Finger On The Trigger: Meds & School Shootings
The headlines are becoming eerily familiar. A school shooting occurs and details emerge that the person who fired the gun was on medication, often an antidepressant, which are already at the center of controversy over links to suicide and the extent to which the meds can cause violence. This pattern began with the Columbine shooting and continued last year with the Virginia Tech shooter.
The latest shooting mentioned in the same breath as medication occurred yesterday at Northern Illinois University, where 27-year-old Stephen Kazmierczak, gunned down five students in a suicidal rampage. There are now reports that he became erratic after stopping his medication. Which medication isn’t clear. Nor is it known when he stopped whatever med he was taking. The campus police chief declined to name the drug or provide other details, according to the Associated Press.
For the moment, there is only speculation. But with the familiar ring to this latest incident, there is already growing concern that Kazmierczak may have been under the influence of an antidepressant. This remains to be seen as more information, hopefully, becomes available and a fuller picture of the circumstances is understood.
However, any indication that he was, indeed, taking an antidepressant while on his rampage is going to further inflame the debate over these drugs. And drugmakers should be prepared. Despite a study last April in the Journal of the American Medical Association, which argued the pills may not be as closely linked to teenage suicide as some say, any sign that one of these pills may have contributed to the shooter’s mindset could open a whole new chapter on the controversy.
UPDATE: Tuesday, Feb. 19: Since we posted this item, Kazmierczak’s girlfriend, Jessica Baty, told CNN that he took Prozac to battle anxiety and compulsive behavior, but the pill “made him feel like a zombie and lazy.” But she added that, in the days leading up to the shooting, he wasn’t behaving erratically, as university officials had suggested.
The debate over the role of the med is likely to continue, especially since some psychiatrists note that Prozac doesn’t wash out of the system as rapidly as some other antidepressants. “It’s a real chicken-and-egg sort of situation,” Jane Garland, director of the Mood and Anxiety Disorders Clinic at BC Children’s Hospital in Vancouver, British Columbia, tells The New York Times.
She adds that said some people could and did become agitated and unpredictable in response to the drugs, usually just after starting to take them or soon after stopping. “But it’s hard to make a case for a withdrawal reaction here, because Prozac comes out of the system gradually,” she tells the paper.
Bob
Countdown in 3, 2, 1…
Truthman
“Bob
Countdown in 3, 2, 1…”
Uber bad taste Bob..
I was just reading about this and i think that the evidence is now overwhelming. SSRI’s and psychiatric drugs are linked to school shootings. Most of these school shooters were on or coming off psychiatric meds.
Considering that these mdeds can cause intense agitation,abnormal behaviour, personality changes, aggression, violence, hostility, akathisia , withdrawal, depersonalisation, derealization and a littany of other disturbing side effects, are these outcomes really that suprising at this stage?
Chris
Just a minute. There is no evidence whatsoever that Kazmierczak was taking antidepressants so it’s a stretch to claim (Truthman) that the evidence is now ovwewhelming. For one - it isn’t, and two, this is a link suggested by Ed (and I think it’s a very tenuous one btw). A little hasty I think.
Ed Silverman
Hi Everyone,
Just to clarify, I didn’t write there was evidence this fellow was on an antidepressant or intend to suggest a link. Perhaps he was taking a sleeping pill or a cholesterol pill. I did write that, on the surface, the pattern is familiar. And it’s a very widely debated pattern. Given the level of chatter on the ‘net, the absence of info is creating a vacuum, and I’m trying to address that vacuum, and the implications should a link actually occur. That said, if there’s no link to antidepressants or some other psychotropic medication, I’ll happily update.
Regards
ed
Truthman
Chris
Just a minute. There is no evidence whatsoever that Kazmierczak was taking antidepressants so it’s a stretch to claim (Truthman) that the evidence is now ovwewhelming. For one - it isn’t, and two, this is a link suggested by Ed (and I think it’s a very tenuous one btw). A little hasty I think.
The evidence has been overwhelming for sometime Chris..
(with or without the news of this new tragedy the evidence is still overwhelming , SSRI’s/Psych drugs are connected to the violent behaviour of school shooters, Its a fact, its reported all over the web.. Wake up to the reality)
Alan
Here is a thought. Let’s stop the speculation and “filling the vacuum” and wait until we have facts. There are a lot of possiblities out there, but absence facts, it does no one any good to speculate.
John
Ed,
In the second paragraph you write that the shooter discontinued his meds. In the third you suggest he was still under the influence of his meds. Are you trying to play both sides to the middle on this one? How would you have been made to report this by your editors in the print version of the S-L? Your breathless attempts to blame the medication without knowledge of his mental state/diagnosis leave me wondering…I guess guns don’t kill people, anti-depressants do!
Philip Dawdy
i’m hearing a trickle of info that he was diabetic and may have stopped taking a diabetes med.
University Update - Virginia Tech - Finger On The Trigger: Meds & School Shootings
[...] Forest University Finger On The Trigger: Meds & School Shootings » This Summary is from an article posted at Pharmalot » News, Comment and Conversation on Friday, [...]
Truthman
February 15, 2008
Shooter at Northern Illinois U. Had Stopped Taking His Medication, Authorities Say
http://chronicle.com/news/index.php?id=3965
February 15, 2008
Shooter at Northern Illinois U. Had Stopped Taking His Medication, Authorities Say
DeKalb, Ill. — The man who gunned down five students at Northern Illinois University on Thursday had recently stopped taking medication and had begun acting irrationally, according to people close to him, the authorities here said this morning.
“He was taking medication, had stopped, and had become somewhat erratic,” Donald Grady, the university’s police chief, said at a news conference.
http://news.monstersandcritics.com/usa/news/article_1391427.php/US_campus_shooter_took_medication_had_four_weapons
Washington - An ‘outstanding’ former student who fatally shot five people at an Illinois university before killing himself had recently behaved erratically after he stopped taking medication, police said Friday
http://edition.cnn.com/2008/US/02/15/university.shooting/?imw=Y&iref=mpstoryemail
DEKALB, Illinois (CNN) — Steven P. Kazmierczak, identified as the gunman in Thursday’s shooting rampage at Northern Illinois University, was “an outstanding student” who reportedly stopped taking medication recently and became “somewhat erratic,” the university’s police chief said Friday.
There were no red flags,” Grady said. “He was an outstanding student, he was an awarded student, he was someone that was revered by the faculty, staff and students alike. … So we had no indications at all.”
Speculation eh?…
I stopped paxil abruptly and I thought i was losing my mind, became intensely agaitated(withdrawal akathisia) and hostile… ( i know what these meds can do to a person.. I went through hell on paxil) .. The reality is psych drugs and SSRI’s are causing these young people to explode violently like emotional timebombs… The sooner people wake up to that fact the sooner the shootings and teen violence can be stopped…
No red flags, an outstanding student… ?
Another victim of SSRI induced aggression and suicide..
Ed Silverman
Hi John,
I didn’t write that a specific medication was to blame and I didn’t write that he was still under the influence of a medication. Those are the unknowns and I mentioned them as unknowns. I did write that there is, as usual, growing speculation.
As we both know, there’s always concern about a link to a psychotropic when one of these incidents occur. I agree there’s no need to rush to judgement, and I didn’t. I was pointing out, however, that any link would further an ongoing controversy. That’s all. And again, I will update.
Regards
ed
Truthman
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9S-7aNPf33A
Growing speculation ..
And growing evidence indeed…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sstoa406Oa0&feature=related
Joe
Or maybe (more likely?) he stopped taking his ANTIPSYCHOTIC medication, became paranoid, and then acted?
Truthman
Joe
Or maybe (more likely?) he stopped taking his ANTIPSYCHOTIC medication, became paranoid, and then acted?
Yup , most definately a possibility…
The antipychotics (resperdal, Zyprexa etc are all just as dangerous as the SSRI’s)
Nathan
Ed,
I agree with Alan and Chris — there is no way this kind of reporting would make its way into a reputable printed news publication.
It may be perfectly true that this individual was taking an antidepressant and then stopped taking it. But wait until you learn something more concrete. Until then, you are just “fanning the flames” (of you-know-who) for no apparent purpose. I’m beginning to think that you like to CREATE the speculation rather than just report on the speculation.
Of course, it is your prerogative to create speculation if you so desire. However, myself and others have become regular readers of your site for the NEWS that it offers — not for speculation.
