchen knife into the chest of Seth Ottenbreit, a close friend.

Although the killer pleaded guilty to second-degree murder, the judge cited the drug’s alleged side effects as a reason not to raise the case to adult court, and to mete out a sentence last month of just 10 months – on top of two years already spent in jail.

A spokeswoman for the Manitoba Justice Department said this week prosecutors have decided not to appeal the provincial-court decisions, which were earlier met with outrage from Mr. Ottenbreit’s family and friends.

Both the boy’s lawyer and the psychiatrist who testified on his behalf say it is the first time a criminal-court judge in North America has made such a finding.

Prozac is meant to curb the effects of depression, but Justice Heinrich concluded it set off a steady deterioration in the young murderer’s behaviour.

“He had become irritable, restless, agitated, aggressive and unclear in his thinking,” the judge said. “It was while in that state he overreacted in an impulsive, explosive and violent way. Now that his body and mind are free and clear of any effects of Prozac, he is simply not the same youth in behaviour or character.”

Yet the empirical underpinning of his conclusion, and the pros and cons of young people taking Prozac and other “selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI)” anti-depressants, seem less clear-cut.

Justice Heinrichs relied largely on the expert testimony of Dr. Peter Breggin, a controversial American physician known for his outspoken opposition to the use of virtually any psychiatric drug. Some other experts say scientific evidence of a link between the latest anti-depressants and homicide is thin.

“I think it got pulled out of a hat, frankly,” said Dr. Umesh Jain, a child and adolescent psychiatrist at Toronto’s Centre for Addiction and Mental health. “You could construct a weak and biologically plausible effect, but you’d have to be pretty convincing in court.”

Studies have established such drugs can increase the risk of young patients having suicidal thoughts. Their tendency to lift inhibition could also release some hostility or violence lurking in a person’s character, said Dr. Jain. Small studies like one he co-authored in 1992 have also suggested that the drugs can trigger short-term mania, especially in bi-polar disorder patients.

There is little or no scientific evidence directly linking the anti-depressants and serious violence or homicide, though, he said.

Still, the official “product monograph” approved by Health Canada for Prozac says the drugs are not recommended for use on adolescents, and warns that agitation, hostility and aggression might ensue. Doctors are allowed to prescribe medications “off label” to patients even when the approval does not expressly permit it.

Specialists in Winnipeg responded to concerns voiced by the accused’s parents by actually increasing the dose, said Greg Brodsky, the teenager’s lawyer.

“On Prozac he was becoming more irrational and aggressive,” Mr. Brodsky said. “That should have been a warning. That warning wasn’t heeded.”

SSRI drugs have a contentious track record. They were hailed originally as a safe alternative to older anti-depressants, then clinical-trial results came to light in 2004 that suggested they increased the risk of children and adolescents having suicidal thoughts.

Other studies have indicated they are effective in patients with major depression, but little better than a placebo for mild to moderate cases.

The Winnipeg murderer had a history of smoking marijuana, had abused prescription drugs and “experimented” with cocaine, but was trying to break free of that background when a family doctor prescribed Prozac for depression in July, 2009.

On Sept. 20, the accused met with Mr. Ottenbreit and another friend at his house, after the two friends had earlier stormed into his home, allegedly damaging the floor. The killer and Mr. Ottenbreit shared a cigarette, before the accused pulled aside a sweater on the floor of his garage, revealing the knife. He picked it up, “got this weird look on his face,” then abruptly stabbed his friend, the other boy told police.

“They were in my house, they dented the floor, I had nothing else to do but to stab him,” he told police later.

Dr. Keith Hildahl, clinical head of Winnipeg’s Child and Adolescent Mental Health program, testified that the Prozac might have played a role, but concluded on balance that his behaviour that summer was largely a result of the tense relationship he had with his parents.

Dr. Breggin, who has testified in a number of U.S. cases where anti-depressants allegedly led to murder or other violence and reviewed the Winnipeg case, pointed the finger of blame at the medication.

