Posts Tagged ‘suicidal thoughts’

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

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ONE DRUG TO MAKE YOU HAPPY

Monday, November 28th, 2011

NewsWithViews.com – 11/28/2011
by Jonathan Emord, Constitutional Attorney and Author

Psychiatric drugs are big sellers. They are among the best selling drugs made. In 2010, Americans or their insurers doled out some $16.1 billion for anti-psychotics; $11.6 billion for anti-depressants; and $7.2 billion for ADHD treatments.

Within the last two decades the field of psychiatry has mushroomed from a fringe body of Sigmund Freud admirers to a mainstream player in the field of medical pharmacology, largely because of an unseemly union between that profession and the drug industry, leading to the creation of many never before known disease states and profitable ways to exploit those alleged diseases with psychiatric services and drugs.

The field of psychiatry has persistent and well-informed critics who point to the excessive drugging of institutionalized patients, of children commonly misdiagnosed as suffering from Attention Deficit Disorder or Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, and of the elderly misdiagnosed with treatable dementia, among others. The drugs given these patients have their own side-effects, including increased risk of depression, suicidal thoughts, birth defects, and even death. Because of the movement of psychiatry from the fringe of medicine to its heart, a majority of Americans are likely to come into contact with psychiatric drugs, either recommended for use by their children or for use by them at some point in their lives. Indeed, presently some 1 in 5 adults take anti-depressants, anti-psychotic, or anti-anxiety drugs.

The next edition of the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM-5), the profession’s so-called diagnostic bible, will soon be published in 2013. It comntinues the trend of identifying as “diseases” conditions that have previously been considered within the normal range. It adds to the list of “disease” states “apathy syndrome” (i.e., not caring enough); “internet addiction disorder” (i.e., liking the web too much); “parental alienation syndrome” (i.e., not liking your parents enough); “mild neurocognitive disorder” (i.e., age-related decline in mental function); “absexual” disorder (i.e., disliking sex); and “sluggish cognitive tempo” (i.e., daydreaming too much). Characteristics that we all used to think within the realm of normal brain function (such as teenage angst at parental rules; parental angst at teenage rebellion; a loss of quick wittedness in the elderly; youthful exuberance or youthful preoccupation with daydreams beyond the confines of academia) are all fast becoming “diseases.” The APA’s overall movement has been one of calling into question characteristics of eccentricity, leading to an unscientific conclusion that anything different may be rightly called a disease and rightly prescribed a treatment.

Every newly identified psychiatric disorder begets a new slate of psychiatric drugs for their treatment, giving leading pharmaceutical companies new opportunities to profit from the expansion of psychiatric diagnoses.

Psychiatric drugs are big sellers. They are among the best selling drugs made.

In 2010, Americans or their insurers doled out some $16.1 billion for anti-psychotics;

$11.6 billion for anti-depressants;

and $7.2 billion for ADHD treatments.

Profit lies in designing drugs for the treatment of these conditions. As the drug industry continues to pump out new elixirs that, in turn, leads to more reliance on psychologists and psychiatrists, which leads them in turn to prefer identifying more conditions as disease. The perverse incentives abound, and the FDA is pleased to approve the drugs at the behest of the drug company sponsors.
Everyone standing to profit from the sale of these agents wins at the expense of patients.

The drugging of America is an enormous problem, having spill-over effects that include drug addiction and destruction of the family, productivity, even national security. With an ever rising population taking these drugs which alter cognitive function, it becomes ever more apparent that the very fabric of our society, its common commitment to stable family life, self-sacrifice for the greater good, and adherence to laws that protect life, liberty, and property are all imperiled. As the drug industry and psychiatric profession profits enormously with each new declared disease state, there is a loss of free agency in the population, a movement that saps self-control from the individual in favor of control by the medical community over basic life-affecting decisions. Patients become dependent, event addicted, to drugs, and ever more dependent on their medical counselors to cope with life.

Whatever may be said for use of psychiatric drugs in those who cannot function in society, the expansion of those drugs to embrace those who can, including those with virtually any characteristic that exceeds the norm, represents a horrific sacrifice of the very promise of life that lies in those eccentricities. It is particularly horrific to watch beautiful, energetic children with all their great promise become addicted to drugs that alter brain chemistry in ways that yield drug dependency and lessen their perception of and enthusiasm for life and their ability to achieve. A majority of children prescribed anti-depressant and anti-psychotic drugs are wrongly prescribed those drugs, even by accepted psychiatric standards. That misguided course is itself a form of deviant behavior by this profession, calling into question the mental stability of those who would profit off of misdiagnosis and mistreatment.