Ed Silverman
Hi Nathan,
Point taken. Although I wasn’t trying to fan the flames, as you put it. I was trying to point out to those who do speculate that we don’t have enough info yet. I did write that, and it was addressed to anyone who may already believe a psychotropic is a culprit.
At the same time, I did make a point of noting that, if it does come to pass such a med is somehow involved, it’s an issue for the industry. And again, I will follow whatever transpires, whether it was an antidepressant, a diabetes med, a sleeping pill or no drug at all. I would be happy to write that none of the above were at the heart of all this.
ed
Bob
This site is turning into a joke.
Am I going to swing by here in two weeks, and see an article of a Paxil taker who gets pulled over for speeding? I can’t wait to see the comments by the crusaders …”Paxil causes people to speed, thus causes death, blah blah blah.”
Bob
Can I point out that millions have taken an SSRI at some point and have done nothing like the episode above, or any of the ridiculous ones I see posted on here.
But let’s continue to call LVS a “hero”, when she gives bail money to a kid who slaughtered his grandparents. Interesting, because I know a few people who have taken Zoloft who have never murdered anyone. Interesting.
Ed Silverman
Hi Bob (No. 1),
Sorry you feel that way. There are actually many interesting and worthwhile topics to explore here, not just antidepressants. Scroll back through this week’s posts and you’ll see what I mean. From China and Provenge to Vytorin and executive changes (I was first with the item about Alex Gorsky leaving Novartis), there are any number of issues here up for grabs. Patents, preemption, off-label promotion and biologics, for instance, have all been covered recently.
In any event, I respect your right to disagree with my reasoning for the post. Clearly, I hit a nerve and, unfortunately, appear to have been misunderstood to some extent.
In this instance, I was trying to point out to those who would speculate that, yes, we only have speculation right now. But given the noise level, I thought it was worth noting that, should the speculation come to pass, it would be in industry’s interest to pay close attention.
I’d like to add, though, that I hope no medication was involved in this tragedy. It’s already disturbing.
Regards
ed
Bob
Ed, while I do enjoy the other topics, it seems as if the anti-pharma/anti-ssri’s group is given a forum to express their misinformation and anger.
I know the press always represents the negative sides of stories, but in fairness, why not a story about how Paxil helped someone? In other words, fairness I guess is the best way to go.
I apologize for calling this place a joke. It wasn’t a shot at you, moreso a shot at some of the people who have posted here, and what they are turning it into.
Anyway, have a great weekend!
Nathan
Backing up Bob’s point, here is a list of the top 40 “killing sprees”. (obviously not including the current one of this discussion) Notice that 17 of the 40 occurred before 1988, which is when the first major SSRI was introduced.
http://spreekillers.org/
There’s an old phrase that most people are familiar with: “Shit happens”. As much as we’d like to think otherwise, there isn’t always someone to blame for the crapy things that happen in this world. The pharmaceutical companies make a nice scapegoat lately, but even if SSRIs were taken off the market, stuff like this would still happen, just like it always has.
People are quick to blame pharmaceutical companies when things like this happen. But here’s a fact: Suicide rates have been dropping steadily for the last 10 years. Does anyone give the pharmaceutical companies any credit for this? No way. Not on this website.
Philip Dawdy
i’m not sure which bob i am replying to here, but being somewhat neutral on the questions around ssris, let me point out to you that big pharma has long had its own forum on which tout its meds for the last ten years. it’s called dtc advertising. and big pharma lies constantly about anti-deps and wildly overstates their efficacy and grossly underplays withdrawal problems from these drugs. the fact that you are hearing from some haters of anti-deps here shouldn’t surprise you a bit. maybe you can learn something from it. and maybe you ought to review erick turner’s recent paper in the nejm.
Skeptical
Ed, it’s not your choice of topics–It’s the insipid and neverending posts by lunatics that are driving most of us away. At the least, they’re tedious; at the worst, they are irresponsible.
Philip Dawdy
hey skeptical, what about the overreporting of anti-dep efficacy by pharma cos? wouldn’t that be irresponsible? wouldn’t that be lunacy? i try to stay neutral on the anti-deps issues, but clowns like you make it real easy to go the other way.
Ed Silverman
Hi Everyone,
And Bob, thanks for your last comment. Here’s what I’m learning as I run this site - since it’s the Internet, anyone is welcome to stop by to read and comment. In the spirit of keeping an open-door policy, I try to step back and let folks debate, argue and sound off (although now and then, I do try to remind everyone that civility is desirable).
I don’t, however, give anyone person or group a forum. People come and go at will. This is the nature of the Internet. A site may be targeted toward a select audience, but anyone can drop in and join the party. I’ve chosen to take a hands-off approach, because I don’t believe my role as moderator should involve censorship or banning people.
But there’s always opportunity here to discuss all sorts of issues without aggravation or enmity. Preemption has been a good example. Gorksy’s departure from Novartis generated some interesting back and forth. A post last month about cholesterol pills and NNT in clinical trials drove a spirited and highly informed discussion for several days. In each instance, no one point of view, however extreme, dominated the debate.
When it comes to antidepressants - and sometimes, antipsychotics - the debate is different. No question. I would suggest responding only to those who you feel are willing to engage in an informed conversation and ignore anyone whose comment puts you off. Think of this as a party in a large house and you float among different groups - some are engaged in interesting chatter and others make you want to turn tail.
Lastly, I’m not emphasizing the negative over the positive, or vice versa, but whatever is of interest to the many people who are interested in all things pharma. Granted, tough stories, or in my case, posts, are on this site. But as I’ve explained before, the industry is undergoing a lot of change and challenge, which creates tension. And part of my job is to track the tension. But I appreciate your point and will keep it in the front of my mind.
Cheers
ed
Jack2
SSRIs?
I thought it was the comic books he read? Or the TV shows he watched? Or playing Dungeons and Dragons? Or those darn, violent video games. Because stuff like this never happened before 1960.
It’s a tragedy. It wasn’t the first. Unfortunately, it won’t be the last.
Robyn
The Bridge et al study in JAMA in April won’t be the final word on the use of anti-depressants in children and adolescents. See a review here: http://healthyskepticism.org/news/2008/January08.php
Joe
“Philip Dawdy
i’m not sure which bob i am replying to here, but being somewhat neutral on the questions around ssris”
Oh pleaze, Phillip, your blog, furious seasons, is one of the most anti-pharma sites out there. YOU ARE HARDLY NEUTRAL. At least be honest, we can goggle your name after all.
Lisa Van S
Im enjoying this debate… folks can check out this site on antidepressants violence and suicide http://www.ssristories.com
truthman
To the pharma damage limitation brigade… (you know who you are)
First of all, it is very convenient for you all to dismiss anyone who has a different opinion then you as a “lunatic” “anti-pharma” etc etc…
But you fail to see that there are many from within the industry who have had the balls to speak of its crimes also. (Peter Rost being one example) ..
You would do better if you tried to at least recognise that the public is not happy about the behaviour of pharma (Vioxx, Paxil, Zyprexa, Avandia etc) ..
The reputation of the industry is so bad because it has behaved so badly..
The public, and the people who express views that you perceive as “anti-pharma” rhetoric are people who are trying to voice what they have discovered, their experiences of pharma, meds and their opinion on the industry…
Pharmas PR is failing..
Most things get leaked on the internet now..
If we had the internet in the age of thalidomide .. maybe that tragedy could have been averted or at least awareness might have prevented the scale of it..
No matter what tactic Big Pharma tries, in the internet age, someone somewhere is going to have an opinion of it.. stop taking things so personally, and accept that we and our are voices are here to stay.. Either deal with that or get a different job…
Dave
What’s wrong with being anti-pharma? I think being a little skeptical of multi-billion dollar corporations is a healthy thing. What we need is a little less name calling , rhetoric, and side arguments and a little more accurate knowledge and exhaustive investigation into the matter. Wait for the facts, of course, but you also have to know how to put two facts together. It doesn’t really matter if this latest mass shooter was on anti-depressants, because there will always be someone there who will go to the next level and say one thing does not lead to another. Unfortunately killing sprees have happened before there were antidepressants and they have happened after, and it WILL happen again. Does this mean that antidepressants are, or are not a factor in some of them? That’s something you will have to decide for yourself.
