Posts Tagged ‘Psychiatric Drugs’

Studies Finding Increased Suicide Risk from Antidepressants Less Likely to Appear in Psychiatric Journals

Monday, September 25th, 2023

Publication bias contributes to misperception by doctors that antidepressants are safer, more effective than they really are, new study suggests.

by CCHR National Affairs Office

Psychiatric journals are less likely to publish studies that find antidepressants increase the risk of suicide than studies that suggest they do not, a new study reports. The publication bias contributes to a misperception by doctors that antidepressants are safer and more effective in preventing suicide than they really are, the study suggests.

Researchers at universities in Austria and Switzerland noted that the prevailing view in psychiatry is that antidepressants are effective in preventing suicide, despite studies showing no clear preventive benefit or even an increased risk of suicide from antidepressants.

To account for this misperception, researchers analyzed which of the studies reporting associations between antidepressant use and the risk of suicidal behavior were published in the journals intended for psychiatrists. Of the 27 studies available for analysis, not one study indicated a reduced risk of suicide from taking antidepressants, though the drugs may be prescribed for that purpose.

What the researchers found is that studies reporting unfavorable results (an increased risk of suicide) were less likely to be published in psychiatric journals than studies suggesting favorable results (no increased risk). They also found that lead authors with financial conflicts of interest from their ties to pharmaceutical companies published more favorable studies, and their studies were more likely to be published in psychiatric journals, than lead authors without ties to drug companies.

“This study provides evidence that research producing inconvenient results that challenge common clinical practice and discourse receive less scientific attention within academic psychiatry,” concluded lead author Martin Plöderl, PhD, a clinical psychologist at Paracelsus Medical University in Salzburg, Austria. The study was published in the Journal of Clinical Epidemiology, not a psychiatric journal.

The researchers included a recommendation that because fewer studies reporting unfavorable results from taking psychiatric drugs are published in psychiatric journals, doctors should look elsewhere to be fully informed about the drugs.

“Psychiatrists should be encouraged to inform themselves about potential harms of psychiatric drugs based on scientific sources outside of their field for a more balanced appraisal of the evidence,” the researchers advised.

They also warned that the increased risk of suicide from antidepressants “potentially poses a serious public health issue, given the widespread prescription of these drugs and the unsubstantiated claims [of no increased risk] within academic psychiatry.”

Antidepressant use has risen significantly over the past 15 years, and so have suicides and senseless acts of violence like mass shootings. In 2020, some 45 million Americans, or roughly one in seven, were taking antidepressants, up from 34 million in 2006. This 32% increase in users parallels the 35% increase in suicides in the U.S. over the same period. During this time, many school shootings and other acts of senseless violence were also committed by individuals taking antidepressants or in withdrawal from them. Psychiatrist Peter Breggin, M.D., describes antidepressants as neurotoxic because they harm and disrupt the functions of the brain, causing abnormal thinking and behaviors that include anxiety, irritability, hostility, aggressiveness, loss of judgment, impulsivity, and mania, which can lead to violence and suicide.

More fundamentally, a landmark 2022 study questioned the prescribing of antidepressants at all, after finding the common reason for taking them – to correct a chemical imbalance in the brain – had no scientific basis. The study investigated whether evidence supported the theory that a low level of the brain chemical serotonin causes depression.

“The serotonin theory of depression has been one of the most influential and extensively researched biological theories of the origins of depression,” the researchers wrote. “Our study shows that this view is not supported by scientific evidence. It also calls into question the basis for the use of antidepressants.”

The Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR) continues to raise public awareness of the risks of serious side effects and withdrawal symptoms from antidepressants and other psychiatric drugs, so that consumers and their physicians can make fully informed decisions about starting or stopping the drugs.

WARNING: Anyone wishing to discontinue or change the dose of an antidepressant or other psychiatric drug is cautioned to do so only under the supervision of a physician because of potentially dangerous withdrawal symptoms.

CCHR also recommends a complete physical examination with lab tests, nutritional and allergy screenings, and a review of all current medications to identify any physical causes of depression or other unwanted mental and behavioral symptoms, which might otherwise be misdiagnosed and incorrectly treated as a psychiatric disorder.

White Paper on Improving Psychiatric Patient Outcomes

Monday, July 3rd, 2023

Reference:
WHITE PAPER on Improving Patient Outcomes, Addressing Treatment Caused Trauma & Injuries, Enhancing Patient Rights, and Grievance Procedures for the Report Required by § 36 of CH 41 SLA 2022 (HB172)
by James B. (Jim) Gottstein, Esq.; Faith Myers; Susan Musante, LPCC; David Cohen, PhD; Peter C. Gøtzsche, MD; David Healy, MD; The International Society for Ethical Psychology & Psychiatry
April 2023, Addenda May 2023
Anchorage, Alaska

[Note: Full references and citations are provided in the original White Paper.]

On July 15, 2022, Alaska Governor Mike Dunleavy signed HB172 into law which requires the Department of Health, Department of Family and Community Services, and the Alaska Mental Health Trust Authority to report on, among other things, improving psychiatric patient outcomes, institutional trauma, enhancing patient rights, the grievance process, and patient injuries.

The Legislation was enacted to comply with a settlement over a successful lawsuit brought against the State of Alaska for illegally confining people for extended periods of time in correctional facilities and emergency rooms awaiting admission to the Alaska Psychiatric Institute for court ordered psychiatric evaluations.

This White Paper provides input for the required Report to the Legislature, focusing on improving patient outcomes, enhancing patient rights, having an effective and legitimate grievance process, and addressing patient injuries and treatment-caused trauma.

Executive Summary of the White Paper

If the fundamental purpose of the mental health system is to improve the lives of psychiatric patients it is failing miserably. That the State does not keep track of institutional trauma and patient complaints, and has no legitimate grievance process are illustrations of the lack of commitment to improving patients’ lives.

The mental health system’s standard treatments are counterproductive and harmful, and often forced on unwilling patients. The overreliance on psychiatric drugs is reducing the recovery rate of people diagnosed with serious mental illness and reducing their life spans. Psychiatric incarceration, euphemistically called “involuntary commitment,” is similarly counterproductive and harmful, adding to patients’ trauma and massively associated with suicides. Harmful psychiatric interventions are being imposed on people by judges in proceedings where the facts about treatments and their harms are not being presented by appointed counsel, rendering the proceedings shams.

Court proceedings to psychiatrically incarcerate people on the grounds it is necessary to protect other people from harm should be eliminated; predictions of violence are not accurate and no one else besides someone who receives a psychiatric diagnosis is incarcerated for something they might do in the future. Court proceedings to psychiatrically drug people against their will on the grounds it is in their best interest should be eliminated. They are not in people’s best interest if unwanted. “If it is not voluntary it is not treatment.” If such proceedings are nonetheless held, they should be conducted in a legitimate manner.

The most important elements for improving patients’ lives are People, Place and Purpose. People—even psychiatric patients—need to have a safe place to live (Place), relationships (People), and to have activity that is meaningful to them, usually school or work (Purpose). People need to be given hope these are possible. Voluntary approaches that improve people’s lives should be made available instead of the currently prevailing counterproductive and harmful psychiatric drugs for everyone, forever regime often forced on people. The White Paper lists at least 8 successful non-drug treatment programs that already exist for people experiencing mental distress. Brutal incarceration and coercive psychiatry is not the only option.