The psychiatric drugging of America is bearing and will continue to bear for generations to come toxic consequences, whether in the form of the destruction of the family, increases in crime, or decreases in productivity and inventiveness. It’s high time for a rebellion against this drugging for the sake of sanity.

http://www.newswithviews.com/Emord/jonathan220.htm

Jonathan W. Emord is an attorney who practices constitutional and administrative law before the federal courts and agencies. Congressman Ron Paul calls Jonathan “a hero of the health freedom revolution” and says “all freedom-loving Americans are in [his] debt . . . for his courtroom [victories] on behalf of health freedom.” He has defeated the FDA in federal court a remarkable eight times, six on First Amendment grounds, and is the author of Amazon bestsellers The Rise of Tyranny, and Global Censorship of Health Information. He is also the American Justice columnist for U.S.A. Today Magazine. For more info visit Emord.com.

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Billion Dollar Drug Company Law Firm Restructures Connecticut Welfare System

Thursday, March 10th, 2011

By Bob Fiddaman and Shelia Matthews
March 10, 2011

For some time now, Sheila Matthews has been suspicious about her home state of Connecticut’s treatment of its most vulnerable children. As a mother of two children and co-founder of Ablechild, her instincts led her to scrutinize the dubious relationships among Connecticut’s Department of Children and Family Services [DCF], the pharmaceutical industry and a billion dollar law firm who has defended the likes of Pfizer Inc and Merck & Co., among others.

Sheila’s investigation has led her on a journey that links a non-profit children’s advocacy group, with assets over $15 million [2009] with nationally-renowned mass tort and class action defense law firms, to the Connecticut DCF – an $865 million bureaucracy, as described by the Connecticut Mirror.

The Connecticut DCF serves approximately 36,000 children and 16,000 families across its four Mandate Areas:

1. Child welfare;
2. Children’s behavioral health;
3. Juvenile Services; and
4. Prevention.

Sheila’s Ablechild has been questioning the Connecticut DCF since 2003, when Ablechild demanded that the Connecticut DCF immediately ban the use of the antidepressant Paxil in its treatment of mental disorders after multiple studies confirmed Paxil increased the risk of suicide in children and adolescents. This was more than a year prior to America’s Food & Drug Association (FDA) announcement that all antidepressants, including Paxil, should bear a black box warning regarding this suicide risk. Ablechild was disturbed that children in state custody were being prescribed this dangerous psychotropic medication. Ablechild’s public pressure paid off, and the Connecticut DCF deemed Paxil unsafe for children and adolescents, and according to the DCF drug approval list, Paxil has not been approved for use in over eight (8) years.

In August 2003, less than one month later, Ablechild reported that the commissioner of the Connecticut DCF held a ‘behind closed doors‘ meeting with Glaxo officials. This meeting was reported by the Associated Press, who wrote:

The maker of the anti-depressant Paxil plans to meet this week with Connecticut officials, weeks after the State stopped using the drug to treat young people in its care.

GlaxoSmithKline, a British pharmaceutical company, is sending its regional medical director and a medical team to meet with officials from the Department of Children and Families. [Source]

Despite repeated requests from Ablechild, the Connecticut DCF refused to inform the public what was discussed at this secret meeting.

Eight years later, Sheila and Ablechild continue to raise concerns and investigate potential wrongdoings and conflicts within the Connecticut DCF. Last month, in February 2011, Sheila attended a meeting sponsored by the Connecticut Behavioral Health Partnership [CBHP], where its medical director, Dr Steven Kant, presented the Husky Behavioral Pharmacy Data. The CBHP is a state vendor that provides mental health services to DCF children. These services are paid, in part, by the State-run insurance program, HUSKY. Incredibly the pharmacy data presentation showed that dangerous psychotropic drugs, like Paxil, are still being prescribed to thousands of children and adolescents. In fact, the Pharmacy Data presentation showed that the HUSKY program, financed by taxpayer dollars, paid drug companies over $60 million for psychotropic drugs for Connecticut’s children and adolescents in 2009 alone – many of which are not approved by the FDA for use in the pediatric population and all of which carry the most serious warning possible regarding the risk of suicide.