“These drugs produce a stimulant or activation continuum,” he said in an interview. “That continuum includes aggression, hostility, loss of impulse control … all of which are a prescription for violence.”

Dr. Breggin’s long-standing criticism of psychiatric drugs and opposition to the view that psychiatric problems have biochemical roots have prompted some supporters to call him the “conscience” of the speciality, and some psychiatrists and patient advocates to condemn him as a harmful influence.

Read article here:  http://news.nationalpost.com/2011/12/07/prozac-defence-stands-in-manitoba-teens-murder-case/

See Michael Moore discuss the need for an investigation into psychiatric drugs causing violence:

See Fox National News on School Shootings and Psychiatric Drugs:

To read international warnings and studies on psychiatric drugs causing violence – visit CCHRInt’s Psychiatric Drug database and simply type in keywords such as violence, mania, psychosis, aggression in the red search box

« Return to news items

RSS News Feed

Share

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in News | 2 Comments »

America’s ‘startling’ use of mental-illness drugs: By the Numbers, A Nation of Pill-Poppers

Friday, November 18th, 2011

Note from CCHR: They’re now “trying to figure out” why so many Americans are taking drugs for “mental illness,” but the answer is ridiculously simple: because people are being diagnosed mentally ill for a multitude of behaviors or emotions that have been pathologized into a “disease” by psychiatry & promoted by Big Pharma.  Being sad, anxious, too happy, too sad, in grief,  having to much energy, too little energy, fidgeting, being shy, having too much sex, too little sex, eating too much, eating too little…the list goes on and on.  And that is the reason.  Because there are 374 ways to label you mentally ill… and the number is growing.

THE WEEK – November 18, 2011

A pharmacist counts and divides Prozac prescription pills: 29 percent more women are using antidepressants now than ten years ago. Photo: Paul Skelcher - Rainbow/Science Faction/Corbis

Americans are taking a “startling” amount of mental-health related medications, according to a big new study by Medco Health Solutions. More than 1 in 5 Americans now takes at least one drug to treat a psychological disorder, ranging from antidepressants like Prozac to anti-anxiety drugs like Xanax. Understanding why Americans are taking more pills to treat mental illness “is the next critical goal,” says Dr. Martha Sanjatovic in a statement released by Medco. Here’s a look this growing trend, by the numbers:

2.5 million
The number of Americans surveyed for prescription drug use from 2001 to 2010

1/5
One out of every five U.S. adults takes drugs to treat some type of mental health condition

22
Percent increase in the number of U.S. adults taking mental health drugs in 2010 compared to 2001

29
Percent increase in the number of women using antidepressants in 2010 compared to 2001

1/5
Proportion of women over the age of 20 who are prescribed antidepressants, like Zoloft and Lexapro

11
Percent of middle-aged women using anti-anxiety medications

5.7
Percent of middle-aged men using anti-anxiety medications

3
Number of people ages 20 to 44 using antipsychotic drugs (like Resperadol) and ADHD medications (like Ritalin) in 2010 for every one person who used them in 2001

100
Percent increase in the number of  children under age 10 taking antipsychotic medications

40
Percent increase in the number of girls being prescribed ADHD medications

23
Percent of people in the “diabetes belt” states of Tennessee, Kentucky, Mississippi, and Alabama who are on at least one psychiatric drug, according to the AP

Sources: Associated Press, Daily Beast, Huffington Post, LA Times

http://theweek.com/article/index/221575/americas-startling-use-of-mental-illness-drugs-by-the-numbers

« Return to news items

RSS News Feed

Share

Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in News | 1 Comment »

With growing public awareness of antidepressant risks: Pro-pill website Web MD does damage control

Monday, October 24th, 2011

OpEdNews – October 24, 2011

by Martha Rosenberg

WebMD, the gigantic, pro-pill web site whose original partner was Eli Lilly, is doing damage control for SSRI antidepressants.