By implementing these approaches, Alaska’s mental health system can improve the recovery rate. As bad as it is for adults, the psychiatric incarceration and psychiatric drugging of children and youth is even more tragic and should be stopped. Instead, children and youth should be helped to manage their emotions and become successful, and their parents should be given support and assistance to achieve this.

Historical Underpinnings of Psychiatric Medical Training

Monday, May 1st, 2023

The evolution of mental healing from a spiritual undertaking to a brain and chemical based atrocity follows a number of historical paths.

One such path was carved out by “oil baron John D. Rockefeller’s ‘strategic philanthropy’ of using the Flexner Report and his funding of Johns Hopkins University to mold medical training into a model by which he could multiply his market,” since 80 percent of pharmaceuticals are oil-based.

[See page 193 in The Hidden Horrors of Psychiatry, C.F. Van Der Horst, 2022 Per Veritatem Vis Foundation.]

The Flexner Report of 1910 by Abraham Flexner contained recommendations on the restructuring of medical education and the establishment of the biomedical model as the gold standard of medical training.

[Medical Education in the United States and Canada, July 8, 1910, Science magazine. See the National Lirarary of Medicine analysis here.]

The Report “contained recommendations requiring that medical educational institutions be funded by the big Foundations. It gave oil baron John D. Rockefeller the opportunity to steer medical education in such a way that the largely petroleum-based pharmaceuticals would play a central role and alternative medicine such as homeopathy would be barred. In writing the report, Abraham Flexner was directly coached by two Rockefeller Foundation employees.”
[See additional details in Deadly Lies: How Doctors and Patients Are Deceived, by C.F. van der Horst, 2023, Per Veritatem Vis Foundation.]

Today, the psychopharmaceutical marketing machine shamelessly pushes psychiatric drugs in spite of their known failures, leading the late Professor of Psychiatry Emeritus Dr. Thomas Szasz to say, “Psychiatry is probably the single most destructive force that has affected society within the last 60 years.”

Psychiatrists tell us that the way to fix unwanted behavior is by altering brain chemistry with a pill — the legacy of the Flexner Report.

But unlike a mainstream medical drug like insulin, psychotropic medications have no measurable target illness to correct, and can upset the very delicate balance of chemical processes the body needs to run smoothly.

Nevertheless, psychiatrists and drug companies have used these drugs to create a huge and lucrative market niche.

And they’ve done this by naming more and more unwanted behaviors as “medical disorders” requiring psychiatric medication.

How did psychotropic drugs, with no target illness, no known curative powers and a long and extensive list of side effects, become the go?to treatment for every kind of psychological distress?

And how did the psychiatrists espousing these drugs come to dominate the field of mental treatment?

Find out by watching the Citizens Commission on Human Rights® (CCHR) Documentary “The Marketing of Madness – Are We All Insane?

Take Action – Missouri Legislature

Monday, April 3rd, 2023

Psychiatry’s Attack on 1st Responders

A “1st Responder” is typically a person with specialized training who is among the first to arrive and provide assistance or incident resolution at the scene of an emergency such as an accident, fire, or other rescue or Emergency Medical Service situation. First Responders typically include law enforcement officers, paramedics, emergency medical technicians, and firefighters.

This session of the Missouri Legislature has several bills demonstrating the psychiatric industry’s attempts to make First Responders a new patient category.

Why Is This Bad?

We all support First Responders, and are particularly grateful for their training and services. We also recognize that they can be subject to many stresses on their jobs; stresses which may compromise their good mental health. Mental health care is thus both valid and necessary.

However, the emphasis must be on workable mental healing methods that improve and strengthen individuals and thereby society by restoring people to personal strength, ability, competence, confidence, stability, responsibility and spiritual well-being. Psychiatric drugs and psychiatric treatments are not workable.

The issue is that, while these bills may have some helpful provisions for First Responders, they also serve to funnel First Responders into the psychiatric mental health “care” system, where they will likely be prescribed harmful, mind-altering psychotropic drugs and other harmful psychiatric “treatments.” Read the text of the bills to see how this can be, and urge your Missouri state legislators to reject these bills in their current form.

The Missouri Legislature

Periodically we let you know the progress of various proposed legislation making its way through the Missouri General Assembly and suggest ways for you to contribute your viewpoint to your state Representative and state Senator.

The Missouri General Assembly is the state legislature of the State of Missouri and is composed of two chambers: the House of Representatives and the Senate. The General Assembly is responsible for creating laws for governing the State of Missouri. The Revised Statutes of Missouri (RSMo) are electronically available on this site:  http://revisor.mo.gov/.

You can find your Representative and Senator, and their contact information, by entering your 9-digit zip code here.

The 2023 Regular Session (102nd General Assembly, 1st Regular Session) convened on Wednesday, January 4, 2023, and will end on Friday, May 12, 2023. You can see the House Bills (HB) by clicking here; and the Senate Bills (SB) are listed here.

If you are not a voting resident of Missouri, you can find out about legislation in your own state and write your own state legislators; also, we are looking for volunteers to monitor legislation in Missouri and the states surrounding Missouri — let us know if you’d like to help out.

Check out our handy discussion about How to write to a legislator.

We Urge You To Contact Your Legislators To Express Your Own Viewpoints.

We’d like to describe some bills about which we’d particularly like you to contact your legislators. Please write, call or visit to express your viewpoint as an individual or professional, and not as a representative of any organization. Let us know the details and any responses you get. The full text of each bill can be found on the House and Senate Joint Bill Tracking site. Just put the bill number into the search box (e.g. SB123 or HB123).

Four Very Very Bad Bills

SB24 Creates the “Missouri First Responder Mental Health Initiative Act”, promoting First Responder access to psychiatric behavioral health care services.
Sponsor: Senator Lincoln Hough (Republican, District 30, Part of Greene County)

SB654 Establishes a pilot program for certain medical services for veterans and other first responders. It promotes transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) for veterans, first responders, and law enforcement officers. Physically intrusive and damaging practices such as TMS create the appearance of scientific progress, but in the end, psychiatry is no closer to identifying any causes or effecting any cures.
Sponsor: Senator Bill Eigel (Republican, District 23, Part of St. Charles County)

HB539 Creates the “Missouri First Responder Mental Health Initiative Act”. This is similar to SB24, promoting First Responder access to psychiatric behavioral health care services.
Sponsor: Representative Adam Schwadron (Republican, District 105, St. Charles County)

HB1274 Creates new provisions relating to occupational diseases diagnosed in first responders, defining certain psychiatric diagnoses as an “occupational disease.”
Sponsor: Representative Anthony Ealy (Democrat, District 036, Jackson County)

Summary

The real problem is that psychiatrists fraudulently diagnose life’s problems as an “illness”, and stigmatize unwanted behavior as “diseases.” Psychiatry’s stigmatizing labels, programs and treatments are harmful junk science; their diagnoses of “mental disorders” are a hoax – unscientific, fraudulent and harmful. All psychiatric treatments, not just psychiatric drugs, are dangerous.