According to the pharmacy data presentation: [Which can be downloaded as a Powerpoint presentation HERE]

More than 50% of HUSKY Youth Behavioral med utilizers are on stimulants.
Close to 30% of HUSKY Youth Behavioral med utilizers are on antipsychotics.

The pharmacy data also revealed the following:

Most Frequently Used Behavioral Meds for DCF-Involved Youth

Medications for ADHD

Ritalin (10%)
Adderall (5%)
Vyvanse (4%)
Strattera (3%)

Atypical Antipsychotics

Abilify (11%)
Risperdol (10%)
Seroquel (8%)

Anti-anxiety

Hydroxyzine (2.5%)

Antidepressants

Prozac (4.5%)
Zoloft (4%)
Zyban (3%)
Desyrel (2.5%)
Celexa (2%)

Mood Stabilizers

Lithum (3%)
Depakote (3%)
Lamictal (2.5%)

Curiously, none of the above medications are on the Connecticut DCF list of approved/unapproved drugs listed in its DCF PMAC document.

With this in mind, Sheila Matthews contacted Dr Steven Kant and inquired as to whether any of the above drugs were approved by the Connecticut DCF for use in children.

Dr Kant replied:

… the answer to your question is not that straight forward.. . . Medications may be indicated by age and/or by specific treatment needs so it is not either a simply “yes” or “no”. Also, some medications may have the age indication but for a totally different condition, such as anti epileptic condition. . .Also FDA indications are static, they do not change over time though medical practice is constantly evolving…

Contradicting the very document that lists Connecticut’s approved and unapproved drugs, a “check-off” list that verifies the status of medications, Dr Kant replied, “I don’t think a “check off” for each medication would work in terms of verifying their status.”

With such an ambiguous response from Dr. Kant, we found the DCF Approved Medication List on the Internet. This particular version was revised in 2009.

It appears that the DCF has approved drugs in children that have not been approved for children by the FDA. In fact, the FDA has issued multiple advisories and alerts since 2004 about the increased risk of suicide in children, adolescents and young adults up to age 25 who are treated with psychotropic medications.

And while Fluoxetine (Prozac) is the only medication approved by the FDA for use in treating depression in children ages 8 and older, it still carries a black box warning regarding the risk of suicide.

In contrast, the DCF seems to be ignoring the conclusions of the FDA. Its list of approved medication in children and adolescents include every single antidepressant except paroxetine [Paxil] and venlafaxine [Effexor].

Forest Lab’s citalopram [Celexa] – APPROVED

Forest Lab’s escitalopram [Lexapro] – APPROVED

Solvay Pharmaceuticals’ fluvoxamine [Luvox] – APPROVED

Pfizer’s sertraline [Zoloft] – APPROVED

GlaxoSmithKline’s bupropion [Wellbutrin -also marketed as an anti-smoking cessation drug under the name of Zyban] – APPROVED [1]

Alarmingly, the DCF has produced a guide entitled, “MEDICATIONS USED FOR BEHAVIORAL & EMOTIONAL DISORDERS – A GUIDE FOR PARENTS, FOSTER PARENTS, FAMILIES, YOUTH, CAREGIVERS, GUARDIANS, AND SOCIAL WORKERS” where it writes, “Most of the side effects from the medications are mild and will lessen or go away after the first few weeks of treatment.” The guide also points out possible side effects of SSRI’s/SNRI’s:

SSRIs and SNRIs:

Headache
Nervousness
Nausea
Insomnia
Weight Loss

One of the most dangerous side effects of these medications, suicidal thoughts/ideation, doesn’t even make the 5 bullet-pointed list. The Guide does, however, add the following: “Watch for worsening of depression and thoughts about suicide.”

The DCF Approved Medication List writes:

“The DCF Approved Medication List is a list of psychotropic medications that has been carefully established by the Psychotropic Medication Advisory Committee, a group of DCF and community professionals.”

Sheila has since investigated other advocacy groups that were concerned about the off-label prescribing of psychiatric medications to youths in state custody. This is where she stumbled upon Children’s Rights, a non-profit charity based in New York City.

In 2005, Children’s Rights employed ten (10) attorneys and a staff of 31. It claims to use its expertise to change child welfare red tape and scrutinize failing systems. If the child welfare system fails to respond, Children’s Rights files a lawsuit. If successful, it enforces reform and then monitors its implementation.