John
Ed,
What should be reported on is the incidence of adverse events (like suicidal thoughts etc.) in well controlled randomized, placebo controlled Phase III clinical trials of SSRI’s…if there are any. I agree with several posters that SSRI’s have helped innumerable people cope and wish that the one’s who do not agree can see to it to understand that we may never know what drug or cocktail of drugs is able to positively impact the gray matter upstairs. The plain facts are that the rigidity of the studies needed for the drug approval process often times does not reflect how the drugs will be used in real life, real time by real people who were not the exact profile of those used on study. In this case I go back to my original point. What would be the bigger story; the gun was obtained illegally or this guy stopped his SSRI? For those of you who want to restrict SSRI’s and blindly blame Pharma be prepared to spend more tax dollars on building shiny new facilities to house men and women who cannot get along in society without medication.
truthman
“For those of you who want to restrict SSRI’s and blindly blame Pharma be prepared to spend more tax dollars on building shiny new facilities to house men and women who cannot get along in society without medication” - John
There have been numerous studies of SSRI’s and they do indicate an increase in suicidal thoughts , as has been said time and time again, pharma does not publish the negative studies. (nor does it have to for “commercial reasons”)
SSRI’s are a triumph of marketing over science. They are not effective in most cases, are massively over-prescribed to people who don’t need them. They also have an outrageous adverse side effects profile. Also they can cause dependence(addiction), horific withdrawal reactions and have not been studied for their long term effects on humans.
Stop justifying SSRI’s, there is no justification for suppressing negative studies on ANY drugs. There is no justification for creating markets to exploit human conditions in order to sell bogus treatments and dupe the public.
Better Tax dollars would be more effectively spent on proper support services in schools , the workplace and the community (such as pscyhotherapists etc)
skeptic
Phillip Dawdy, find a Scientology blog, please. Take Truthman (sic) with you.
Bless the Truth
You all seem to miss the point. Drug alone does not triger a mindful reaction to issues, treatment, hostility and the likes. The big question that we may never get an answer to is why did he do it? Why did all the other killers do it?
At least the V-Tech guy left some hints. It appears the society was not “fair” to him and that made him do it! Stupid and wicked it may be, the corporate America, and especially the Pharma companies is a fertile ground for over reactive emotions and outburts. The eveils that run through these companies are worse than those experienced by the V-Tech guy. Even NASA was not protected when the unexpected and unsuspected happened. An employee gun down his supervisor for what he believed was an unjust performance evaluation. I like to say too bad and horribl! But is there a lesson for all of us? Why can’t we live in a society embracing the golden rules of justice and fairness? Each time I read about this kind of shooting, I am prompted to think that our society is cancerously sick!
Six brillant potentials were destroyed prematurely by a senseless killer. My compassion to their families, friends and loved ones. However, it may be a wake-up call for dirty corporate pharma empires. I pray I will never get to say I told you so.
truthman
skeptic
Phillip Dawdy, find a Scientology blog, please. Take Truthman (sic) with you.
wow.. How adult of you..
truthman
You all seem to miss the point. Drug alone does not triger a mindful reaction to issues, treatment, hostility and the likes. The big question that we may never get an answer to is why did he do it? Why did all the other killers do it?
.. My understanding of why these psych drugs cause impulsive reactions such as violence, hostility and aggression is this…
(and as a former user of Paxil, I diid have incresaed aggression and hostility on Paxil)
If you put someone who has low self esteem, personal issues and emotional problems which they can’t deal with on a psychiatric drug you are dicing with that individuals state of mind…
These drugs mask the underlying problems which are the cause of their condition.. the problems fester and the frustration builds up.. and in some cases it explodes and the result is schoolkids on meds shooting up their schools.. If you have ever experienced an SSRI rage you would understand..
Hundreds of thousands of people have reported rage , intense irritability and akathisia (inner turmoil and restlessness) .. These side effects are LISTED now in the patient leaflets, these drugs have BLACK BOX warnings because of these dangerous side effects.. They are universally accepted as factual adverse reactions of SSRI;s and psych meds.. So, of course there is a connection between these kids on meds and their “out of character” behaviour.. It’s not speculation, it is FACT..
NJDave
It’s all a matter of perspective.
I thought ‘discontinued meds’ meant ’stopped his bipolar’ medication. My sister had a friend who would start into a manic phase by thinking that he didn’t need his medicine anymore because he felt GREAT! And then go through weeks of erratic behavior.
We really don’t have a clue what happened here.
Tom
Come on people…you know what kind of meds we are eventually going to find that he stopped taking. The reason everyone is speculating is because it’s only a matter of time before reality proves the speculation as fact.
Karol Karolak
From symptoms described in the press it seems to me that Stephen Kazmierczak, was a paranoid schizophrenic on Zyprexa and not some dude with an undefined mental problem controlled for nine years by use of antidepressants.
Majority of previous shooting could quite rightly be attributed to recent (just prior to rampage) prescription of antidepressants to individuals suffering from Narcissistic Personality Disorders, but not this one, it just does not make any sense.
It is quite possible that Stephen Kazmierczak switched quite recently from Zyprexa to antidepressants and that turned him on to go on a rampage.
Unfortunatelly none of the so called miraculous psychotropic drugs address real issues underlying mental illnesses like schizophrenia; all that they ever do is address symptoms.
Just think of someone suffering from tuberculosis that is given an inhaler that stops his coughing. Does this inhaler cure tuberculosis?? No. Does it stop spread of disease?? No. What does it do then??? It prevents coughing nothing more.
“Miracle” psychotropic drug like Zyprexa (Olanzapine) or Resperidal (Resperidone) block serotonin receptors and dopamine receptors in brains of people suffering from schizophrenia and are slowing down and terminating neural signals transmissions in affected individuals. The regions of the brain (containing traumatic memories) that generate visual and auditory hallucinations and emotional reaction are basically prevented from communicating with regions of brain responsible for basic functioning of affected individual.
In essence Zyprexa and Resperidal act as chemical lobotomising agent flooding whole brain of affected individual. Once psychiatrists get rid of the most obvious symptoms they go on and pretend that they have cured their patient and that he or she is ready to join society and function normally (providing he or she takes his or her meds).
I just wonder how would it work out if doctors were doing same thing with people suffering from tuberculosis and we were sending them out of the hospital with inhalers?
We know so much about real causes of schizophrenia (traumatic experiences of childhood that were never emotionally processed by affected individual) but current options of quick fix of alleviating symptoms by use the of Zyprexa prevents us from developing effective methods of therapy of psychiatric patients.
Instead of hospitalization and intensive psychotherapy (object relation therapy) that can be greatly enhanced and sped up by use of antidepressants and resulting intensification of symptoms due to increased neural transmission we create holding tanks for psychiatric patients where we use psychotropic drugs to suppress symptoms of their mental illness and send them back into the environment that made them mentally ill in a first place.
There must be a better way and modern antidepressants combined with proper psychotherapy in proper hospital setting hold a great promise in that respect. Recent discoveries of strengthening of proper (adaptive) neural connections thru antidepressants enhanced psychotherapy and neurogenesis phenomena resulting from prolonged use of antidepressants indicate that this promise is very real and that it is within our grasp.
Matt
People in support of drugs or who are just ignorant tend to propose that a person commits murder because he was NOT on an antipsychotic, or was not taking an antideprresant. People who point to the evidence that shooters are often on anidepressants or antipsychotics (or coming off of them) are usually against the use of drugs when it comes to the resolution of emotional troubles. The one thing they have in common is that the use of or lack of use of psychiatric drugs is the one thing both sides are using as a base for an arguement.
How many idiots go out and shoot people while NEVER having any pshiatric drug use history? I am sure that if a study was done on this and compared to a study of people taking the (psychiatic) drugs or coming off of them, there would be A LOT less people not taking drugs and going out killing people randomly than there would be people with drug histories killing people.
People prone to taking drugs are going to defend their drug taking killer counterparts. They’re guilty of the same thing - resorting to drugs to control their behavior.
There is no biological evidence to support the use of antipsychotics, antidepressants, schizophrenia, bipolar, or any other psychiatric bs. None. God forbid we consider that fact….
pg
Re Spree Killers org link: “Charles Whitman 08-01-1966 Austin, Texas Sawed off shotgun, Remington 700, M1 Carbine, .357 Magnum, Galesi-Brescia pistol and Luger”
Don’t have time at the moment to look at the whole thing, but that name jumped out straight away.
1966 “UNITED STATES Charles Whitman, 29, (Valium and Dexedrine) student at University of Texas who killed his wife and mother then went to the 27 storey high tower of the university firing down at passers-by on the campus and in the city, killing 15 people and wounding 31 others before being fatally shot down by police. Early that year he was prescribed valium when he complained of depression. In March he then saw the campus psychiatrist and remarked that he was getting urges to shoot people. By summer, shortly before the killings, he was prescribed Dexedrine.”