How to Cultivate Empathy

Monday, February 13th, 2023

Empathy is the capacity to understand or feel what another person is experiencing; to “walk in their shoes” so to speak.

[Derived from Ancient Greek ???????? (empatheia, “physical affection or passion”).]

We notice a huge amount of social media commentary about this concept, including a surfeit of pithy quotes. Wikipedia, for one example, discusses empathy extensively. We’re not going to go into it in such extraordinary depth, but we hope to add some useful observations.

One observation is that whenever there is so much back and forth discussion about a concept, there tends to also be major misunderstandings about it. We’d like to add our two cents.

Besides the obvious usefulness of empathy in the general social contexts of communication and understanding with others, there is also a practical application in marketing and public relations. For example, a product or service gets empathy by tying it in to one’s public using their local environment. This makes it more acceptable and improves its reach. As a local example, many products and services in the St. Louis metropolitan area are tied in name or picture with the Gateway Arch.

Some confuse empathy with compassion or sympathy. These are closely related but definitely different. Consult any good dictionary to understand the differences. (I recommend https://onelook.com/ to look up words online.)

One of the abiding concerns of commentary on empathy is how to teach it, how to develop it in a person when it is lacking. It is really a function of a living being’s awareness.

A large part of awareness training would be learning how to confront others and situations, while being open to all perceptions and remaining unrestimulated by noise and confusion. In this context, confront means to face without flinching.

People are not naturally aware of other people; they have to be drilled on observing others in order to bring about awareness. In many cases this normally occurs during one’s upbringing; in other cases this ability to observe may be lacking to greater or lesser degree and requires training. A century of psychological “know-best” that people are animals, not spiritual beings, has blunted this ability to observe in many unfortunate cases. Thus we get so much conversation on social media about how to develop empathy for others, which basically depends upon observing and being aware of others.

At the bottom of the scale of awareness there is delusion, in which a person sees one thing but thinks it is something else. This is more prevalent than one might suspect. Observational drills may not be enough to repair this failing.

Ways to Bring About a Heightened Sense of Empathy

A sensitivity to Human Rights is one way to cultivate empathy. Some notice that teaching about Human Rights brings about changes in attitude and behavior leading to more empathy toward others.

Another way to approach this is to recognize ways in which one’s awareness is turned to unawareness, and remedy those. A prime example of creating unawareness is psychiatric drugs.

These drugs create many of their effects by modifying the expression of neurotransmitters in the brain, which we call “playing Russian Roulette with your brain.”

Common and well-documented side effects of many psychiatric drugs include hallucinations, delusions, emotional disturbance, emotional numbing, confusion, akathisia (restlessness), brain damage, forgetfulness, memory lapses, hostility, aggressive behavior, and vision problems.

One can easily see that such side effects may contribute to one’s unawareness of what is going on around them, thus bringing about a destruction of empathy. The obvious remedy is to wean off taking these drugs and find non-drug alternatives for one’s troubles.

We hope these few observations have contributed to your understanding of empathy, and lead to a resurgence of your awareness of others.

Alien Mind Wipe

Alternatives to Psychiatric Drugs

Monday, January 30th, 2023

There are non-drug alternatives for adverse mental conditions.

Any significant metabolic disruptions can impact brain function. Specific clinical biomarkers can reveal how to help correct a biochemical excess or deficiency having toxic side effects including mental trauma. Once these are identified, targeted non-drug nutrients may be enough to correct such an overload or deficiency, leading to recovery from such disturbing mental symptoms.

One place to examine is The Walsh Research Institute in Naperville, Illinois, a non-profit organization dedicated to unraveling the biochemistry of mental disorders and development of improved drug-free clinical treatments through scientific research and medical practitioner education.

Dr. Walsh’s book Nutrient Power: Heal Your Biochemistry and Heal Your Brain (2014, Skyhorse Publishing), presents a science-based nutrient therapy system that may help people falsely diagnosed with ADHD, autism, behavior disorders, depression, schizophrenia and Alzheimer’s disease, using individualized natural nutrient therapies tailored to such biochemical imbalances.

For example, patients with a copper overload may experience depression or high anxiety. Copper toxicity can be determined with diagnostic lab testing, and is treated with an individualized, prescribed treatment of vitamins, minerals and amino acids, instead of with harmful antidepressants or anti-anxiety drugs.

Another example is called Pyrrole disorder, diagnosed with a urine test. This condition can have side effects of mood instability, anxiety, depression, or other behavioral disorders, caused by an imbalance of zinc and vitamin B6. Without proper clinical testing, this can be falsely diagnosed as ADHD or autism, and fraudulently treated with harmful psychiatric drugs.

Current research suggests that more than 60% of ADHD, anxiety, depression and psychosis patients exhibit a serious methylation imbalance. Methylation is a set of biochemical processes in the body for which overproduction or underproduction are both known to exhibit deleterious mental symptoms. The interesting thing about it is that there are clinical tests that show up the imbalance and suggest non-drug targeted nutrient therapy which may correct many of these challenges.

We point this out to emphasize that a psychiatric diagnosis is not based on any clinical tests, it is strictly an opinion that is treated with psychiatric drugs that have known side effects of violence and suicide. Therefore we think it is worthwhile to investigate methods which do have clinical tests and can pinpoint actual imbalances that have natural nutrient treatments.

Psychotropic drugs are unworkable and dangerous, and while they may temporarily mask some symptoms they do not treat, correct or cure any physical disease or condition. Once the drug has worn off, the original problem remains. As a solution or cure to life’s problems, psychotropic drugs do not work.

It is dangerous to self diagnose these disorders, just as it is dangerous for a psychiatrist to do so. The correct action on a mentally disturbed person is a full searching clinical examination by a competent non-psychiatric medical doctor, since there are no clinical tests for the fraudulent psychiatric diagnoses used in the psychiatric industry.

Although CCHR does not provide medical advice, we have found various resources such as these to be helpful for individuals looking for more information about alternatives to psychiatry.

Contact your local, state and federal officials to express your opposition to funding harmful psychiatric “solutions.”

There are non-drug alternatives for adverse mental conditions.

Wasted Billion$ Spent On Violence Prevention

Monday, January 23rd, 2023

Ignores How Psychotropic Drugs Cause Hostility, And Their Role In Mass Shootings & Stabbings

Although there are numerous reasons for acts of mass violence, funding poured into violence prevention mental health programs has ignored a potential pivotal source, especially in schools: the treatment.

By Jan Eastgate
President, CCHR International
July 11, 2022

Mental health professionals suggest that the latest spate of mass killings require more psychiatric services and stronger involuntary commitment laws to prevent future violence. However, this would most likely increase acts of violence because psychiatric drugs are usually the first line of treatment and carry a risk of inducing suicide and hostility in a percent of those taking them. Taxpayer appropriations have been funneled into everything related to prevention except investigating psychotropic drug links to acts of violence. A financial audit of violence prevention mental health programs should be conducted to show accountability for results.

Since the Columbine high school massacre in 1999 where two students—the ringleader on an antidepressant—killed 13 and injured 24, national violence prevention programs in schools have been implemented, with billions of dollars invested in this.