In 1989, Children’s Rights had in fact filed a suit against William O’Neill and the Connecticut state Department of Children and Youth Services [DCYS].

The suit charged that an overworked and underfunded DCYS failed to provide services including abuse and neglect investigations, adoption, foster care, mental health care, caseloads and staffing. The case has been pending for over twenty (20) years, and while there have been numerous arguments that DCYS should be more inclusive or has failed to provide certain services, the issue of massive off-label prescription of psychotropic medications has never been brought to the court’s attention.

Children’s Rights is chaired by Alan C Myers, a partner at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher and Flom, a billion dollar law firm which represents the pharmaceutical industry in mass torts and class actions. Myers is also co-head of the firm’s REIT Group [Real Estate Investment Trust].

Also, listed on the Children’s Rights website are individuals and law firms that have served as co-counsel on Children’s Rights’ legal campaigns to reform America’s failing child welfare systems, including:

Missouri - Shook Hardy & Bacon – Eli Lilly Co. and Forest Labs, defended the original Wesbeker Prozac trial in Kentucky and still defend Prozac, Celexa and Lexapro.

New Jersey – Drinker Biddle & Reath – GlaxoSmithKline attorneys – defended Paxil as local counsel in Philadelphia cases.

Oklahoma – Kaye Scholer LLP – provides work in Pharmaceutical Products Liability defense and employs an attorney who was former General Counsel of Pfizer, Inc.

A particular success for Skadden Arps occurred in 2010 when it secured a summary judgement ruling for Pfizer Inc. in a suit filed by two insurance companies who sought $200 million in damages for Pfizer’s predecessors alleged “off-label” marketing of its epilepsy drug, Neurontin.

Furthermore, in February 2011, Skadden Arps secured the dismissal of over 200 cases in a multi-district litigation pending against their client, Pfizer Inc. The plaintiffs had alleged injuries related to the use of Pfizer’s anti-epilepsy drug, Neurontin.

Neurontin, the generic version is called gabapentin, is prescribed by psychiatrists for a variety of “off-label” indications. It is often tried as an alternative treatment, when patients are unable to tolerate the side effect of more proven mood stabilizers such as lithium. [2]

Gabapentin has also been associated with an increased risk of suicidal acts or violent deaths.

This is a drug that has been known to cause behavioral problems, which include unstable emotions, hostility, aggression, hyperactivity or lack of concentration.

Children dependent on child welfare systems have rights and, according to its web page, Children’s Rights is dedicated to protecting them.

It should come as no surprise that the site fails to discuss the off-label prescription of non-approved psychotropic medications to children and adolescents, unless this falls under the ‘abuse and neglect’ category?

If Children’s Rights’ motive was to accomplish fixing the child welfare system then why hasn’t it investigated why thousands of children under state care are prescribed “off-label” psychiatric drugs? With a partner in a billion dollar pro-pharmaceutical law firm as its Chair, and supporters who also defend pharmaceutical products, is it safe to assume that its stance on the drugging of children is one that is being ignored?

Children’s Rights push to remove abused and neglected children into safety.

The basic question always comes down to trust. When power, money and a good cause is mixed, it is imperative to check motives. We would be less of a society if we didn’t check out all the facts. Abuse and neglect exist, always has and always will, but society is obligated to ensure those victims are not transformed into “good cause victims” and expensed out. There is no doubt we have a right to question the system and those who claim to promote change for the good of the children within it.

Children’s Rights Chairman, Alan C. Myers, Medical Director of Connecticut Behavioral Health Partnership, Steven Kant and the Connecticut Department of Children and Families may get their knickers in a twist with regard to an advocate of Ablechild and a blogger from Birmingham, UK questioning their motives but hey, what’s the downside of shinning a light on all these players, be they good or bad players?

Sheila’s concern is that Children’s Rights with its multi-million dollar budget and with the help of its billion dollar law firms, will continue to ignore the risks of these unapproved and dangerous medications, under the guise of helping our nation’s most vulnerable children. The question remains: how can the lawyers who defend psychotropic drugs also be the same lawyers who advocate for abused and neglected children to get into state welfare programs which place these children on the same drugs? The conflict is clear and obvious – and it poses an unmistakable danger to children who truly need our help.

