Cocktail for killers: Facts not reported in US News supported by pharmaceutical advertising

Great post . A must know .

As someone who grew up in the 1960's & 1970's I can tell you that back then there were not the same number of psyco killers as in percentages of the population. This is not to deny Charles Manson or Ted Bundy but todays society resorts to drugs much quicker than ever before. Back then youth with behavioral issues were treated much more by psychiatrists that did not drug up their patients. I speak from experience as my mother was mentally ill her entire adult life. Social interaction was much more effective in these people gaining control over themselves than drugs are today. Big Pharma wants people to believe there is a magic pill for every aliment, simply not true. Society also refuses to believe that some people belong instituionalized not put in prison. The stigma of instituionalization of a family member forces them into denial of mental illness. Denial is the biggest part of the problem and then acceptance but with these terrible drugs that help some but destroy many.

damn....learn something new everyday

you need to watch generation rx that will open your eyes to why we are killing our kids with these drugs

you shoud watch generation rx that will open your eyes to why we give kids these drugs and its not to help them

First, don't blame the meds, don't blame the condition the meds were prescribed for. People must take responsibility for their actions and not use an excuse of the drugs they were taking or the mental illness they have. When excuses like these are used it harms those of use who have successfully battled our illness for so many years. It is not the illness or drugs doing the killing people, it is the person carrying out the act.

Second, I would like to know how many of these people were also taking illegal drugs. Marijuana is very dangerous for those who already suffer from mental illness and when combined with SSRI anti-depressenants can cause psychosis. I know from experience these drugs work miracles, but there is a reason they are used under the close observation of a medical proffessional.

I have fought long and hard to remove the stigma of mental illness and when the media uses stories like this it may make most people feel better but it only worsens the stigma of mental health. If you would like to learn more about the stigma of mental health I invite you to visit http://www.abipolarmind.com/MentalHealth.html

How convenient that they left these little tidbits out of the available facts pertaining to these drugs. True, these instances may be rare, but one person sustaining psychopathic behavior under the influece of these medications is one person too many. I just wish the pharmaceutical companies were more honest and open about all possible side ects that transcend slight headaches or vomiting.

crazy shit

How quick we are to point the finger.

Yes, it is true that some people are misdiagnosed and/or overmedicated, but we cannot lead some fear-mongering tirade against SSRI drugs, especially when there are numerous cases where they are helping, not damaging. Mental illness is a physical illness, not some problem that can be cured with yet-to-be proven homeopathic methods.

Citizens taking doctor-prescribed SSRI drugs are hurt by such discrimination. I'm glad to see that many of the responses to this article were able to see through the discriminating opinions. It certainly shows that this forum encourages media literacy.

This is crap. Just another way to scapegoat the real killer, which is society. These young people --and people in general-- got their heads screwed up by society and that's why they are/were on medication. Their actions had to do with being screwed up, not the medication.

I'm really sick of this always looking for something and someone else to blame crap. Oh no, it can't be OUR fault. In the case I'm talking about, mainly school shootings, it CAN'T be something about how American society behaves toward each other.

It's medication now, or it's music, drugs, video games. We all have to find the cause of this, everyone says. Or, there's some stupid component in our brains that makes humans believe things just 'happen', magically and from no where, 'just because' that causes us to fail to see that there's a root cause. We go after the effects and not the causes. We don't act we react... it's a taught discipline to do otherwise, taught or self-taught.

Keep shifting the blame, it can't be something WE are doing. So, what are we doing?

Edit:"Many people take 5 or more medications at the same time." This is true and needs to end. People should be advised to take as little as is needed. 3 medications should be pushing it. 5 would zombify people, make their thinking incredibly fuzzy etc (drug them rather than treat them, there's a difference), but it wouldn't be the cause of any violence. This article tries to drum up fear and hysteria by adding facts amongst the 'opinion'.