There was a day when it seemed like everyone was on antidepressant “happy pills” like Prozac, Paxil and Zoloft. But then the pendulum began to swing. Patients objected to the weight gain and feelings of not being “themselves,” sexual side effects and the withdrawal symptoms. There were even reports and warnings about suicide and other “neuropsychiatric” effects.

Now, WebMD, the gigantic, pro-pill web site whose original partner was Eli Lilly, is doing damage control for SSRI antidepressants. New articles, sounding like they’re from crib makers or cantaloupe growers, urge patients not to panic or quit taking their pills just because of things they read.

Don’t believe all the hooey about antidepressants turning “you into a zombie,” ruining your sex life or costing too much, says an article called Fears and Facts About Antidepressants on WedMD. And don’t be impatient!   “ If the first antidepressant medication doesn’t help, the second or third often will . Most people eventually find one that works for them.” Ka-ching.   Don’t listen to all that suicide talk either!   “Switching to a different antidepressant may help,” say the damage control articles.

Is your fear of becoming a drug lifer keeping you from antidepressants, asks another WebMD article called What’s Stopping You from Seeing a Doctor About Depression? “If you do need a medication, it most likely won’t be for life,” says the article. Just until the patent runs out?

Do you think you can ignore your depression and it will go away?   “Waiting for depression to simply pass can be harmful,” because “depression that goes untreated may become more severe,” say the WebMD articles–rewriting medical practice itself since depression has never been a progressive disease but is actually self limiting.

The important thing, say the articles, is to never stop your meds. “Stopping medication abruptly may.. cause depression to return,” and can cause side effects, say the articles. Worse–”prescription abandonment”–people who discover what a drug costs and leave it at the pharmacy or quit drugs because of their effects– costs Pharma lots of money! Pharma even has programs now that send Big Brother nurses to people’s homes, through their pharmacies, to make sure people are taking their meds.

 One antidepressant with a big PR problem is Eli Lilly’s Cymbalta. It’s linked to the deaths of   Traci Johnson, a healthy 19-year-old who hung herself on the Lilly campus during clinical trials in 2004, and Carol Anne Gotbaum, daughter-in-law of former New York City Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum who died in police custody at Phoenix’s Sky Harbor airport in 2007.

Cymbalta is noted in the scientific literature for producing suicidal side effects in people with no mental health history. A 37-year-old man described in the Journal of Clinical Psychopharmacology with a stable marriage and employment and no history of mental problems tried to kill himself with carbon monoxide two months after taking Cymbalta for back pain. A 63-year-old man, also with no mental health history, became suicidal on the drug after two weeks.

“There is an emergence of suicidality in apparently nonsuicidal patients after starting or increasing Duloxetine [Cymbalta] reads an article in Clinical Practice and Epidemiology in Mental Health.”

But now, Cymbalta is being promoted as a pain drug of choice like it’s not a repurposed antidepressant with antidepressant side effects. Last year it was approved for chronic musculoskeletal pain, including discomfort from osteoarthritis and chronic lower back pain, and it was already approved for fibromyalgia and diabetic nerve pain.

A Cymbalta ad in October’s New England Journal of Medicine , says “Today a non-NSAID [non- aspirin or ibuprofen] non-narcotic, once daily analgesic FDA approved for 3 indications across 4 different chronic pain conditions can be found in 1 med.” Sounds as safe Vioxx.

http://www.opednews.com/articles/Should-You-Take-A-Psychiat-by-Martha-Rosenberg-111023-164.html

Martha Rosenberg’s first book , Born With A Junk Food Deficiency: How Flaks, Quacks and Hacks Pimp The Public Health, will be published by Prometheus Books in 2012.

« Return to news items

RSS News Feed

Share

Tags: , , , , , , , ,
Posted in News | 1 Comment »

Judge Agrees Prozac Turned Teen into Murderer

Monday, October 3rd, 2011

Antidepressant Caused a Stimulant-like Syndrome Leading to Manic-like Behavior, Suicidality and Violence

PR Newswire—October 3, 2011

Judge Robert Heinrich listened to expert psychiatric testimony for the defense by Peter Breggin, MD and issued his opinion regarding the sixteen-year-old who stabbed his friend to death.