[1] Bupropion [also known as Wellbutrin, Zyban] is a non-tricyclic antidepressant.
[2] Gabapentin

Bob Fiddaman is the author of the Seroxat Sufferers blog and the book, “The evidence, however, is clear… the Seroxat scandal.” Chipmunka Publishing.

Sheila Matthews is the co-founder of Ablechild and a mother of two children.

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Are Soldiers Suicides Caused by Prescription Drugs?—At Fort Brag 4,994 troops on antidepressants/664 on antipsychotics

Friday, October 15th, 2010

http://www.opednews.com/images/oenearthlogo.gif

by Martha Rosenberg

The suicide rate among troops is astonishing.

In 2009 there were 160 active duty suicides, 239 suicides within the total Army including the Reserves, 146 active duty deaths from drug overdoses and high risk behavior and 1,713 suicide attempts, says the Army’s suicide report, released in July.

Not only are more troops dying from their own hand than combat says the Army report, titled Health Promotion, Risk Reduction, Suicide Prevention, 36 percent of the suicides were troops who were never deployed.

Also astonishing is the psychoactive drug rate among active duty-aged troops, 18 to 34, which is up 85 percent since 2003 according to the military health plan, Tricare. Since 2001, 73,103 prescriptions for Zoloft have been dispensed, 38,199 for Prozac, 17,830 for Paxil and 12,047 for Cymbalta says Tricare 2009 data, which includes family prescriptions. All of the drugs carry a suicide warning label.

In addition to the leap in SSRI antidepressants, prescriptions for the anticonvulsants Topamax and Neurontin rose 56 percent in the same group since 2005 says Navy Times, drugs which the FDA warned last year double suicidal thinking in patients.

In fact 4,994 troops at Fort Bragg are on antidepressants right now says the Fayetteville Observer. Six hundred and sixty-four are on an antipsychotics and “many soldiers take more than one type of medication.”

Troops may also be taking Chantix, an antismoking drug so linked to violence and self-harm Secretary of the VA, James Peake was forced to defend its use before the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs in 2008 even in drug trials . “If you know the drug induces suicidal thoughts,” an unappeased Committee chair Bob Filner D-Ca. asked Rep. Filner,” Why don’t you just stop?”

Even widely prescribed asthma drugs like Singulair and Advair are linked to suicide says the FDA and have been cited in young people’s deaths.

And who knows what happens when the drugs are mixed with mood stabilizers, insomnia and pain pills and antianxiety and antipsychotic pills, combinations which have never been tested for safety?

Links between suicide and even murder-suicide and SSRI and SNRI antidepressants have been long recognized.

Traci Johnson, a healthy 19-year-old with no mental problems, hung herself during Lilly trials of Cymbalta in the drugmaker’s own clinic in 2004. Columbine shooter Eric Harris had reportedly just switched from Zoloft to Luvox. Red Lake shooter Jeff Weise who killed 10 on a Minnesota Indian reservation in 2005 had just upped his Prozac. And the Virginia Tech shooter, Cho Seung-Hui, was also on psychoactive medications say news reports.

Yet even though Amercians have doubled their antidepressants since 1999 so that 10 percent of the population or 27 million now take them suicides have climbed by five percent since 1999 and 16 percent in middle aged adults says an article in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine in 2008.

In fact, the high percentage of civilian suicides on psychoactive drugs is probably the clearest indication that military life is not the only cause of the shocking troop suicides: In September alone, there were 18 civilian suicides, 11 murders, 2 murder suicides and other violence linked to people who were using or had used antidepressants, according to published reports. http://www.ssristories.com/index.php?sort=what&p=recent

A 54-year-old respiratory patient with a breathing tube and an oxygen tank and no previous criminal record held up a bank in Mobile. She had gone off her antidepressants.

An enraged man in Australia, also off his antidepressants, chased his mailman and threatened to cut his throat…for bringing him junk mail.

And a 58-year-old Amarillo man with no criminal history tried to abduct three people, killing an Oklahoma grandmother in the process. He had “an antidepressant in his blood,” said police.

Also in the thirty day period, a 60-year-old grandmother in Seattle killed three family members and herself; a disc jockey in Bristol, UK set himself on fire; and a man in Exeter, UK man was determined to have stabbed himself in the heart. All were on antidepressants.

Finally, in the month of September, legal proceedings began against two mothers and a father charged with killing their own children.

Over 4,000 published reports of violent and bizarre behavior of people affected by antidepressants on the web archive ssristories.com reveal the same out of character violence and self harm in civilians, currently seen in the military.