I think your wrong. I think that the reason that all these killers were on these drugs was because they were already unstable. Ever think that maybe mental illness and murder are the issues related and not the medicines? I think the coincidence between all these killers are that they were all mentally unstable and apparently their doctor (who went to college for 10 years) prescribed them medications that can lessen the instability. There are people in my circle that depend on these important medications to live life the same way we do. I think it is a little hasty to try to propagate them as a proponent of mass murder.

The more study there is done the more they are finding that a chemical balance can be achieved with vitamin replacement therapy.

...is it possible to not eat a pickle once every three days?

Furthermore, let's be rational. It's obvious pickles are safe and are not a legal narcotic.
I agree that we need to be open minded on the subject. The fact that all these people were already taking drugs for psychiatric problems is the correlation in my opinion. These people obviously had issues before the drug was introduced to them. Just because these people were prescribed the mediation didn't mean they were taking it either. Unless there is a substantial amount of lab testing to indicate otherwise.
But, my stand on these drugs are not positive, as these people should be treated by other means instead of chemically. They have a chemical imbalance for a reason, so, treat the problem, not the symptom.

This is worth investigating . My sis and I debate it a lot because she is a pharmacist and I a nutritionist . I knew about prozac increasing the risk of successful suicide , the rest would not surprise me considering the value big pharma places of life .

if you want to oust a really bad, violence "inducing" drug, why don't you investigate alcohol related violence. it might be more fruitful.

in 99% of all airline crashes, the pilot had eaten a PICKLE within three days of the incident.

You show No Causality in your post. You are making the logical error of equating temporality with causality. You neglect to even mention if the incidents of violence had perhaps been delayed or reduced by the use of the drugs listed, which is an unfair assumption to overlook, implying that you have a biased agenda.

I do not generally support the widespread use of psycotropic drugs - they are probably over prescribed, but I do NOT claim to have all the information; to deduct causality takes long term widely sampled statistical analysis, which you do not reference, and is usually an immoral type of research in humans. Don't oversimplify this issue. Could it even be possible that many more incidents have been averted by these same drugs? Yes, it could be, but No Body has that information either.

Be fair and more open minded.

Thank you CarolynGillis for posting this for our benefit.

It's hard to believe that highly educated people, our medical doctors would prescribe and continue prescribing mind altering substances which are so clearly harmful to their patients.

Consider that some of those patients which receive psychotropic drugs also have a mouth and have expressed to their doctor undesirable side effects - which could have or should have warned those many doctors treating them.

I see the potential for HUGE class action law suits against "FAT CAT" pharmaceutical companies, the AMA and those doctors who through gross ignorance, incompetence or malicious negligence push drugs known to be dangerous to the taker as well as society - on the part of victims of these shootings, families of patients and people in the general population which have been subjected to a person's hostile or otherwise anti-social behavior while on such medication.

This could dwarf the tobacco industry class action lawsuits, and should. There are many, many other drugs which only serve to enrich the greedy at the expense of those who seek help.

At one time a few years ago I had heard that 23 of the 25 school shooting incidents, the shooters were taking such medicine. It was a study that got hushed very quickly because Columbine had just happened. The authority's know the consequences of these drugs but with millions of people on them there is too much money to be made.

Wow, I had no idea, this seems to make more sense than the typical excuses.

Askapatient.com seems a credible source. Prisonplanet is one of the worst. I would encourage not using it.

Medication is a gateway to hell, I'll stick to the plants.

If you have time please try to look at the data base http://www.askapatient.com/viewtopratings.asp for information on how these drugs are affecting real people who are reporting these troubles with violence and other problems. Then you can multiply the sometimes horrific effect of one of these by 2 or 3 or 5 or more medications at the same time. This is common in America. People think the more drugs they are taking with their doctor, the better they will be. This sounds like an exageration but it is true once you add in various medications that sound harmless. http://www.askapatient.com/viewtopratings.asp

This is too important to ignore.