Atlex
Ed,
I’m a little disappointed in your speculation around this case. The news reports clearly indicate that the shooters family believes he became erratic after abandoning his medication (whatever medication that is). We are fooling ourselves if we think the family was referring to cholesterol medication or an antihistamine. They were implying that his was on mental health medication.
That being said, you speculate that “there is already growing concern that Kazmierczak may have been under the influence of an antidepressant.” That implies that the medication may be the cause, when I believe that the family was implying that discontinuing the medication was the cause. Based on reports, the shooter had been on medication for some time and had been a highly productive, likable person. It is entirely possible that the medication was responsible for keeping him likable and productive.
If I wanted to fan the flames on this site, I could speculate that the “blame pharma” crowd is responsible. They always blame the meds when a killer on meds commits his/her act. Suppose, in this case, the killer had been influenced by reading blogs and news reports that his meds were bad for him, so he quit taking them. That would mean that Truthman and his crowd might be the cause of this tragedy. Of course, unlike the blame pharma crowd, I’m not ready to place blame without more knowledge. (By the way, LVS, although I disagree with much of what you say, I know that you have previously stated that you believe that there is an appropriate role for mental health drugs; so I definitely don’t include you in this charge.)
Atlex
Nathan
Truthman and many others,
I’ll go back to the point that I made in my post above:
People are quick to blame pharmaceutical companies when things like this happen. But here’s a fact: Suicide rates have been dropping steadily for the last 10 years. Does anyone give the pharmaceutical companies any credit for this? No way. Not on this website.
Ed Silverman
Hi Atlex,
If you go back through the comments posted here, you’ll see that I’ve explained my thoughts on this four times already. Please take a look. I’m not going to repeat myself.
Cheers
ed
truthman
“People are quick to blame pharmaceutical companies when things like this happen. But here’s a fact: Suicide rates have been dropping steadily for the last 10 years. Does anyone give the pharmaceutical companies any credit for this? No way. Not on this website” Nathan
Have you got a NON-PHARMA FUNDED link for this statement NATHAN?
Give pharmaceutical companies credit for a drop in suicide rates?
You are joking Nathan right?..
truthman
“If I wanted to fan the flames on this site, I could speculate that the “blame pharma” crowd is responsible. They always blame the meds when a killer on meds commits his/her act. Suppose, in this case, the killer had been influenced by reading blogs and news reports that his meds were bad for him, so he quit taking them. That would mean that Truthman and his crowd might be the cause of this tragedy” Atlex
Atlex..
You are being ridiculous..
Psychiatric meds have long been connected with school shootings, they also have black box warnings indicating aggression, hostility and suicidal behavior
as KNOWN side effects on their labeling… Do blogs have black box labels?… No, because that would be ridiculous..
What pharmaceutical company do you work for Atlex?
In whose interest does it serve you to play down the side effects of Medications?..
aa
Hi,
According to this article, http://tinyurl.com/2e6got:
Including Paxil, it was medication he was supposed to still be taking and apparently stopped a couple of weeks ago.
I am not a medical professional but it is very dangerous to suddently go off of a psych med. While I fortunately didn’t kill anybody or become homical, I did develop suicidal ideation thanks to my previous psychiatrist (not the current one) who did this.
One this link, http://tinyurl.com/2dq4om, Dr. Joesph Glenmullen says:
“The symptoms of antidepressant withdrawal can include suicidality, impulsivity, aggression, anxiety, depression, crying spells, insomnia, dizziness, vertigo, nausea, vomiting, headaches, tremors, and electric “zap” sensations in the brain. When patients stop antidepressants cold turkey the symptoms can be so severe that they are debilitating:”
Before anyone bashes me for damming SSRIs, reread my post. Whether we agree or disagree that these meds are helpful, the issue is that there is zero education about stopping these meds suddently and how dangerous that can be. In all the years I have been taking psych meds (I am now tapering off of them, I was never told about that danger.
And if doctors did say anything to their patients, it was that they could stop the med suddenly without any problems.
Nate and Bob - This is a plea to you. I have read your posts and we definitely disagree on the issue of meds. But I think we all can agree that stopping psych meds cold turkey or quickly tapeing off of them is dangerous and that that patients aren’t getting the word from their doctors.
Please, please, please before more people lose their lives, work to get this message out.
AA
truthman
REPORT: Northern Illinois Shooter Had Long Mental Health History
http://www.furiousseasons.com/archives/2008/02/report_northern_illinois_shooter_had_long_mental_health_history.html
http://abclocal.go.com/wls/story?section=news/local&id=5959663
“Kazmierczak, 27, was treated for mental illness nine years ago. He was considered volatile, according to a staff member who worked at the facility at the time, and violent if he stopped taking the antidepressant and anti-anxiety pills prescribed for him. It was medication he was supposed to still be taking and apparently stopped a couple of weeks ago.
Backs up everything we have been saying!…
Psychiatric drug withdrawal can cause homicidal impluses…
Nathan
Truthman,
Here’s the links. Read for yourself: suicide rates are dropping. (and have been since the early ’90s) SSRI scripts have been going up and up over the same time period. Everyone is quick to blame the horrific events on SSRIs. Yet the same people are just as quick to deny any credit for the decrease in suicides. Stop giving me crap about a pharmaceutical bias. I readily admit that SSRIs may have their problems. This world is just black and white to you. The facts are far more complicated than your simple mind is able to grasp.
http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/545555
http://www.newswise.com/articles/view/523863/
http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P1-112335652.html
http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/9054.html
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/story?id=2504425&page=1&CMP=OTC-RSSFeeds0312
truthman
This world is just black and white to you. The facts are far more complicated than your simple mind is able to grasp.
You are the simpleton Nathan, you have a pharmaceutical agenda..
You have no interest in people, mental illness or health..
Your only purpose here is damage limitation..
That is as obvious as the day is long…
aa
Nate,
Thank you for the links.
Just like I would expect you to find facts to support your argument, you knew I was going to do the same. Anyway, in reading the newswire article, it says:
“First, the good news: Suicide rates among younger and older Americans have been declining since the early 1990s. Now, the puzzling news: No one really knows why.”
“For 40 years adolescent suicide rates rose,” said McKeown, who collaborated on the study with the USC pharmacy professor Dr. Richard Schulz and School of Medicine neuropsychiatry professor Dr. Steven Cuffe.
“Then, the rates began to decline in the late 1980s for adults 65 and older and in the early 1990s for adolescents and young adults,” he said. “But many people weren’t aware; they kept saying suicides were increasing when it was no longer true.”
“In our medical-literature searches, we began finding international studies that suggested a correlation of declining suicide rates with an increase in the use of new-generation antidepressants,” McKeown said. “But you can’t blithely assume that drugs like Prozac have lowered the suicide rate. If that was the reason, why haven’t the suicide rates of those in the 25-to-64 age brackets declined, too?”
Enough said.
AA
aa
Nate,
You might be interested in this link:
http://tinyurl.com/2nmh2p
“jobs and less toxic car exhaust fumes may be behind a drop in suicides among young men in the U.K. to the lowest level in 30 years, researchers said in the British Medical Journal.
Reductions in antidepressant use among under-18s have not led to an increase in suicidal behavior in youngsters, another study found. ”
This is significant in light of the fact that in the UK, prozac is the only SSRI permitted for kids under 18.
AA
Lisa Van S
Atlex,
Thank You! What concerns me here is this,.. Clearly this young man had been on an antidepressant and anti anxiety medication for quite a long time, so I have to ask who was monitoring him? If he had stopped his Meds cold turkey, one can assume his Psychosis was brought on by abrupt withdrawal which is well recognized by Medical Professionals. Im interested in hearing more details on his (Med) use. Still a lot of unanswered questions.
Lisa Van S
Ed,
Im glad you chose to post this,..why?.. Because now we can have a discussion on the danger of abruptly withdrawing from Psychotropic Medications.