Another $1 billion of federal funds was recently allocated for community violence intervention (CVI), which includes mental health services.[1]

Funding has been a bottomless pit without a commensurate decline in mass violence. The Safe Schools Act of 1994 had a goal that by the year 2000, every school in America would be free of violence.[2] The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) passed in 2015 allocated more federal funds for school-based violence prevention programs.[3]

Yet school shootings increased by 37% between the 1990s and 2013 and continued unabated.[4] This figure doesn’t factor in acts of school violence that do not involve guns.

Since 2000, there have been at least 27 acts of mass violence in schools committed by those taking or withdrawing from psychiatric drugs or having undergone unnamed mental health treatment, resulting in 33 deaths and 83 wounded. At least seven of the killings involved stabbings.[5] Something drove them to kill.

Some 76 million Americans take psychotropic drugs, of which over 2.1 million are children and adolescents taking antidepressants despite a Food and Drug Administration suicide black box warning for teens and young adults. Between 1999 and 2014, there was a 64% increase in the percentage of people of all ages using antidepressants.[6]

Increased mental and/or physical agitation has caused about 5% of subjects taking antidepressants to drop out of clinical trials. When that percentage is applied to the 41 million individuals in the U.S. taking antidepressants, it begs the question how many of that 2.05 million could potentially become so agitated that they would kill?[7]

The antidepressant market is a highly lucrative one that would be protected at any cost. The global market was estimated at $5.2 billion in 2019 and over $80 billion is spent in a year worldwide in psychiatric drug sales. The Central Nervous System drugs (including ADHD drugs) market is expected to reach $131 billion by 2025.[8]

Psychiatrists, often backed by Big Pharma, misdirect policymakers by saying there is no “scientific” evidence of psychiatric drugs causing violence, even though violent behavior, including homicide are reported side effects.

“Most people who commit these kinds of acts of severe violence are only prescribed medication because of their horrible thoughts, moods, and ideas,” Dr. Gwen Adshead, a forensic psychotherapist stated.[9]

But that’s the point: having been prescribed the drugs, they acted on those thoughts and killed.

“Violence and other potentially criminal behavior caused by prescription drugs are medicine’s best kept secret,” international psychopharmacology expert Prof. David Healy says.[10]

What role such drugs may have had on San Antonio, Texas teen Rodolfo Aceves (19) who was arrested on June 27th, 2022, for planning a mass shooting at an Amazon Delivery Station where he worked in unknown. He has a history of mental health treatment and was institutionalized at age 16.[11]

Robert Crimo III, 21, the July 4th Illinois parade shooter was reported to have experienced personality changes a few years ago when he and his girlfriend broke up. He started taking psychedelic drugs, seemingly illicitly.[12] While not confirmed which hallucinogens he took, as an example, psilocybin adverse effects include: Impaired judgment and feelings of detachment, psychosis, anxiety and panic attacks.[13] In April 2019, police went to the family home after receiving a report Crimo had tried to take his own life a week earlier. They were told mental health professionals were handling the matter!

Psychiatrists are currently trying to have psychedelics re-introduced as mainstream mental health treatment after being banned in the 1970s.

Missing the Mark

The U.S. Center for Disease Control (CDC) has been collecting data on school-associated violent deaths since 1992, defined as a fatal injury (e.g., homicide, suicide, or legal intervention). Only violent deaths associated with U.S. elementary and secondary schools, both public and private, are included.[14] CDC uses the Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System that monitors “health-risk behaviors of students.” The high school survey, for example, is 21 pages of questions, none of which identify if the student is taking prescription psychotropic medications or abusing them—missing the mark entirely on a potential source of violent and suicidal behavior.[15]

Blaming the “Illness,” Not the Drug

Many psychiatrists deflect legislators’ attention away from iatrogenic drug-induced violence by arguing that no studies have been done on the association between the risk of committing homicide and the use of psychotropic drugs.[16] That’s also the point. It’s a safe bet that they won’t because, how could a legitimate study be ethically approved to deliberately induce violent behavior using a prescription drug?

Until now, this seems only to have been done clandestinely in the 1970s under the CIA’s MK-Ultra program when psychiatrists carried out experiments to search for a mind control drug that could be weaponized against enemies.[17] CCHR has copies of CIA documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act showing psychotropic drugs were tested to see if a subject could be chemically induced to assassinate.[18]

While not excusing the crime, today, courts recognize the “overwhelming probable” relationship between antidepressant and murder, “treatment-induced psychosis” and, in one case a jury determined that the antidepressant paroxetine “can cause some people to become homicidal and/or suicidal” and that the drug was 80% responsible for a normally calm and caring father to kill his family.[19]

Drug Withdrawal Creates Violence (Not Mental Illness)

Another key point ignored is the debilitating withdrawal effects some people taking prescription psychotropic drugs can experience which are documented to include violent and suicidal behavior. Many of the studies on withdrawal effects are published in CCHR’s report Psychiatric Drugs Create Violence & Suicide.

Psychiatrists obfuscate withdrawal effects by blaming the person’s “untreated” mental illness. By involuntarily committing prospective aggressive individuals and keeping people incarcerated for longer periods (usually on psychotropics) they argue the person can get the treatment he or she needs.

But close inspection shows that not to be true. Consider the history of Brandon Scott Hole, 19, who shot and killed eight people and injured seven others at a FedEx building, before committing suicide in April of 2021 in Indianapolis, Indiana.[20] From age 10, he’d received psychiatric treatment. In September 2011, his agitated behavior spurred his mother to take him to a center where he was given anxiety medication. A year later, after starting 5th grade, he was still aggressive and prescribed more of the same medication, with records showing only “mild benefit.” Yet another drug was added, and he also underwent behavioral therapy. In 2013, he spent a period in juvenile detention and put on probation for several months, then released. By 2020, he was suicidal. Medical records indicated that he suffered from six different disorders. The teen originated: “I can get very, very angry. I have very little control over myself when that happens” to which records say he will benefit from medication for psychiatric symptoms. On March 31, 2022, he meets a social worker for therapy. On April 15, he murdered eight innocent people described as an act of “suicidal murder.”[21] Hole had suicidal thoughts “almost daily” in the months prior to the attack and attempted suicide on “more than one occasion,” according to an FBI special agent.[22]  Clearly, the six different mental disorders he’d been given during his short life were not effectively treated and the medication may have exacerbated his thoughts.

The American Psychiatric Association (APA) stresses, “It is important to note that the overwhelming majority of people with mental illness are not violent.”[23] But as one online writer puts it: Psychiatrists argue that “mental illness does not cause violence…. Why, then, do we think that expanding access to mental health services will reduce mass violence?”[24]

A man who allegedly attacked the Cuban Embassy, firing at it 32 times in April 2020, had been evaluated at a psychiatric hospital and prescribed an antipsychotic in March. Although he may not have been compliant in taking it daily, antipsychotic withdrawal effects include hostility. The drug remains in the system, potentially impacting upon mental faculties and emotional behavior.[25]

On July 3rd in Denmark, a suspected gunman, Noah Essenes, 22, said his antipsychotic drugs weren’t working before a shooting spree in a Danish shopping center that left 3 dead and 27 injured.  He was remanded into psychiatric “care”—which clearly had previously failed him—and charged with murder and attempted murder.[26]

John Read, Ph.D.’s article “The experiences of 585 people when they tried to withdraw from antipsychotic drugs,” published in the June 2022 edition of Addictive Behaviors Reports reported that in an online survey of 585 antipsychotic users from 29 countries, who had tried to stop taking the drugs, 72% reported classical withdrawal effects, including anxiety and agitation; 52% of these categorized those effects as “severe,” 18% reported psychosis as a withdrawal effect and 23% took at least one year to successfully withdraw completely.[27]

When an antipsychotic, and thereby the dopamine neurotransmitter blockade, are removed, or reduced, “the brain is overwhelmed with dopamine…. This can result in a withdrawal psychosis,” Read said.[28]

Antidepressants also have serious withdrawal effects that can last years.