The judge stated, “His basic normalcy now further confirms he no longer poses a risk of violence to anyone and that his mental deterioration and resulting violence would not have taken place without exposure to Prozac.” Consistent with Dr. Breggin’s testimony, the judge observed, “He has none of the characteristics of a perpetrator of violence. The prospects for rehabilitation are good.”

This is the first criminal case in North America where a judge has specifically found that an antidepressant was the cause of a murder.

The case involved a high school student with no violence who abruptly stabbed one of his friends to death at home with a single wound to the chest. The boy had been taking Prozac for three months, during which his behavior deteriorated.

Starting approximately 2005 to the present, the FDA required official drug labels to include information about dangers under the section titled WARNINGS-Clinical Worsening and Suicide Risk. The list of adverse effects—”anxiety, agitation, panic attacks,insomnia, irritability, hostility, aggressiveness, impulsivity, akathisia (psychomotor restlessness), hypomania, and mania”—is a prescription for violence. Canadian drug regulatory agency,  Health Canada, also warns about these side effects.

Dr. Breggin testified the boy’s symptoms were consistent with a Prozac (fluoxetine) Induced Mood Disorder with Manic Features and he would not have committed the violence if he had not been given the antidepressant. He brought numerous independent scientific studies to court confirming his testimony.

The hearing determined whether or not the now 17 year old should be sentenced as a minor, limiting jail time. The prosecution wanted him tried as an adult. On October 4, 2011 final sentencing will occur. The judge’s decision represents an enormous step forward in recognizing the newer antidepressants can cause violence.

« Return to news items

RSS News Feed

Share

Tags: , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in News | No Comments »

The Drugging of America

Thursday, September 29th, 2011

The Journal – September 29, 2011

by Barry Evans

The theory that psychological problems are mainly caused by a chemical imbalance in the brain can be traced back 60 years, when French researchers accidentally discovered that Thorazine (chlorpromazine) dramatically improved the emotional behavior of institutionalized mental patients. Within a few years, the anti-psychotic properties of Thorazine and related drugs led to the trend in this country to reintegrate into society people who had previously been confined to mental hospitals (“deinstitutionalization”).

Prozac advertisement

Today, the “chemical imbalance” revolution is almost complete, as one in 10 Americans over the age of 6 take antidepressants. As Marcia Angell, former editor-in-chief of The New England Journal of Medicine, wrote in a controversial two-part essay in The New York Review of Books (June 23 and June 30, 2011), the pharmaceutical solution to psychological disorders has now become the norm, as more and more health professionals accept the theory that mental illness, including depression and anxiety, is essentially caused by a chemical imbalance in the brain.

The wholesale acceptance of this theory, by both the medical profession and the public, came with the introduction of Prozac (fluoxetine) in 1987. While Thorazine was thought to correct a deficiency of dopamine, Prozac was marketed as an SSRI (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor), designed to compensate for a presumed deficit of the neurotransmitter serotonin. (SSRIs block neurons from re-absorbing serotonin, leaving more of it available to activate adjacent neurons.) Because SSRIs alleviate depression, researchers speculated that depression was caused by too little serotonin in the brain.

Maybe. Or maybe not. Angell argues that by the same logic “one could argue that fevers are caused by too little aspirin.” Perhaps SSRIs do something quite unrelated to neurotransmitters, and depression is unrelated to serotonin levels.