Its amazing how therapeutic Florida can be…
Go Jeff Gordon!!!
dada
Antidepressants and suicides
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9800EEDD133FF931A1575BC0A9629C8B63&sec=health&pagewanted=all
– Between 1998 and 2003, sales of antidepressants in Japan quintupled, according to IMS Health.–
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Japan/FG28Dh01.html
– Japanese suicide rates have been high since 1998…In 1998, suicide broke the 30,000 threshold and has remained high ever since.–
Nathan
aa,
That’s my point exactly. I don’t think that there is evidence to attribute the drop in suicide rates to SSRIs. It could be attributed to lots of things. The same thing applies to these mass shootings that everyone blames on SSRI’s. There COULD be a link — but right now there isn’t the evidence to support it.
dada
The non pharma-influenced media picture:
http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/chi-steve-kazmierczak-gunman_webfeb16,0,401780.column
–On the Northern Illinois University campus, Steven P. Kazmierczak was considered a gentle, hard-working student, who was honored two years ago with a dean’s award for his sociology work.
Professors who taught him said it was hard to imagine he was the same person authorities identified as the gunman in Thursday’s classroom shootings.
“I knew Steve both as an undergraduate and as a graduate student. I have had him in my home. I knew him as a warm, sensitive, very bright student,” said Professor Kristen Myers in an e-mail. “I never would believe that he could do this. I know that when these horrible things happen, everyone searches for roots to explain it. Here, I’m afraid I don’t have any.”
…Former sociology undergraduate student Stephanie Delhotal, 22, said Kazmierczak was extremely helpful when he served as a teaching assistant in her statistics lab last spring.
“I learned most of what I knew from him,” said Delhotal, who is now a social worker. “He was very nice and very friendly…he was so into statistics. I just took him to be a computer nerd.”–
aa
Nathan,
How can you say there isn’t evidence to support a link when these types of side effects are listed for many psych meds? Now granted, even if you think the number isn’t signficant, doesn’t the fact that people who are not on psych meds who are losing their lives as the result of these shooters, give you pause for alarm?
Jay Cohen, a doctor who is not anti meds, says that these drugs definitely cause homicidal behavior:
http://www.medicationsense.com/articles/april_june_04/underlying_cause.html
Nathan, as I alluded to in my post about cold turkey withdrawal, whether we disagree or agree on what the evidence is, the fact is that people are losing ttheir lives.
I would have alot more respect for the drug companies if they engaged in a public service annoucement to warn doctors and patients on what to look for regarding these drugs possibly causing aggressive behavior.
Instead, we are told to tough out the side effect or our dose gets doubled because of the alleged worsening of our illness. This philosphy almost killed me.
Nathan, please do what is right instead of worrying about defending your industry. You can do that later. But right now, innocent lives are being lost and I fear this will continue.
AA
dada
Sweden’s National Board of Health and Welfare data on all female suicides recorded in Sweden
http://www.transworldnews.com/NewsStory.aspx?id=35693&cat=10
–Psychiatric drugs behind 75 percent of all female suicides–
Bob
Karol-There’s a show on Discovery Health called Most Evil. It deals with Forensic Psychiatrist Michael Stone (he’s from Columbia), and his “Scale of Evil.”
There is a ton of interesting research going on right now with Schizophrenia/Depression and different parts of the brain. Check it out sometime if you get the channel, as I have learned a ton watching it over the past year.
dada
http://www.socialaudit.org.uk/60403162.htm
Medawar C, Hardon A: Medicines out of Control? – Antidepressants and the Conspiracy of Goodwill (Amsterdam: Aksant Academic Publishers, 2004). ISBN 90 5260 134 8. Paperback, 260 pages. Price: £ 19.25/ US$ 34.50 / Euro 27.50
–The 1990s saw ‘depression’ formally redefined as a serotonin-deficiency disease and the scourge of millions - a convenient and seductive, but deeply simplistic view. The term, drug ‘dependence’ was redefined, to propose that loss of personal autonomy could never arise in a therapeutic setting, but only within a few blocks of ‘Skid Row’. The ubiquitous term, ‘discontinuation symptoms’ - newspeak for withdrawal symptoms - implied that antidepressants carried no risk of dependence. Wishful thinking proposed ‘discontinuation symptoms’ as evidence of the effectiveness of vital remedies, important for reducing overwhelming risks.–
–The UK drug regulators still eschew reports from patients, in the absence of ‘medical interpretation’. Ironically, but predictably, it was the wealth of evidence from antidepressant users that finally caused the regulators to confront the reality: a substantial risk of dependence, among other damaging drug effects. In particular, the risk of drug-induced violence and self-harm had been a worry for years.–
–Beyond lack of scrutiny, closer inspection of the data revealed systematic burial of evidence of risk, notably by crunching numbers and mincing words.–
–In the last quarter of the 20th century, commerce took over the reins of medicine and began to steer health towards trade. The Pharmas carefully arranged the tests and trials of their drugs; they came to dominate medical education and communication, and they sponsored more and more. From behind the scenes, the Pharmas orchestrated the widespread promotion of their products and views, through the placement and advancement of the experts and leaders they chose. In time, the imperatives of trade and the impact of commercial messages became overwhelming. “Just how tainted has medicine become?” asked a Lancet editorial (2002). The answer was, “heavily and damagingly so”.–
Steve
How on earth do you leave a trackback on this site?
Truthman
“There COULD be a link — but right now there isn’t the evidence to support it.”
Says Nathan..
How many shool shooters withdrawing from psych drugs flipping out and shooting up the place does it take before you will see the connection Nathan?…
Are you sure you are not an ostrich?
http://writingjunkie.net/images/ostrich-head.jpg
Truthman
Intersting post on Seroxat secets blog..
Stephen Kazmierczak - the Illinois gunman stopped taking Paxil (Seroxat)…
February 16, 2008 — admin
… according to news channel ABC7 Chicago - full story here:
“Authorities have not figured out what motivated the man, described as a hardworking, award-winning former honor student by NIU faculty, to go on a shooting rampage that killed five students.
Kazmierczak, 27, was treated for mental illness nine years ago. He was considered volatile, according to a staff member who worked at the facility at the time, and violent if he stopped taking the antidepressant and anti-anxiety pills prescribed for him. Including Paxil, it was medication he was supposed to still be taking and apparently stopped a couple of weeks ago.”
So Paxil/Seroxat may have been involved in this tragedy, however we need to know the details - we need to know the truth.
Truthman
http://seroxatsecrets.wordpress.com/2008/02/16/stephen-kazmierczak-the-illinois-gunman-stopped-taking-paxil-seroxat/
(link to seroxat secrets post above)
Truthman
From ABC news (for full article see link)
http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=4296984
http://www.infowars.com/?p=255
University Police: Illinois Campus Shooter On “Medication”
Kurt Nimmo
Truth News
February 15, 2008
As suspected, the Illinois campus shooter, identified as Stephen Kazmierczak, was on medication, although ABC News reports at this time it is unknown what sort of medication.
In the last few weeks, Kazmierczak’s
behavior had become erratic, according to [NIU campus Police Chief Donald Grady], and it is believed the Kazmierczak had stopped taking his medication. The chief declined to specify the type of medication the gunman was on.
As was revealed soon after the shootings at Virginia Tech, Cho Seung-Hui was taking the anti-depressant Paroxetine, which he took from June 1999 to July 2000. Seung-Hui’s “doctor stopped the medication because Mr. Cho had improved,” the New Yorks Times reported on August 30, 2007.
“Recent regulatory warnings about adverse behavioral effects of antidepressants in susceptible individuals have raised the profile of these issues with clinicians, patients, and the public. We review available clinical trial data on paroxetine and sertraline and pharmacovigilance studies of paroxetine and fluoxetine, and outline a series of medico-legal cases involving antidepressants and violence,” notes PLoS Medicine, a peer-reviewed medical publication. “Both clinical trial and pharmacovigilance data point to possible links between these drugs and violent behaviors.”
Truthman
http://www.godlikeproductions.com/forum1/message505415/pg1
US campus shooter ’stopped taking medication’ Big Pharma kills again
Interesting discussions all over the place on this one…
Bob
I hope he wasn’t taking an antibiotic at the time. Who knows how many killers have been on Levaquin at the time of their rampages…
someone
Has anyone noticed how many drugs are out there that one must take for “the rest of their lives”? It isn’t just with mental illnesses, it covers the spectrum of diseases. Because it is much easier to make these things all “chronic” - we are after all, not only a nation, but a world of pill takers.
What makes us think we can have people with such debilitating illnesses and send them out into the great big unsupervised world as long as they “promise” to keep taking their drugs? Then we all act “Shocked” horrified” and wonder how on earth this could have ever happened.
The money being spent on supporting the life time of drug taking is money that isn’t being spent on cures rather than trying to make a better band aid for a disease that requires so much more.