In 2012, Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics Journal published a study about persistent withdrawal effects six weeks after cessation of taking SSRI antidepressants. Researchers reviewed self-reporting adverse events and found post-withdrawal symptoms “may last several months to years.” Symptoms included disturbed mood, emotional liability, irritability, and poor stress tolerance.[29]
As Healy and others wrote in Children of the Cure: Missing Data, Lost Lives and Antidepressants, an antidepressant manufacturer that recognized the withdrawal effect, held a meeting of “opinion leaders” and invented the term “antidepressant discontinuation syndrome” to deflect from dependence problems.[30]

From the 14 studies that provided usable data, researchers calculated that 56% of antidepressant users experienced withdrawal symptoms when they discontinued the drug. The duration of symptoms varied widely, but some patients reported problems lasting up to 79 weeks after stopping the antidepressant.[31] 

Time magazine once listed the top 10 prescribed drugs linked to violence, of which eight were psychotropic drugs—five which were antidepressants.[32]

Finnish researchers published the findings in a 2015 study that determined benzodiazepines could increase the risk of a consumer committing a homicide by 45% and antidepressant by 31%. A study published in the European Journal of Clinical Pharmacology also found that “…benzodiazepines and [SSRI antidepressants] are the main pharmacological classes able to induce aggressive behavior.”[33]

Funding Violence-Causation?

It seems that in the U.S. with the spate of mass killings involving teens, and with massive funding of violence-prevention programs in schools is not decreasing.

Funding continues to be invested in programs without ever looking at the potential psychotropic drug link to violence.

In the wake of Columbine, the School Emergency Response to Violence was Created, where “Project SERV” funds were used for a variety of activities, including mental health assessments, referrals, and services for victims and witnesses of violence. and more.[34]

In December 2012, the Attorney General’s Task Force on Children Exposed to Violence developed “Project Prevent” to provide grants for mental health services. Laudably, counseling was to be provided to help students cope with the effects of violence. But also funded was conflict resolution programs and other school-based violence prevention strategies, which have also been implicated in some of the cases of mass violence in schools. [35]

As of 2019, 15 states require character development or social and emotional learning in schools.[36]
CVI programs employ “violence interrupters” or “neighborhood change agents” who are skilled in intervention.[37]

Forced Treatment: The Wrong Way to Go

As for increasing involuntary commitment laws to lock up and maintain individuals on psychiatric drugs, an estimated 54% of admissions to psychiatric facilities in the U.S. are involuntary.[38]

Recent United Nations Agency and World Health Organization reports condemn coercive-forced psychiatric treatment, especially because there is an overreliance on mental health drugs, as a February-April 2022 Annual Report of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, points out.[39]
The Commissioner’s 2018 report noted that “forced medication, and other forced measures” should be repealed. “States should reframe and recognize these practices as constituting torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.[40]

An Alaska Supreme Court decision in 2006 was pivotal in protecting patients from forced “medication,” because of their risks. Represented by attorney Jim Gottstein Esq., Faith Myers challenged the constitutionality of the Alaska Psychiatric Institute (API) to force her to take psychotropic drugs when she was involuntarily committed to the facility on February 3, 2003. The court found in her favor because of “the nature and potentially devastating impact of psychotropic medications….” Further, “Psychotropic drugs ‘affect the mind, behavior, intellectual functions, perception, moods, and emotion’ and are known to cause a number of potentially devastating side effects…Courts have observed that ‘the likelihood [that psychotropic drugs will cause] at least some temporary side effects appears to be undisputed.’”[41]

WHO said that countries must ensure that patients have “the right to refuse admission and treatment is also respected.”[42] Importantly, “People wishing to come off psychotropic drugs should also be actively supported to do so, and several recent resources have been developed to support people to achieve this.”[43]

For good reason. No one should suddenly stop taking a psychotropic drug without medical approval and supervision.

Acts of Violence During Withdrawal

Of nearly 410 drug regulatory agency psychiatric drug warnings, 17 were for addiction or withdrawal effects.[44]

A small example of cases of killers going through withdrawal includes:

2008: DeKalb, Illinois: 27-year-old Steven Kazmierczak shot and killed five people and wounded 21 others before killing himself in a Northern Illinois University auditorium. According to his girlfriend, he had recently been taking prescribed drugs Prozac (antidepressant), and anti-anxiety/sedative-hypnotics, Xanax (alprazolam) and Ambien but had stopped taking Prozac three weeks before the shooting. Toxicology results showed that he still had trace amount of Xanax in his system.[45]

December 2006: North Vernon, Indiana: 16-year-old Travis Roberson stabbed a Jennings County High School student in the neck, nearly severing an artery. Roberson was in withdrawal from the antidepressant Wellbutrin, which he had stopped taking days before the attack.[46]

April 2006: Chapel Hill, North Carolina: 17-year-old William Barrett Foster took a shotgun to East Chapel Hill High School, where he took a teacher and a fellow student hostage. After being talked out of shooting the hostages, Foster fired two shots through a classroom window before fleeing the school on foot. Foster’s father testified that his son had stopped taking his antidepressants and antipsychotic drugs without telling him (which can cause severe withdrawal effects).[47] 

Acts of Violence Involving Antipsychotics

January 2019 – Baton Rouge, Louisiana: Dakota Theriot, 21, was accused of killing five people in Louisiana. The victims included his parents and three members of a family with whom he’d been living for a short time. Investigators said he smoked weed and drank alcohol that mixed poorly with the antipsychotic drugs he’d been prescribed.[48]

June 2018 – Westminster, Colorado: Jeremy Webster, 23, killed a 13-year-old and injured the boy’s mother and brother in a road rage shooting. A man in another car was also shot. Webster had a psychiatric history and had changed medication that day. He had been prescribed an antidepressant and an antipsychotic.[49]

December 2014 – Montgomery County, Pennsylvania: Iraq War veteran Bradley Stone, 35, killed his ex-wife, her mother, grandmother and sister, and the sister’s husband and 14-year-old daughter and then committed suicide. According to the Medical Examiner, he had both the antidepressant trazodone and the antipsychotic risperidone in his system at the time of his death. Just one week prior to the murders, he had seen his Veterans Affairs psychiatrist, whose evaluation stated Stone had no suicidal or homicidal ideation.[50]

November 2014 – Tallahassee, Florida: Myron May, 31, entered a library where hundreds of students were studying, began shooting and, wounding three before he was shot and killed by police. He had checked himself into a psychiatric center about three months prior. Shortly after this, his friends discovered a new pill bottle among his prescriptions, the antipsychotic Seroquel (quetiapine).[51]