Twenty people set themselves on fire. Ten bit their victims (including a biter who was sleepwalking and a woman, on Prozac, who bit her 87-year-old mother into critical condition.) Three men in the 70s and 80s attack their wives with hammers. Many stab their victims obsessively — one even stabs furniture after killing his wife — and 14 parents drown their children, a crime seldom heard of before the 2001 Andrea Yates case. Yates drowned her five children on the antidepressant Effexor which manufacturer Wyeth (now Pfizer) “issued no public warning” about says the Associated Press.

Then there’s the North Carolina pilot on Zoloft who sings, “I’m going down for the last time,” into the cockpit voice recorder before he crashes his plane in June. And the Mayor of Coppell, Texas, Jayne Peters who kills herself and her daughter in July over the grief of losing her husband. Police find antidepressants at the home.

Such murder-suicides committed by women used to be rare says Betty Henderson the web site’s moderator and researcher. “Before the SSRI antidepressants, women committed five percent of the murder-suicides and now they account for almost 15 percent of this type of violence,” she said in an AlterNet interview.

Antidepressants are also causing women to become neo sexual predators says Henderson. “There have been more than a dozen recent cases of women school teachers molesting their young students under the influence or withdrawal of antidepressants. Who heard of this type of sexual aberration before the antidepressant craze?”

Why don’t doctors and media outlets publicize the names of these volatile drugs?

It’s a good questions said Dr. Gary Kohls, a Minnesota family practitioner, in an oped written after Iraq veteran Matthew Magdzas killed his pregnant wife, their 13-month-old daughter, their dogs and himself in Wisconsin in August.

“Nobody in the media has, to my knowledge, had the courage to report what the drugs were, nor have they interviewed the physician or his clinic to find out the rationale for prescribing drugs that have common violence-inducing effects (with black box warnings stating that in the prescribing information),” he writes. “Therefore nothing has been learned from this important teachable moment, probably because revealing the common reality of prescription drug-induced violence would be economically harmful for the sacred cows of Big Pharma and Big Medicine.”

Still, Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va. called the one of every six troops who are now on psychoactive drugs “pretty astounding and also very troubling,” in Senate hearings this year and Retired Col. Bart Billings, a former Army psychologist who has also testified before Congress, says, “I feel flat out that psychiatrists are directly responsible for deaths in our military, for some of these suicides,” in a March Marine Times article. “I think it’s criminal, what they are doing.”

Even Katie Bagosy, the wife of Marine Sgt. Tom Bagosy who took his own life in May indicts the Neurontin medication he was prescribed for his downfall.

“He told me, ‘It all started to get worse when I got on this medication.’ Looking back, that was the beginning of the end,” she says in an article called A Prescription For Tragedy in the current National Journal.

http://www.opednews.com/articles/1/Are-Soldiers-Suicides-Caus-by-Martha-Rosenberg-101015-973.html

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New study finds Anti-seizure drugs, increasingly prescribed for people labeled “bipolar,” induce suicide & death

Tuesday, August 31st, 2010

Natural News
By David Gutierrez
August 31, 2010

Popular anti-seizure drugs may seriously increase a patient’s risk of suicide and violent death, according to a study conducted by researchers from Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School, and published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

The drugs, known as anticonvulsants, were initially designed for the treatment of epilepsy but are now widely prescribed “off-label” for conditions such as bipolar disorder, migraine headaches and pain.

“We all know the range of uses of these medications is very, very wide,” researcher Elisabetta Patorno said.

The researchers examined the prescription and medical records of more than 300,000 people above the age of 14 who had been prescribed an anticonvulsant for the first time between July 2001 and December 2006.

All of the drugs, they found, significantly increased a patient’s risk of attempted or successful suicide, as well as violent death by other causes. During the course of the study, there were 801 attempted suicides, 26 successful suicides and 41 violent deaths.

“We found increased risk for suicidal acts beginning within the first 14 days after treatment initiation, opening the possibility that anticonvulsant medications could induce behavioral effects prior to the achievement of their full therapeutic effectiveness,” the researchers wrote.

Based on prior studies, the FDA ruled in 2008 that all anticonvulsants must carry labels warning that they double the risk of suicidal thoughts and actions. These older studies had not been able to determine if any drugs posed higher risks than others, however.