These shootings are completely disturbing, what’s more there were 7 school shootings in the US in the past few weeks. If anti depressants and/or anti psychotic drugs are linked to them all, I hope we see the biggest class action lawsuit ever.
We have got to stop deceiving ourselves with this foolishness that these serious diseases can be treated with a handful of very expensive pills.
This is becoming the biggest crime against humanity ever! Our health care system fails these people and their family, we write a script and send them on their way. As long as drug companies, pharmacies, and every link in the chain of our health care system gets their pay and/or kickback, we’ve done our jobs!!!
In spite of all of this I still have some faith in humanity that we can really cure these diseases. We just have to stop paying out so many incentives for band aids and start rewarding research that leads to cures. We need to get beyond palliative treatment.
Start looking around people, when was the last discovery ever made that actually “cured” something and didn’t require indefinite years on one drug or another for maintenance.
Have we really forgotten how to actually practice, research, science and medicine? Let’s hope not.
I hope our government comes up with a program. How about restricted licensing of drugs that do not cure a long with strict pricing guidelines for palliative type drugs. After all it is our money we are all playing with, it is our taxes it is our insurance premiums.
We’ve all been scammed and sold snake oil! How did we convince the doctors, nurses and therapist that it was o.k. to send seriously psychotic people home alone as long as they take their pill?
Geesh!!!
pg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OyPuE314SDQ
Dr. Moria Dolan, Executive Director for the Medical Accountability Network discusses the link between antidepressants medications and suicide, violence and school shootings.
Donna
Truthman,
It has also been written that Cho Seung-Hui was also being treated for severe acne….hmmmm I wonder with what??
Lisa Van S
Bob,
Since you brought up Levaquin!.. A N.J. Police Officer became psychotic on Levaquin and took his neighbors hostage at gunpoint during a raging snow storm. Guess what? The Levaquin defense worked.
Lisa Van S
PAXIL was the drug,.. and it had been originally prescribed for anxiety, ie; Panic Attack!
Paxil Withdrawal:Money Bag
http://paxilharmschildren.com
Tobin vs GSK
Murder/Suicide
Brian
So I’m thinking if he stayed on his medication..This shooting would have never happened…I guess there is a role for antipsychotics meds.
pg
It’s an antidepressant.
pg
On withdrawal (discontinuation syndrome:
“Lets face it in the end. All the anxious and agitated patient will be saying is
[cartoon of dollar notes falling from the sky over a screaming person in withdrawal]
“WHERE’S MY PAXIL!!!!!!!”
Documement: “Confidential Persuant to Protective Order
SB SmithKline Beecham 1st May 1997″
pg
Lisa Van S draw attention to the Tobin case (regarding Donald Schell):
Short summary, page 2 of 30: “Donald Schell, (Paxil). 48 hours after starting Paxil, he killed his wife, daughter, granddaughter and himself. (Jury found Paxil at cause and ordered GlaxoSmithKline to pay $6.4 million to surviving family members)”
pg
How were (and are) doctors, nurses and therapists convinced that drugs that fly under the banner of science and allegedly are ANTI depression and ANY psychosis but which CAUSE serious mental conditions such as depression, psychosis, paranoia, hallucinations, emotional lability, cognitive disfunction, amnesia,schizophrenic reaction, aggression, suicidality and homicidality, could possibly be beneficial when prescribed en masse to humanity ?
By drug company marketing departments’ manipulation of doctors and persistent minimization of side effects ?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kOW8LNU2hFE
By drug company marketing departments’ using a “technique” of calling protestors who do not approve of fraudulent science in medicine ‘crazy people’, ‘anti-drug’ and ’scientologists’ ?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K9-uqIJfRd8
Brian
So I’m thinking if he stayed on his medication..This shooting would have never happened…I guess there is a role for antipsychotics meds.
pg
Its an antidepressant.
Matthew Holford
I feel like I’ve missed a party, here! I’ll tell you what I know about SSRIs, and I would like to acknowledge that my own experience of them is negative (fluoxetine). Most of my comments will be about Paxil/Seroxat, though, seeing as I have seen one report that suggests the shooter was on that drug.
There are significant side effects with these drugs. We may regard this as a fact, not speculation based on a correlation between changes in behaviour, as against the taking of these drugs by those experiencing said behaviour. And we may regard it as fact, because the people who make them, and the people who regulate the manufacturers agree that it is so by producing a PIL. So let’s put that to bed: SSRIs DO cause suicidality, and homicidality (and withdrawal, and akathasia, and…).
Next, there is no evidence that the drugs work any better than placebo. Bald statement though that is, it appears to be a fact. The MHRA (the current UK regulator) was unable to explain to me what the benefit of Seroxat (Paxil) is. Neither was GSK, nor the Department of Health, nor the UK industry lobbying body, the ABPI. The fact that the drug is on the market does not appear to be evidence of its efficacy, then, given that the UK regulator at the time, the MCA, appears not to have chosen to scrutinize the original trials data that Glenmullen recently reported on.
If the drug has no efficacy, then no risk:benefit analysis can ever have been carried out, because there is no benefit against which to offset risks. I’m still waiting for somebody to explain how my logic is incorrect. The MHRA justified the continued presence of Seroxat on the pharmacists’ shelves by declaring that the drug was good, because the manufacturer had said so (what it actually said was that it’s decision to license the drug was based on a positive statistical analysis (provided by the manufacturer), backed up by peer-reviewed articles (the less said about those, the better)).
Now, we can get into a discussion about dodgy marketing, suppression of side effects, routine withholding of negative data, “information laundering” (due deference to Pharmalot, for coining this phrase) via KOLs and clinicians, bribery and corruption, if you like. However, the fact remains: the manufacturers and the regulators cannot explain how the drugs work (nor even how they were assessed), and they DO cause severe side effects - that’s a given. It’s on the PIL.
That some people are more severely impacted than others appears to be the case. That not every patient on these drugs goes out to a mall/high school/university campus and starts blasting away does not prove that the drugs are not to blame.
Matt
Matthew Holford
Erratum: it was Clinical Psych dubbed it “information laundering,” not Pharmalot.
Matt
pg
Shouldn’t worry about who dubbed it what Matthew, Richard Horton used the term a while back - it could have been started by anyone :-)
“Journals have devolved into information laundering operations for the pharmaceutical industry”, wrote Richard Horton, editor of the Lancet, in March 2004 [1].
http://majikthise.typepad.com/majikthise_/2005/05/information_lau.html
Nathan
Matthew Holford writes:
“Next, there is no evidence that the drugs work any better than placebo. Bald statement though that is, it appears to be a fact. The MHRA (the current UK regulator) was unable to explain to me what the benefit of Seroxat (Paxil) is.”
SSRIs sold ~$10 billion in 2006. We all know how people love to be medicated with drugs that cause such severe side effects. We all know that the American consumer is willing to buy anything that is heavily advertised on TV. Take Exhubera, for example. Pfizer spent $billions on advertising, and look where it got them. Oh wait… Exubera was withdrawn because of lack of demand. The $ billion+ spent on advertising was able to bring sales up to $50 million or so.
That seems to be a major problem that all you “conspiracy theory” people fail to explain: if SSRI’s are such failures, why do they make SO much money? Don’t tell me its just good marketing. Exubera was marketed more than nearly any other product launch in history — IT FAILED MISERABLY. Marketing alone won’t sell. Efficacy sells. SSRIs make boatloads of money because most people that take them (and most doctors that prescribe them) feel that they ARE effective.
pg
Banned but once money-making drugs, some of which were ‘blockbusters, once promoted as efficacious:
Avandia, Baycol, Bextra, Dexatrim, Ephedra, Fen Phen, Lotronex, Pondimin, Propulsid, Redux, Rezulin, and Vioxx.
Nathan
pg, are you argueing that those drugs weren’t efficacious? To my knowledge, ALL those drugs were perfectly efficacious. They just weren’t deamed safe. My point was against Matthew Holford and Truthman who consistently claim that SSRIs don’t work. My point is that if they didn’t work, people wouldn’t buy them.
If you want to argue that they aren’t SAFE, that’s a different story.
Nathan
To phrase it another way:
If you argue that the drugs don’t work, you are essentially saying that tens of millions of people taking SSRIs and the tens of thousands of doctors that prescribe SSRIs are fools.
People generally don’t like to take drugs that don’t work and doctors generally don’t like to prescribe drugs that don’t work.
pg
You may be right Nathan - perhaps its a difference in the interpretation of ‘words’ here.