June 2014 – Seattle, Washington: 26-year-old Aaron Ybarra opened fire at Seattle Pacific University, killing one student and wounding two others. Ybarra planned to kill as many people as possible before killing himself. In 2012, he reported that he had been prescribed the antidepressant Prozac and antipsychotic Risperdal (risperidone). A report from his counselor in December of 2013 said that he was taking Prozac at the time and planned to continue to meet with his psychiatrist and therapist as needed. His lawyer said Ybarra had a long history of mental health issues for which he was taking Prozac at the time of the shooting.[52]

February 2013 – Chalk Mountain, Texas: Eddie Ray Routh, 28, shot and killed Chris Kyle, the former Navy SEAL who was the subject of the movie, American Sniper, and Kyle’s friend, Chad Littlefield, at a firing range. He had been prescribed the antipsychotic risperidone and the antidepressant, Zoloft, the latter not recommended for anyone aged younger than 25 because of the risk that it may cause suicide. Routh’s father would later report that the cocktail of pharmaceuticals “made Eddie worse,” adding, “I ain’t no doctor. I ain’t no rocket scientist or nothing, but I could tell a difference in him.” He had various hospitalizations over the next few years and was said to be “paranoid and impulsively violent” and was prescribed a cocktail of psychotropic drugs that included two powerful antipsychotics, Haldol and Seroquel and the antidepressant Paxil. He was also mixing prescription drugs known to cause aggressive and psychotic behavior with alcohol and marijuana.[53]

Recommendation: A financial audit on all government funding of violence-prevention mental health/behavioral programs should be conducted with outcome evaluation to show accountability for results.

Psychiatric Drugs Create Violence & Suicide is a compelling resource detailing more than 30 studies and over sixty cases of mass shootings and acts of violence committed by those taking or withdrawing from prescribed psychotropic drugs. 

References:
[1] https://bja.ojp.gov/program/community-violence-intervention/overview; “APA Statement on the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act,” Psychiatric Times, 24 June 2022, https://www.psychiatry.org/News-room/News-Releases/APA-Statement-on-the-Bipartisan-Safer-Communities

[2] “School Safety Policies and Programs Administered by the U.S. Federal Government: 1990–2016,” A Report Prepared by the Federal Research Division, Library of Congress under an Interagency Agreement with the National Institute of Justice, U.S. Department of Justice

[3] Ibid.

[4] Allison Paolini, “School Shootings and Student Mental Health: Role of the School Counselor in Mitigating Violence,” ACA (American Counseling Assoc.) Knowledge Center, Vistas, 2015

[5] https://www.cchrint.org/school-shooters

[6] https://www.cchrint.org/psychiatric-drugs/people-taking-psychiatric-drugs/; “By the numbers: Antidepressant use on the rise,” American Psychological Assoc., Nov. 2017, citing Pratt L.A., Brody D.J., & Gu Q. Antidepressant use among persons aged 12 and over: United States, 2011–14. NCHS Data Brief, No. 283. Hyattsville, MD: National Center for Health Statistics. 2017, https://www.apa.org/monitor/2017/11/numbers

[7] Psychiatric Drugs Create Violence & Suicide, CCHR International, 2018, p. 3

[8] https://www.cchrint.org/2021/11/08/psychiatrists-and-the-hallucinogenic-drug-industry-are-seeking-to-replace-failed-antidepressants/; “A view into the central nervous system disorders market,” Nature, 1 Sept. 2020, https://www.nature.com/articles/d43747-020-01119-8

[9] https://www.politifact.com/article/2019/aug/16/whats-behind-dubious-claim-psychiatric-drugs-fuel-/

[10] https://www.cchrint.org/2020/06/01/drug-induced-acts-of-senseless-violence-need-investigation/

[11] Snejana Farberov, “Texas teen arrested for plotting mass shooting at Amazon warehouse: cops,” New York Post, 5 July 2022, https://nypost.com/2022/07/05/texas-teen-accused-of-plotting-mass-shooting-at-amazon-warehouse/

[12] Safia Samee Ali, Natasha Korecki and Corky Siemaszko, “Highland Park shooting suspect’s past littered with ‘red flags,” NBC News, 5 July 2022, https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/highland-park-shooting-suspects-littered-red-flags-rcna36766

[13] https://www.cchrint.org/2022/01/09/cchr-warns-against-psychedelic-trips-potentially-planned-for-55m-americans/;https://drugabuse.com/drugs/hallucinogens/psilocybin-mushrooms/effects-use/

[14] Op. cit., “School Safety Policies and Programs Administered by the U.S. Federal Government: 1990–2016”

[15] https://www.cdc.gov/healthyyouth/data/yrbs/questionnaires.htm

[16] “Psychotropic drugs and homicide: A prospective cohort study from Finland,” World Psychiatry. June 2015, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4471985/

[17] “The CIA’s Secret Quest For Mind Control: Torture, LSD And A ‘Poisoner In Chief,’” NPR, 9 Sept. 2019, https://www.npr.org/2019/09/09/758989641/the-cias-secret-quest-for-mind-control-torture-lsd-and-a-poisoner-in-chief

[18] Project Artichoke Document, on file at CCHR

[19] Psychiatric Drugs Create Violence and Suicide, CCHR International, 2018, pp. 3-4

[20] https://www.cchrint.org/2021/04/20/cchr-renews-calls-for-investigation-into-psychiatric-drug-induced-mass-killings/; “Suspect in Indianapolis mass shooting was former FedEx employee, known to law enforcement,” Fox 59 News, 17 Apr. 2021, https://fox59.com/news/indianapolis-fedex-shooting/ap-officials-identify-suspect-in-mass-shooting-at-indianapolis-fedex-facility/

[21] Tony Cook and Johnny Magdaleno, “Timeline: FedEx shooter had over a dozen mental health care, law enforcement encounters,” Indianapolis Star; Yahoo! News, 16 Nov. 21, 2022, https://news.yahoo.com/timeline-fedex-shooter-had-over-155332886.html

[22] “Indianapolis FedEx Shooter Who Killed 4 Sikhs Was Not Racially Motivated, Police Say,” NPR, 28 Jul. 2021, https://www.npr.org/2021/07/28/1021935687/indianapolis-fedex-shooting-sikhs-not-racially-motivated-police-say

[23] https://www.psychiatry.org/news-room/news-releases/apa-statement-on-firearm-violence

[24] Megan Wildhood, “Expanded Mental Health Services Won’t Stop Mass Shootings,” Mad in America, 24 June 2022, https://www.madinamerica.com/2022/06/mental-health-services-mass-shootings/

[25] https://www.cchrint.org/2020/06/01/drug-induced-acts-of-senseless-violence-need-investigation/;https://web.archive.org/web/20220221184646/http://cubamoneyproject.com/2020/05/03/shooter-trump/

[26] James Crip, “Pictured: ‘Gunman’ charged with killing three in Copenhagen shopping mall attack,” Daily Telegraph (UK), 5 July 2022, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2022/07/05/pictured-gunman-charged-killing-three-copenhagen-shopping-mall/

[27] John Read, Ph.D., “The experiences of 585 people when they tried to withdraw from antipsychotic drugs,” Addictive Behaviors Reports, 15 June 2022, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9006667/

[28] Ibid.