Whether the “chemical imbalance” theory is true or not, the real question is, Do antidepressants work better than placebos? Psychologist Irving Kirsch, one of the authors reviewed by Angell, used the Freedom of Information Act to obtain drug companies’ records of their negative studies from the FDA. Unlike the positive results, negative results are normally not published. (Incredibly to this writer, negative results are considered proprietary and therefore confidential.) Taking both positive and negative results into consideration, Kirsch discovered that six popular drugs — Prozac, Paxil, Zoloft, Celexa, Serzone, and Effexor — scored unimpressively when compared with placebos. Yet, as Angell writes, “because the positive studies were extensively publicized, while the negative ones were hidden, the public and the medical profession came to believe that these drugs were highly effective antidepressants.” It gets more surreal. When depressed patients were prescribed drugs such as opiates, sedatives, stimulants and even herbal remedies, Kirsch and others found their symptoms were relieved to about the same degree as with SSRI-type antidepressants.

Angell’s essay was, as I say, controversial. One of the more curious responses, published as an opinion piece in the New York Times on July 9, came from Dr. Peter Kramer, author of the 1993 best-seller Listening to Prozac. This book-length endorsement of the drug (which predicted a Brave New World-style “cosmetic psychopharmacology” future for us all) probably did more than anything else to turn Americans on to SSRIs. In his Times piece, Kramer largely sidestepped the alarming questions posed by Angell and the three books she reviewed. Instead, he focused on the difficulties of distinguishing the effects of placebos from those of real drugs. And as he had done in his book, he relied largely on unconvincing anecdotal evidence to make his case.

What we do know about placebos is that they’re not dangerous. However, even as increasing numbers of adults and children take powerful psychoactive drugs (because more of us are suffering?), researchers still have no clear handle on their potentially damaging long-term effects.

Barry Evans  gets depressed just thinking about antidepressants.

http://www.northcoastjournal.com/outdoors/2011/09/29/drugging-america/

« Return to news items

RSS News Feed

Share

Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in News | No Comments »

Are Psychiatric Medications Making Us Sicker?

Monday, September 19th, 2011

The Chronicle of Higher Education – September 18, 2011
by By John Horgan

American psychiatry, in collusion with the pharmaceutical industry, is perpetrating what may be the biggest case of iatrogenesis—harmful medical treatment—in history.Dave Plunkert for The Chronicle Review

Three years ago, I was reminded in dramatic fashion of the chasm between psychiatry and more-effective branches of medicine. My 14-year-old son, Mac, while playing lacrosse, emerged from a collision with his right arm askew. I drove him to a local hospital, where an orthopedic surgeon on duty immediately diagnosed the injury: dislocated elbow. He gave Mac an oral and local anesthetic and put him in a portable X-ray machine that showed Mac’s elbow joint on a screen, in real time. Watching the screen, the doctor quickly snapped Mac’s elbow back into place.

Overcome with gratitude to the doctor, I was leading my groggy son out of the hospital when my cellphone rang. An old friend, whom I’ll call Phil, was on the line. He was in the psychiatric ward of a New York hospital, to which his 16-year-old son had been committed. The boy, who was taking antidepressants for depression, had threatened to commit suicide, not for the first time. Thedoctors were recommending electroconvulsive therapy, or ECT.

Knowing that I had written about shock therapy and other psychiatric treatments, Phil asked my opinion. The fact that Phil had called me, a mere journalist, for advice in such a dire situation spoke volumes about the troubles of modern psychiatry.

I first took a close look at treatments for mental illness 15 years ago while researching an article for Scientific American. At the time, sales of a new class of antidepressants, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, or SSRI’s, were booming. The first SSRI, Prozac, had quickly become the most widely prescribed drug in the world. Many psychiatrists, notably Peter D. Kramer, author of the best seller Listening to Prozac, touted SSRI’s as a revolutionary advance in the treatment of mental illness. Prozac, Kramer said in a phrase that I hope now haunts him, could make patients “better than well.”

Clinical trials told a different story. SSRI’s are no more effective than two older classes of antidepressants, tricyclics and monoamine oxidase inhibitors. What was even more surprising to me—given the rave reviews Prozac had received from Kramer and others—was that antidepressants as a whole were not more effective than so-called talking cures, whether cognitive behavioral therapy or even old-fashioned Freudian psychoanalysis. According to some investigators, treatments for depression and other common ailments work—if they do work—by harnessing the placebo effect, the tendency of a patient’s expectation of improvement to become self-fulfilling. I titled my article “Why Freud Isn’t Dead.” Far from defending psychoanalysis, my point was that psychiatry has made disturbingly little progress since the heyday of Freudian theory.