Read entire article here:  http://www.naturalnews.com/029614_suicide_anti-seizure_drugs.html

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Following 7-year-old’s psychiatric drug-induced suicide—Florida bans foster children from clinical drug trials

Wednesday, August 11th, 2010

Education News
By Pareesha Narang
August 9, 2010

Sixteen months after 7-year-old Gabriel Myers committed suicide while taking psychotropic drugs, the state of Florida has banned allowing any children in the state’s custody from participating in clinical drug trials.

It is unclear if Gabriel was involved in any clinical trials. The doctor who prescribed the medicines to him was conducting clinical trials involving psychotropic drops and the Food and Drug Administration sent him a warning letter earlier this year about overdosing children who were involved in those trials.

The Florida ban was imposed  after the state tried to find out from the FDA if Gabriel or any other foster care child in Florida was a participant in such trials, and the FDA said it could not disclose such information and that mostly they know participants by only coded identifiers.

Though Florida officials had suggested that, under such circumstances, the Federal Food and Drug Administration ban all foster care children from participating in such trials, the agency refused, saying the children might benefit from the drugs.

In a letter last month,  George Sheldon, secretary of the state’s Department of Children and Families (DCF), announced that regardless of the FDA’s stance the state, using “administrative procedures,” was precluding children in state care from participating in such trials.

“Children who come into our care are often the victims of abuse, neglect, and abandonment,” Sheldon said in the letter. “It is therefore imperative that the state do all in its power to stabilize their environment, to protect them from further trauma, and to foster their successful growth into adulthood.”…

Before he hanged himself in his foster home, Gabriel had been taking different drugs for a variety of psychological problems – and some of the drugs were not approved for use in children.  Some of these drugs, including Lexapro, Vyvanse and Symbyax, had “black box” warnings cautioning dangerous side effects such as suicidal thoughts.

Read entire article here:  http://www.educationnews.org/educationnewstoday/97911.html

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Prescription Pill-Popping By Far a Leading Killer as Florida’s Drug Deaths Spike 20%

Thursday, July 1st, 2010

FlaglerLive.Com
July 1, 2010

Oxycodone, the addictive prescription pain-killer also known by its Purdue Pharma brand name OxyContin, directly caused more deaths in Florida in 2009 than cocaine, heroin and morphine combined. Prescription drugs as a whole are killing far more Floridians than illegal drugs, with some 8,600 deaths last year involving at least one prescription drug, according to an annual report released today by the Florida Medical Examiners Commission.

That’s 5 percent of all deaths in Florida in 2009, when 171,300 people died in the state.

The number of people killed by prescription drugs is a significant 20 percent increase over last year’s 6,200 deaths attributed to overdoses. Much of the increase is due to a spike in oxycodone addiction. The increase in prescription-drug addiction continues a trend that began in Florida 10 years ago, when prescription drugs overtook illegal drugs as leading causes of drug-related deaths.

Alcohol is also included in the examiners’ analysis, and it leads the way of all drug-related deaths, with 4,046.

The annual report is a stark look at the effects of legalized drug addiction and over-prescription of drugs, both of which affect a far larger segment of the population than recreational or illegal narcotics.

For the first time in 2009, the commission tracked deaths by region. In Flagler County’s district, which includes St. Johns and Putnam counties, 22 deaths were attributed to oxycodone (the fourth lowest number in the state’s 23 districts), with 13 of those deaths directly attributed to the drug, and nine cited as being present among other drugs that contributed to death.

Hydrocodone claimed 16 lives in the district. Cocaine contributed to 19 deaths in the Flagler district, though only four cases were directly attributed to the drug. In 15 cases, cocaine was present in the body in conjunction with other drugs that proved lethal. Overall in Florida, cocaine-related deaths (including the majority of cases where cocaine wasn’t directly the factor but was present in the body at the time of death), have fallen from a peak of 2,179 in 2007 to 1,462 in 2009. (Again, cocaine was the direct result of death in 529 cases out of those).

Ken Kramer, a researcher with the Citizens Commission on Human Rights of Florida, says the numbers underestimate the extent of the problem, because medical examiners do not track deaths attributed to antipsychotic drugs or to antidepressants, both of which carry black-box or black-label warnings. The warnings on antidepressants, required by the Food and Drug Administration, state that the drugs increase the risk of suicidal thinking and behavior in children, adolescents and young adults up to age 24. (Antidepressants include Paxil, Prozac, Zoloft, Effexor, Lexapro and Celexa.)