[29] https://www.cchrint.org/psychiatric-drugs/side-effects-can-persist/

[30] https://www.cchrint.org/2020/08/25/new-study-further-confirms-severe-withdrawal-effects-of-antidepressants/, citing: David Healy, M.D., Joanna Le Noury, Julie Wood, Children of the Cure: Missing Data, Lost Lives and Antidepressants, (Samizdat Health Writer’s Co-operative Inc., 2020), pp. 43-44

[31] https://www.cchrint.org/2021/04/06/antidepressant-withdrawal-warning-vital/; “How Hard is it to Stop Antidepressants?” American Psychological Assoc., 1 Apr. 2020; https://www.apa.org/monitor/2020/04/stop-antidepressants

[32] https://www.cchrint.org/2021/04/06/antidepressant-withdrawal-warning-vital/, citing: Maia Szalavitz, “Top Ten Legal Drugs Linked to Violence,” TIME Magazine, 7 Jan. 2011, https://healthland.time.com/2011/01/07/top-ten-legal-drugs-linked-to-violence/

[33] https://www.cchrint.org/2020/06/01/drug-induced-acts-of-senseless-violence-need-investigation/, citing: David DiSalvo, “Common Painkillers And Sedatives Linked To Increased Risk Of Homicide, According To Study,” Forbes, 4 June 2015, https://www.forbes.com/sites/daviddisalvo/2015/06/04/common-pain-killers-and-sedatives-linked-to-increased-risk-of-homicide-according-to-study/#1083a9581aef and Nadege Rouve, Haleh Bagheri, et al., “Prescribed drugs and violence: a case/noncase study in the French PharmacoVigilance Database,” European Journal of Clinical Pharmacology, 7 June, 2011, http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21655992

[34] Op. cit., “School Safety Policies and Programs Administered by the U.S. Federal Government: 1990–2016”

[35] Ibid.

[36] https://www.childtrends.org/blog/state-laws-promoting-social-emotional-and-academic-development-leave-room-for-improvement

[37] https://www.vera.org/community-violence-intervention-programs-explained

[38] https://www.cchrint.org/2022/06/29/us-could-learn-from-reform-of-coercive-mental-health-practices/; “Involuntary Commitments: Billing Patients for Forced Psychiatric Care,” The American Journ. of Psychiatry, 1 Dec. 2020, https://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/doi/10.1176/appi.ajp.2020.20030319

[39] Annual report of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and reports of the Office of the High Commissioner and the Secretary-General, 49th session, Human Rights Council, “Summary of the outcome of the consultation on ways to harmonize laws, policies and practices relating to mental health with the norms of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and on how to implement them,” 28 Feb.–1 Apr. 2022

[40] Report of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mental health and human rights, 24 July 2018, A/HRC/39/36.

[41] Faith Myers vs. Alaska Psychiatric Institute, Supreme Court, 2-11021, Superior Court No. 3AN-03-00277, Opinion, No. 6021, 30 June 2006, https://caselaw.findlaw.com/ak-supreme-court/1004032.html

[42] “Guidance on Community Mental Health Services: Promoting Person-Centered and Rights-Based Approaches,” World Health Organization, 10 June 2021, p. 6, https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/9789240025707 (to download report)

[43] Ibid., p. 201

[44] Psychiatric Drugs Create Violence & Suicide, CCHR International, 2018, p. 3

[45] “Report of the February 14, 2008 Shootings at Northern Illinois University,” NIU, https://www.niu.edu/forward/_pdfs/archives/feb14report.pdf; “Girlfriend: Shooter was taking cocktail of 3 drugs,” CNN, 20 Feb. 2008, http://www.cnn.com/2008/CRIME/02/20/shooter.girlfriend/index.html; Dave Newbart, “NIU shooter had trace amounts of drugs in system,” The Chicago Sun-Times, 15 Mar. 2008, http://schoolshooters.wordpress.com/2008/03/15/41/

[46]  https://www.cchrint.org/school-shooters/; “Authorities: Teen’s Knife Attack At School Was Planned,” The Indy Channel, December 5, 2006, https://ssristories.org/teen-knife-attacks-fellow-student/

[47]  https://www.cchrint.org/school-shooters/; Meiling Arounnarath, “Forum to ponder school gun incidents, Fraser will discuss the situation nationally and locally,” NewsObserver.com, posted November 28, 2006, http://ssristories.com/show.php?item=1310; Leah Friedman, “Police keep tabs on teen suspect,” NewsObserver.com, February 24, 2007, http://sip-trunking.tmcnet.com/news/2007/02/24/2367179.htm; “Student Charged In April Hostage Incident At Chapel Hill School,” WRAL.com, June 19, 2006, http://www.wral.com/news/local/story/1055759/

[48] https://www.cchrint.org/psychiatric-drugs/drug_warnings_on_violence/recent-murdersmurder-suicides/, citing: Emma Kennedy, “Sheriff: Dakota Theriot case is ‘extremely horrific example’ of failed mental health system,” The Advocate, 3 Feb. 2019, https://www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/news/crime_police/article_bef1127c-25c4-11e9-a111-8b4106437e1b.html; Emma Kennedy, “Dakota Theriot, accused of killing five, faces the death penalty. Coronavirus may delay his trial,” The Advocate, 8 July 2020, https://www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/news/communities/livingston_tangipahoa/article_a6b433fe-c151-11ea-a3da-5f0c20c13ed4.html

[49] https://www.cchrint.org/psychiatric-drugs/drug_warnings_on_violence/recent-murdersmurder-suicides/ citing: Janet Oravets, “Judge enters not guilty plea, sets trial date for Westminster road rage suspect,” 9News.com, 7 Jan. 2019, https://www.9news.com/article/news/crime/judge-enters-not-guilty-plea-sets-trial-date-for-westminster-road-rage-suspect/73-fc8c9737-e6a7-4fd4-b80e-9ee7e8c458bc

[50] https://www.cchrint.org/psychiatric-drugs/drug_warnings_on_violence/recent-murdersmurder-suicides/, citing, Ralph Ellis, Susan Candiotti and Ashely Fantz, “Police in Pa. search for man suspected of killing ex-wife, 5 former in-laws,” CNN, 15 Dec 2014, https://www.cnn.com/2014/12/15/us/pennsylvania-shootings/; Jacqueline Klimas, “Bradley Stone cleared by Veterans Affairs doctor one week before murders, suicide,” Washington Times, 17 Dec 2014, https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/dec/17/bradley-stone-cleared-veterans-affairs-doctor-one-/; Dan Stamm and Vince Lattanzio, “Montgomery County Spree Killer Bradley Stone Dies of Drug Overdose: ME,” NBC 10 Philadelphia, 24 Dec 2014, https://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/national-international/bradley-stone-death-overdose-report/159969/

[51] https://www.cchrint.org/school-shooters/ Michael Laforgia, “FSU shooter’s friends tried to get help for him months before the shooting,” Miami Herald, 22 Nov 2014, http://www.miamiherald.com/news/state/florida/article4064977.html; Jordan Culver, et al., “Shooter identified as Florida State alum Myron May,” Tallahassee Democrat, 21 Nov 2014, http://www.tallahassee.com/story/news/local/fsu-news/2014/11/20/shooter-identified-fsu-alum-myron-may/70007494/