In retrospect, my critique of modern psychiatry was probably too mild. According to Anatomy of an Epidemic (Crown Publishers, 2010), by the journalist Robert Whitaker, psychiatry has not only failed to progress but may now be harming many of those it purports to help. Anatomy of an Epidemic has been ignored by most major media. I learned about it only after Marcia Angell, former editor of The New England Journal of Medicine and now a lecturer on public health at Harvard, reviewed the book in The New York Review of Books in June. If Whitaker is right, American psychiatry, in collusion with the pharmaceutical industry, is perpetrating what may be the biggest case of iatrogenesis—harmful medical treatment—in history.

As recently as the 1950s, Whitaker contends, the four major mental disorders—depression, anxiety disorder, bipolar disorder, and schizophrenia—often manifested as episodic and “self limiting”; that is, most people simply got better over time. Severe, chronic mental illness was viewed as relatively rare. But over the past few decades the proportion of Americans diagnosed with mental illness has skyrocketed. Since 1987, the percentage of the population receiving federal disability payments for mental illness has more than doubled; among children under the age of 18, the percentage has grown by a factor of 35.

Between 1985 and 2008, sales of antidepressants and antipsychotics multiplied almost fiftyfold, to $24.2-billion.

This epidemic has coincided, paradoxically, with a surge in prescriptions for psychiatric drugs. Between 1985 and 2008, sales of antidepressants and antipsychotics multiplied almost fiftyfold, to $24.2-billion. Prescriptions for bipolar disorder and anxiety have also swelled. One in eight Americans, including children and even toddlers, is now taking a psychotropic medication. Whitaker acknowledges that antidepressants and other psychiatric medications often provide short-term relief, which explains why so many physicians and patients believe so fervently in the drugs’ benefits. But over time, Whitaker argues, drugs make many patients sicker than they would have been if they had never been medicated.

Whitaker compiles anecdotal and clinical evidence that when patients stop taking SSRI’s, they often experience depression more severe than what drove them to seek treatment. A multination report by the World Health Organization in 1998 associated long-term antidepressant usage with a higher rather than a lower risk of long-term depression. SSRI’s cause a wide range of side effects, including insomnia, sexual dysfunction, apathy, suicidal impulses, and mania—which may then lead patients to be diagnosed with and treated for bipolar disorder.

Indeed, Whitaker suspects that antidepressants—as well as Ritalin and other stimulants prescribed for attention-deficit disorder—have catalyzed the recent spike in bipolar disorder. Though bipolar disorder was relatively rare just a half-century ago, reported rates of it have increased more than a hundredfold, to one in 40 adults. Side effects attributed to lithium and other common medications for bipolar disorder include deficits in memory, learning ability, and fine-motor skills. Similarly, benzodiazepines such as Valium and Xanax, which are prescribed for anxiety, are addictive; withdrawal from these sedatives can cause effects ranging from insomnia to seizures, as well as panic attacks.

Whitaker’s analysis of treatments for schizophrenia is especially disturbing. Antipsychotics, from Thorazine to successors like Zyprexa, cause weight gain, physical tremors (called tardive dyskinesia) and, according to some studies, cognitive decline and brain shrinkage. Before the introduction of Thorazine in the 1950s, Whitaker asserts, almost two-thirds of the patients hospitalized for an initial episode of schizophrenia were released within a year, and most of this group did not require subsequent hospitalization.

Over the past half-century, the rate of schizophrenia-related disability has grown by a factor of four, and schizophrenia has come to be seen as a largely chronic, degenerative disease. A decades-long study by the World Health Organization found that schizophrenic patients fared better in poor nations, such as Nigeria and India, where antipsychotics are sparingly prescribed, than in wealthier regions such as the United States and Europe.