I can’t help but see ’safety’ and ‘efficacy’ as being somewhat related. I DO understand that safety can be a case of discovery due to unforseen events after approval, but in many cases perceived ’safety’ has been due to that information laundering Matthew mentioned, and where it is the case that the dangers were known before approval (as is quite clear from drug companies’ own documents in trials of antidepressants for instance) then the perception of efficacy is false as it isn’t based on accurate or honest science.
Considering the thousands of people who die from buying their prescriptions each year, the theory that if drugs didn’t work they wouldn’t buy them doesn’t (to me) hold up to scrutiny. They bought them because they believed they were efficacious, then they died because they weren’t. Of course, it could also be worded that they bought them because they believed they were safe, then they died because they weren’t.
The two words do seem to be interconnected as I see it.
ol cranky
Truthman:
““Kazmierczak, 27, was treated for mental illness nine years ago. He was considered volatile, according to a staff member who worked at the facility at the time, and violent if he stopped taking the antidepressant and anti-anxiety pills prescribed for him. It was medication he was supposed to still be taking and apparently stopped a couple of weeks ago.
Backs up everything we have been saying!…
Psychiatric drug withdrawal can cause homicidal impluses…”
While I do think that most psychotropics do need to be weaned under the supervision of an HCP, I don’t agree that you can necessarily take the correlation here to make a statement that the drug withdrawal causes homicidal impulses. In fact, one could very legitimately make the claim that these drugs helped him with impulse control to prevent him from feeling and/or acting on his homicidal impulses and that discontinuation of the drugs removed the barrier to acting on his homicidal impulses.
Robyn
Nathan, you are the scientist. The way to settle questions of efficacy and safety is to look properly at the trials, not at the fashions.
Here’s part of the summary from Healthy Skepticism regarding risk and benefit of SSRIs in adolescents and children (results slightly better in adults).
Responding to the Bridge et al paper, they say “…no more than one of the 20 trials on antidepressants in children and adolescents shows benefit on protocol defined outcome measures.
… in weighing benefits and harms the authors consider responder status and suicidal ideation/suicide attempts as opposite but equal. Since there were more of the former than the latter they conclude there is more benefit than harm. However patients only had to improve a few points more than in the placebo group to cross the line to be classified as a responder (i.e., a small difference). It is likely that the deterioration to get to suicidal ideation/suicide attempts is a larger difference which may offset or overwhelm the benefit. To summarize: for every 10 adolescents treated, one will slightly improve; for every 11 that slightly improve, one will become suicidal…”
http://healthyskepticism.org/news/2008/January08.php
Dave
There is no conspiracy, it’s all done right out in the open. The problem is most people are not scientists,or molecular biologists, and they don’t know what effect that little pill will have on them unless they take it themselves, so their imaginations can wander when the information is not presented to them in a way they can understand. The drug companies spend tens of billions on commercials every year, directed not towards doctors, but consumers. How are we supposed to know the right prescriptions to take? I think people should be more cautious when putting any substance into their bodies, especially one’s that modifies behaviour, because your brain can’t tell whether they are legal, or illegal. The drug companies are using us as guinea pigs, and making a profit.
Matthew Holford
Nathan wrote:
“…SSRIs make boatloads of money because most people that take them (and most doctors that prescribe them) feel that they ARE effective.”
Tee hee! Ad hominems so early in the debate? And I thought I had done what I could to avoid conjecture! If you could point out where I veer into the realms of speculation and conspiracy, I would be obliged.
Oh, well, I suppose that nature abhors a vacuum, which possibly explains why doctors prescribe drugs for depression: the alternatives just aren’t available. Did you know that 83% of all UK depressives (presumably self-diagnosed, as well as professionally diagnosed), are routinely prescribed with drugs, despite the fact that the National Institute of health and Clinical Excellence (”NICE”), recommends that counselling be prescribed for mild and moderate depression? Did you also know that the vast majority of antidepressants are prescribed for mild depression?
Patients get their information from doctors. Doctors get their information from KOLs and drug reps. KOLs and drug reps get their information from drug companies, as do regulators. Now, why do you think that doctors prescribe such a lot of antidepressants? And why do you think that patients are so pleased to get them?
Matt
Matthew Holford
Nathan said:
“…To my knowledge, ALL those drugs were perfectly efficacious…”
Nathan, what is your knowledge based upon? The fact that the drug is on the market, and the regulator couldn’t possibly have been hoodwinked?
You probably ought to know that the MHRA, in the UK, VERY rarely asks for sight of original data (even though it is perfectly entitled to do so), and instead relies upon the opinion of the manufacturer. Do you trust manufacturers not to exploit this loophole, which stays open because manufacturers argue that the data is proprietary confidential, and contains trade secrets?
Anyway, I didn’t say that the drugs were inefficacious, although now you come to mention it… What I did say is that there is no evidence to demonstrate that they ARE efficacious. It’s not possible to prove a negative, but by refusing to demonstrate the positive (ie, to what extent the drugs are efficacious), the MHRA is doing its best, as far as I can see.
Matt
Atlex
Dave,
Your statistic about DTC spending is far from the truth–drug companies do not spend tens of billions of dollars on DTC. The number is somewhere around $4B.
Atlex
Lisa Van S
Ol Cranky,
“Staff Member at the Facility”…Has Clearly,.. Violated Hippa. Did he/she have an agenda? Appears so, And should be held accountable for it.
Pretty amazing that this Individual had no prior “VIOLENT Behaviour HISTORY”. Violent Behavior only occured when he stopped his medication.
It is unwise to label a panick attack as a mental illnes. Antidepressants can and will cause a severe psychosis upon abruptly withdrawing, dismissing this phenomenin is dangerous and irresponsible, not just for the patient, but for those around them.
Dave
Atlex
Not too far… for the year 2004 per http://medicine.plosjournals.org/
DTC (direct to consumer) spending 4 billion
Total industry marketing 57.5 billion
Lobbying 123 million
R&D 31.5 billion
Sorry, I meant total marketing, but they spent alot more for that than R&D. My question is why market directly to the consumer, when they can’t write their own prescription?
Lisa Van S
For those Interested in Withdrawal of SSRI’s I encourage you to check out this FDA Adverse Reporting system(Medwatch) 2004-2006
http://www.psychdrugdangers.com/DrugWithdrawalSyndromeSSRI.html
and
http://www.psychdrugdangers.com/?drugtable=ssri
Nathan
Matthew says:
“Patients get their information from doctors. Doctors get their information from KOLs and drug reps. KOLs and drug reps get their information from drug companies, as do regulators. Now, why do you think that doctors prescribe such a lot of antidepressants? And why do you think that patients are so pleased to get them?”
That last question is exactly the question I posed in the first place. I don’t understand how or why patients would be pleased to get a medication that doesn’t work. Take my original example, Exhubera. Pfizer pumped TONS of money into marketing that drug. Clinical trials showed that it worked. Nobody bought it. Heavy marketing and lying about efficacy doesn’t see drugs. SSRIs have been BLOCKBUSTERS every year for nearly 20 years now. (beginning with Prozac) How can you tell me that they do NOTHING? I agree with you that many, many people are just stupid and do whatever advertisers and doctors tell them to do without thinking through the consequences. But hundreds of millions of people taking these drugs over a period of 20 years? It defies any sort of common sense to argue that the drugs do nothing but harm.
Nathan
Here’s a quote from an NBCNews story this morning:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23214369/
“She (the girlfriend) confirmed that he had stopped taking an antidepressant about three weeks ago because “it made him feel like a zombie,” but she denied that his recent behavior was unusual.”
Maybe if this young man had continued taking his antidepressant this tragedy never would have happened.
Brian
I am surprised that the shooter was only being treated with antidepressants. His profile would indicate schizophrenic / psychosis perhaps at a high functioning level. Despite most of the posts above to the contrary he joins a large list of the treatment resistant to medication as well as to the world of psychiatric intervention.
We clearly have a long way to go. What are the future options for treatment of mental illness? For a guy like this and others for which counseling, electroshock and or lobotomy are not an option the only hope lies in improved medications. While current antidepressant therapy works for millions it falls short for many others. Is this surprising? And how do we know ahead of time what will work for anyone?