Anti-psychotic drugs carry a variety of black label warnings of increased mortality in elderly patients (including a death rate almost twice as high for people taking Risperdal, for example). Those drugs, prescribed and often overprescribed in nursing homes and assisted living facilities, include Abilify, Clozaril, Geodon, Risperdal, Seroquel and Zyprexa.

“Certainly, the actual number of prescription drug deaths is higher than the annual report states,” Kramer said. “It is unknown just how much higher because the Medical Examiners Commission does not track these classes of drugs.”

Two years ago Kramer got his concern heard by the commission following an email exchange with a commissioner in which he argued that antidepressants and anti-psychotic drugs’ contributions to mortality should be part of the annual report. He was rebuffed. One examiner vsaid he had not seen “more than the occasional death caused by these types of drugs,” according to the minutes of the Aug. 13, 2008 meeting of the commission.

Read entire article:  http://flaglerlive.com/7256/florida-prescription-drugs-deaths-oxycontin-oxycodone

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Child/Teen Suicide Rate 5 Times Higher for Kids on Antidepressants; Researchers Say findings support FDA Black Box Warnings

Monday, April 12th, 2010

WebMD
By Jennifer Warner
April 12, 2010

The heightened risk of teen suicide doesn’t vary among users of different antidepressants, a new study finds.

Researchers say the finding supports the FDA’s current “black box” warning on all antidepressants detailing the increased risk of suicide attempts and suicides in children and teens who start to take the drugs. A “black box” warning is the FDA’s most severe warning label.

Previous studies have shown that children and teenagers who begin to use SSRI (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor) antidepressants may have an increase in suicidal thoughts and behaviors, but researchers say this is the first study to compare the child and teen suicide risk among different individual SSRI antidepressants.

The study followed 20,906 children in British Columbia between the ages of 10 and 18 who had been diagnosed with depression and prescribed an antidepressant over a nine-year period.

During the first year of antidepressant use, there were 266 attempted suicides and three suicides.

Researchers found no significant difference in child and teen suicide risk among the five SSRI antidepressants studied (fluoxetine, fluvoxamine, citalopram, paroxetine, and sertraline). Tricyclic antidepressants showed risks similar to the SSRIs.

Overall, the child and teen suicide rate after initiation of antidepressant use among participants in the study was five times higher than the rate reported among all teens aged 13 to 17 in British Columbia, which researchers say reflects the higher suicide risks among the depressed.

“Our analysis supports the decision of the Food and Drug Administration to include all antidepressants in the black box warning regarding increased suicidality risk for children and adolescents initiating use of antidepressants,” write researcher Sebastian Schneeweiss, MD, ScD of Harvard Medical School and colleagues in Pediatrics.

Read entire article:  http://www.webmd.com/depression/news/20100412/teen-suicide-risk-similar-among-antidepressants

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Another Antidepressant – Another Deadly Side Effect: FDA warns Desipramine can cause sudden cardiac death

Thursday, December 3rd, 2009

Kim Chartrand
Examiner.com
December 2, 2009

The FDA announced today that Norpramin (desipramine), an antidepressant made by Sanofi Aventis can cause disturbances in the heartbeat, including sudden cardiac death in people who have a family history of this or other heart rhythm disturbances. Also known as arrythmia, this problem is often preceded by seizure in those taking Norpramin. MedWatch, the safety information arm of the FDA and the manufacturer sent this new warning to healthcare professionals. If you take this drug, be sure to be proactive and mention this warning to your doctor; don’t assume he or she has gotten the message automatically. Both Sanofi Aventis and the FDA said that Norpramin overdose is more likely to result in death than other tricyclic antidepressants.

Antidepressants are one of the most widely prescribed class of medications and many have side effects which include worsening depression, other mental or mood symptoms, suicidal thoughts or attempts and sometimes new or worsening anxiety, panic attacks, trouble sleeping, irritability, hostile or angry feelings, impulsive actions, severe restlessness, and very rapid speech. If you experience any of these symptoms, talk to your doctor right away. The heart rhythm disturbance at this time is unique to Norpramin and not associated with other antidepressants.

Read entire article: http://www.examiner.com/x-5126-San-Diego-Wellness-Examiner~y2009m12d2-Antidepressant-Norpramin-warning

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