A long-term study by Martin Harrow, a psychologist at the University of Illinois College of Medicine, found an inverse correlation between medication for schizophrenia and positive, long-term outcomes. Beginning in the 1970s, Harrow tracked a group of 64 newly diagnosed schizophrenics. Forty percent of the nonmedicated patients recovered—meaning that they could become self-supporting—versus 5 percent of those who were medicated. Harrow theorized that those who were heavily medicated were sicker to begin with, but Whitaker suggests that the medications may be making some patients sicker.

Several possible objections to Whitaker’s case against psychiatry come to mind. First of all, as Harrow speculates, over time heavily medicated patients may not fare as well as less-medicated patients because the former truly are sicker. Also, the recent surge in mental disability may stem, at least in part, from a decrease in the stigma associated with mental illness, spurring more people to seek and obtain treatment and government assistance. In her review, Marcia Angell called Whitaker’s book “suggestive, if not conclusive,” which seems right to me. At the very least, Whitaker’s claims warrant further investigation.

Between 1985 and 2008, sales of antidepressants and antipsychotics multiplied almost fiftyfold, to $24.2-billion.

Although Whitaker doesn’t address electroconvulsive therapy, its persistence strikes me as yet another symptom of the weakness of modern psychiatry. It fell out of favor in the 1970s, in part because of its negative portrayal in the 1975 film One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, and yet about 100,000 Americans a year still receive ECT. Studies suggest that the therapy can provide temporary relief from acute depression, but virtually everyone who receives electroconvulsive therapy relapses within a year without further treatment. Proponents claim that ECT has few significant side effects, but this year an FDA panel ruled that ECT should remain classified as a “high-risk” procedure because it can cause persistent memory loss and other side effects. If SSRI’s and other psychiatric medications were truly effective, ECT would long ago have been tossed into the dustbin of failed psychiatric treatments.

So what happened to Phil’s son? When Phil called me, I told him that if my son were suicidally depressed, I’d resist giving him shock treatment unless doctors convinced me there was absolutely no alternative. Phil decided against ECT, and his son, after being released from the hospital, gradually stopped taking antidepressants too. He still struggles with depression, and he smokes more marijuana than Phil would like. But he is healthy enough to be starting college this fall.

http://chronicle.com/article/Are-Psychiatric-Medications/128976/

« Return to news items

RSS News Feed

Share

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in News | No Comments »

Psycho/Pharma’s Next Target? Shy Kids

Thursday, September 15th, 2011

The Daily Telegraph – September 15, 2011

by Emily Allen

Common problems among children such as shyness could be regarded as a mental illness

Children who are shy or considered moody run the risk of being diagnosed with mental illnesses and given powerful drugs like Prozac, psychologists have warned.

  • Experts fear widespread use of powerful medications
  • Hyperactive children already being treated with drugs
Experts said mental health diagnoses are likely to increase from 2013 as new guidelines on the definition of mental illness are being drawn up in America and are likely to be replicated in Britain.

Psychologists in the UK fear school-age children could be diagnosed with mental illnesses like ‘social anxiety disorder’ if they are quieter among their peers, or depression if a child is temporarily sad or is battling bereavement.

Meanwhile, youngsters who appear to lose their temper easily or answer back to adults could be classed as having ‘oppositional defiant disorder’.

Once diagnosed, psychologists say children are likely to be treated with powerful drugs like Prozac or Ritalin to curb their behaviour – without fully understanding the long-term impacts.

Ritalin is already used to help control attention deficit hyperactivity disorder in youngsters under six and about 650,000 children aged between eight and 13 have also been prescribed the drug or an equivalent.

Kate Fallon, general secretary of the Association of Educational Psychologists, told The Daily Telegraph: ‘Behaviours develop over a long period of time, often with a range of complex causes; we can’t “cure” the behaviours we don’t like with a quick fix of medicine.

‘They usually require careful management by all the adults around the child.’