It’s not too surprising that people who do not receive effective help for their mental illness see little future for themselves and feel jealousy for those that do not feel their pain. The only hope is for continue research into the development of new broad reaching treatments for all types of mental illness. Unless you are helping in this effort please get out of the way……
Jay
It’s sad that the NIU shooters was probably hypoglycemic which can cause anxiety. His father is a severe diabetic and is the first clue. That the shooters was off his meds means that he was going through withdrawal and add cough medicine to the mix that was found in his hotel room and you have serotonin syndrome. Serotonin syndrome can drive a person into akathisia and even RBD Rem Sleep Behavioral disorder. This can add up to violent behavior, hostility and homicidal ideation. If he was experience insomnia he could be driven into a psychotic break.
A list of antidepressant/school cases can be found at http://www.ssristories.com Including my own son #22.
Lisa Van S
Nathan
“Maybe if this young man had continued taking his antidepressant this tragedy may never had happened”
Maybe yes,.. Maybe no,.. Physicians must make it perfectly clear that abruptly stopping an antidepressant medication can be very dangerous. Physicians are well aware that abrupt withdrawal can, and will cause psychosis.
He was being treated for an anxiety disorder, and not a severe mental illnes. Individuals with untreated anxiety disorders dont go around shooting up schools.
Matthew Holford
Nathan wrote:
“…It defies any sort of common sense to argue that the drugs do nothing but harm.”
I didn’t write that they did nothing but harm. I wrote that there was no evidence that they were any more efficacious than placebo, but had serious side effects. However, as far as I’m aware, the presumably side effect-free placebo is not available on prescription, as far as I’m aware.
I don’t think patients are stupid, Nathan. If I knew three years ago what I know now, then I would not have taken fluoxetine. People with depression/anxiety/etc get desperate. They go to their quack, who prescribes them some drug, or other, and the patient may take some benefit from it, given that the placebo effect forms part of the positive effect of any drug. What the patient is never told is that they could have taken a sugar pill, and had the same benefit, without the side effects.
Now, of course, the MHRA has never confirmed to me that the drug is no more efficacious than placebo - I’ve just read that in several articles and papers. But it won’t refute that allegation, either, which one would think would be the easiest thing in the world to do, had the drug been assessed in accordance with UK statutory criteria.
Matt
Truthman
That seems to be a major problem that all you “conspiracy theory” people fail to explain: if SSRI’s are such failures, why do they make SO much money? Don’t tell me its just good marketing
Says nathan..
Nathan refers to anyone who disagrees with his pharma damage limitation propaganda as “a conspiracy theorist”..
How pathetic Nathan..
You are here to protect your employers interests, play down the dangers of the medications which your employers make and spin bad news into whatever suits your corporate agenda… No one here should take anything you say seriously because you are here to spin and suppress the truth…
Nathan
Matthew says:
“I didn’t write that they did nothing but harm. I wrote that there was no evidence that they were any more efficacious than placebo,”
That’s interesting. I wonder what studies you were looking at? Check out these links:
http://www.preskorn.com/books/ssri_s5.html
Look at chart 5.5. The response rate for Fluoxitine is 60%. The response rate for placebo is 33%. The p value is 1×10^-13. Similar results are shown for 3 other SSRIs. The primary references are given.
http://www.acnp.org/g4/GN401000102/Default.htm
This is another reference pointing to numerous studies that have shown SSRIs to be more effective than placebo. There are some studies that show equivalence. For instance, Citalopram was equavalent to placebo at the 20 mg dose, but at 40 mg the responce was greater than placebo.
http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/content/full/159/12/2048
This is a primary literature reference. It’s a small trial, but does show a significant responce of Fluvoxamine as compared to placebo.
http://bjp.rcpsych.org/cgi/content/full/178/3/234
Another one. Here’s a quote: “Remission rates were: venlafaxine, 45% (382/851); SSRIs, 35% (260/748); placebo, 25% (110/446) (P < 0.001; odds ratio for remission is 1.50 (1.3-1.9), favouring venlafaxine v. SSRIs). The difference between venlafaxine and the SSRIs was significant at week 2, whereas the difference between SSRIs and placebo reached significance at week 4.”
The list goes on and on and on. I found these results online within a few minutes.
Nathan
Answer the question Truthman. I’m tired of your insults.
I called you a “conspiracy theorist” because that’s exactly what you claim to be. You’ve claimed many times that the FDA and the pharmaceutical companies are lying and illegaling covering up data (a “conspriacy”) that ultimately leads to approval of drugs that are unsafe and ineffective. If that’s not a conspiracy, what would you call it?
Truthman
And to answer Nathans question on why SSRI’s make so much money?…
They originally became blockbusters because of manipulative marketing campaigns…
At one point after 9/11 GSK exploited the terrorist tragedy and started to create “post traumatic stress/anxiety” hysteria and media creted epidemic. They literally saturated TV screens with Ads for Paxil, preying on the fears and anxieties of American people at the time..
http://www.citypages.com/databank/23/1141/article10788.asp
SSRI’s were marketed as more safe and effective than the Tricylics , this is untrue , they are worse, and their side effect profile is amonst the worst of ANY class of drug on the market..
SSRI’s were “successful” for four main reason…
1. They were and still are heabvily marketed , from DTC advertising campaigns to the funding and infiltration of Pharma interests in patient groups/mental health charities etc (via “donations and grants”)
http://seroxatsecrets.wordpress.com/2007/04/12/national-depression-week-2005-and-the-launch-of-cymbalta-in-the-uk/
2. Pharma pays corrupt key opinion leaders such as high ranking psychiatrists and well known physicians to speak and promote their products.
http://clinpsyc.blogspot.com/2007/01/keller-bad-science-and-seroxatpaxil.html
3. Big pharma “bribes” doctors and medical professionals with gifts , perks and bonuses (the more the doctor prescribes the more stuff they get)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2004/may/27/italy.heatherstewart
4. People who develop anxiety or depression are vulnerable and desperate for a cure, they are easily duped into taking SSRI’s.
http://www.dorothyrowe.com.au/
Drug company spokespeople and PR machines like Nathan know all these factors are true, but they don’t want the public to stop taking the drugs , because drug companies are the greediest of all corporations. Maximization of profit is the bottom line…
Truthman
Nathan
Answer the question Truthman. I’m tired of your insults.
I called you a “conspiracy theorist” because that’s exactly what you claim to be. You’ve claimed many times that the FDA and the pharmaceutical companies are lying and illegaling covering up data (a “conspriacy”) that ultimately leads to approval of drugs that are unsafe and ineffective. If that’s not a conspiracy, what would you call it? Says Nathan…
Tired of my insults?..
All i said was that you were a pharma propagandist..
Doesn’t take a genius to figure that one out..
(if it quacks like a duck then it must be a duck)
I did claim that the pharmaceutical companies are lying and covering up data yes because that is true, and it is not just be who is aware of this fact, many journalists in the mainstream media have reported this also, so have many physicians , psychiatrists and congressmen/MPs(UK)
And yes, drugs are not adequeately tested or trialed before they come to market.. The FDA is a lapdog of the pharmaceutical industry (thats a well known fact)..
These are not conspircay theories Nathan, they have been widely reported in a variety of mediums from the BBC, the Times UK, the guardian, ABC news and CBS…
Brian
Truthman,
Why do you assume you understand all the facts? Why do you insult those of us with the facts? It may be true that you and Matt have had a bad reaction to these meds and so what? Once counseling doesn’t work the only other answer is better and better defined meds. We’re working on that!! I know it’s not just about safety matters because thousands of people are harmed by NSAIDs that most would consider safe. If you want safer drugs then more people will have to enter clinical trials for a longer time. Who pays for that and who volunteers?
I think it’s the science behind the psychological truth that you do not like. For instance, which comes first an ethereal emotional response or a defined neuronal firing due to neurotransmitter or hormonal release? Since you like to deny the complex but acknowledged fact that our brains are not jello but work in defined ways, you will always have trouble figuring out what goes wrong with everyone else besides you.
Nathan
Truthman says:
“These are not conspircay theories Nathan, they have been widely reported in a variety of mediums from the BBC, the Times UK, the guardian, ABC news and CBS…”
That’s interesting because I’ve quoted reports from these same sources talking about the EFFICACY and SAFETY of SSRIs. Yet you don’t believe them. I guess you only believe the reporters that write things that fit your preconcieved notions of truth.
Check these out:
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory?id=4134152
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/01/04/health/webmd/main1177007.shtml?source=search_story
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/11/02/health/webmd/main3447480.shtml?source=search_story
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/Depression/story?id=4199997&page=1
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/h