She said parents need to take time and energy to help their children deal with their problems and warned it was tempting to opt for a drug which would be quick to change their behaviour.

The British Psychological Society is also concerned about the new guidelines and said pigeon-holing problems as ‘illnesses’ ignores the wider causes.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2037610/Children-pumped-powerful-drugs-combat-shyness-psychologists-warn.html#ixzz1Y3ZbweW8

For more information – Watch this:

Click to watch video, Psychiatry Labeling Kids with Bogus Mental Disorders

 

« Return to news items

RSS News Feed

Share

Tags: , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in News | 1 Comment »

PEOPLE’S PHARMACY:Can drugs cause violent behavior?

Thursday, July 21st, 2011

Tuscaloosa News – July 21, 2011

PEOPLE’S PHARMACY

Americans revere personal responsibility. It resonates with our respect for accountability and frontier justice. That may explain why we have a hard time believing that medications could alter people’s personalities or lead them to behave badly.

Violence as a drug side effect seems preposterous to patients, pharmacists, physicians and even juries. Trying to use the “Prozac defense” to justify killing or hurting someone is often met with scorn.

Although drug-induced hostility or aggression has not been well-studied, a surprising number of medications come with precautions about violent acts.

Antidepressant prescribing information, for example, warns physicians that, “All patients being treated with antidepressants for any indication should be monitored appropriately and observed closely for clinical worsening, suicidality, and unusual changes in behavior.” Drugs such as citalopram (Celexa), escitalopram (Lexapro), fluoxetine (Prozac), paroxetine (Paxil) and sertraline (Zoloft) carry warnings about aggressiveness, agitation, hostility, impulsivity and irritability.

The stop-smoking medication varenicline (Chantix) also comes with warnings about agitation, hostility, depressed mood and changes in behavior. The trouble with such warnings is that people don’t imagine that these bad things could happen to them. But many readers have shared scary stories about Chantix and violence. Here is one:

“I started taking Chantix early in January 2011 because I promised my son I’d quit. After about two weeks on the drug, my husband and I got into a disagreement, and I ended up giving him a black eye and busting out his tooth. Rage and panic attacks were occurring every day, so I quit taking Chantix.

“I figured it was just the stress of having to live with my in-laws, so I stayed off it until I left my husband and got my own place with my son. I’ve now been taking Chantix for about two weeks, and I’m having emotional outbursts and extreme rage again. I have no stress in my life right now, so it can’t be anything else but the drug.

“I’ve researched this, and apparently Chantix is at the top of a list of drugs that cause violent behavior. Chantix worked very well for a friend of mine to help her stop smoking, but now I wonder if it contributed to her breakup with her fiance.”

Other readers have shared stories of people who had no history of aggressiveness, violence or mental-health problems going berserk while taking Chantix. One man beat his wife and called police but had no recollection of the incident.

A recent article in the European Journal of Clinical Pharmacology (online, June 7, 2011) “confirms the risk of violence associated with benzodiazepines and related drugs (zopiclone and zolpidem). … Physical aggressiveness, rapes, impulsive decision making and violence have been reported, as have autoaggressiveness and suicide.”

Benzodiazepines are anti-anxiety agents such as alprazolam (Xanax), clonazepam (Klonopin), diazepam (Valium) and lorazepam (Ativan). Eszopiclone and zolpidem are popular prescription sleep aids. Americans need to know how prescribed drugs might affect their behavior. Only then can they take responsibility for their actions.

http://www.tuscaloosanews.com/article/20110721/NEWS/110719697/1005/sitemaps04?p=2&tc=pg

(Note from CCHR:  Our psychiatric drug database, comprised of international drug regulatory agency warnings and clinical studies,  contains 19 warnings of psychiatric drugs causing violence, aggression and hostility -  type in aggression in the red search box – or suicide which has 66 warnings)  http://www.cchrint.org/psychdrugdangers/drug_warnings.php )

« Return to news items

RSS News Feed

Share

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in News | No Comments »

« Older Entries