[52] https://www.cchrint.org/school-shooters/; “Seattle Pacific University shooting: Gunman says he “wanted to kill many more,” The Independent, 9 Jun 2014, http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/seattle-pacific-university-shooting-gunman-says-he-wanted-to-kill-many-more-9505394.html; “Suspect in Seattle Pacific killing had well-documented demons,” The Seattle Times, 6 Jun 2014, https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/suspect-in-seattle-pacific-killing-had-well-documented-demons/; Steve Miletich, et al., “Report: SPU suspect ‘wanted to hurt himself and others’ in 2010,” The Seattle Times, 6 Jun 2014, https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/report-spu-suspect-wanted-to-hurt-himself-and-others-in-2010/

[53] https://www.cchrint.org/psychiatric-drugs/drug_warnings_on_violence/recent-murdersmurder-suicides/, citing, Rick Jervis, “‘American Sniper’ killer found guilty in murders,” USA Today, 24 Feb. 2015, https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2015/02/24/american-sniper-murder-trial-verdict/23896859; Nicholas Schmidle, “In the Crosshairs,” The New Yorker, 3 Jun. 2013, https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/06/03/in-the-crosshairs; Mike Spies, “Inside the Tortured Mind of Eddie Ray Routh, the Man Who Killed American Sniper Chris Kyle,” Newsweek, 23 Nov. 2015, https://www.newsweek.com/2016/01/08/inside-tortured-mind-man-who-killed-american-sniper-chris-kyle-397299.html

Psychotropic Drugs' Role In Mass Shootings

Emergency Room Visits for Children’s Mental Health Fails to Help

Monday, January 9th, 2023

A New York Times article (12/27/2022) proclaimed, “Families of children with mental health needs increasingly rely on the emergency department (ED) for care.”

The article goes on to say that, “Pediatric mental health ED visits are commonly repeat visits, and most revisits occur within 6 months of initial presentation.”

The article cites a research study published December 27, 2022 in the journal JAMA Pediatrics, which analyzed 308,264 pediatric (ages 3 to 17) mental health ED visits at 38 hospitals between 2015 and 2020.

Such pediatric mental health ED visits made up 4.0% of all ED visits.

The NYTimes further said that, “The patients most likely to reappear in emergency rooms were not patients who harmed themselves, but rather those whose agitation and aggressive behavior proved too much for their caregivers to manage. In many cases, repeat visitors had previously received sedatives or other drugs to restrain them when their behavior became disruptive. … Patients who required medications to subdue them were 22 percent more likely to revisit than patients who did not.”

“Families come in with their children who have severe behavioral problems, and the families really just are at their wit’s end, you know,” said Dr. Anna M. Cushing, a pediatric emergency room physician at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles and one of the authors of the study.

“The JAMA study found that overall visits to pediatric emergency rooms for mental health crises increased 43 percent from 2015 to 2020, rising by 8 percent per year on average, with an increase in emergency visits for every category of mental illness. By comparison, emergency room visits for all medical causes rose by 1.5 percent annually.”

The sad conclusion: “Emergency room treatment is comforting to caregivers but offers little long-term benefit.”

We see several serious issues with the situation here.

1. Mental health behavior problems for children appear to be increasing.
2. Parents and other caregivers generally do not know how to cope with this.
3. Psychiatric drugs used as chemical restraints, and other psychiatric treatments, are not helping.
4. Emergency rooms are not a solution.

Why is this happening and what can be done about it?

1. Drugging children in America has reached epidemic proportions. More than 8 million children and teenagers are prescribed harmful and addictive psychiatric drugs: antidepressants, stimulants and antipsychotics. And the targets are getting younger. Children five years old and younger are the fastest growing segment of the non-adult population using antidepressants in the United States today. Many health professionals question this rampant use of pharmaceuticals on children.

The truth is, in MANY cases children acting disruptive is not a symptom of psychological or chemical disorder but … A SYMPTOM OF CHILDHOOD!

Regardless of any social, economic, political, or other considerations, these psychiatric drugs are known to cause harmful side effects including behavior problems, violence and suicide. Small wonder that mental health behavior problems for children appear to be increasing.

2. When it comes to raising children, parents must always be the first defense and have the final word. Yet witness the social upheavals currently occurring as local, state and federal governments battle among parents, school boards, psychiatrists, pharmaceutical companies, and other “know-best” vested interests, about how children should be raised and educated. No wonder parents and caregivers are confused about who is lying and who is telling the truth!

In Missouri, legislators have to fight to pass laws giving parents the right to raise their children, a right which they should already have, but are consistently denied. This makes it exceedingly difficult to provide the sane education parents need to decide what is best for their children.

3. Not only are psychiatric drugs not helping, they are actively hurting. The trouble is that psychiatric propaganda has thoroughly duped well-meaning parents, teachers and politicians alike, that normal childhood behavior is a “mental illness”, and that only by continuous, heavy drugging from an early age can children make it through life’s worst.

Seventeen million schoolchildren worldwide have now been diagnosed with so-called mental disorders and prescribed cocaine-like stimulants and powerful antidepressants as “treatment.” Biological psychiatry has yet to validate a single psychiatric diagnosis as anything neurological, biological, chemically imbalanced or genetic. The rise in gratuitous and murderous violence amongst youth is linked to the introduction of and increases in these violence-inducing drugs.

4. If emergency rooms are obviously not a solution, then what is? Well, there isn’t a single magic wand, but there are multiple recommendations; pick those you can do, and do them.

a. Contact your local, state and federal officials, and your parents’ groups and school boards, and tell them what you think; and that coercive and unworkable psychiatric methods should not be funded by the State.
b. You have the right to refuse permission for your child to be subjected to psychiatric drugs or other psychiatric treatments or interference.
c. If your child has been subjected to psychiatric treatment without your consent, consult a lawyer to determine your right to prosecute criminally and civilly.
d. Support legislative measures that will protect children from psychiatric interference.
e. Educate yourself on sane and effective alternatives to coercive and harmful psychiatric treatments.

Stop psychiatric drugging of kids.
Stop psychiatric drugging of kids

Are You Woke?

Monday, August 8th, 2022

“In an effort to raise awareness of social injustices, the woke Left has gotten Scrabble to ban 400 ‘offensive’ terms that refer to racial slurs, sexuality, and gender identity.”

[Washington Examiner, July 12, 2022]

Woke has evolving meanings due to rapidly changing social conditions and the speed of social media. It can also be used in a positive or negative sense.

[Past tense & past participle of wake, akin to Latin vegere to enliven.]

Examples:
A play on the word “awake”.
Spiritual and intellectual enlightenment; a higher sense of awareness.
A sudden understanding of what’s really going on.
A politically correct narrative.
Acutely aware of issues of social justice or injustice.
A state of intense self-realization induced by psychedelic drugs.
(Positive) Expressing admiration for someone who is au courant and in-the-know.
(Negative) Branding someone as pompous or stupid for being trendy, or for pretending to be of greater intelligence or awareness than they actually are.

Of course the psychiatric industry has its own take on the woke phenomenon. Those in the know call wokeism “Critical Social Justice Theory”, such as the woke doctrine of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), and the scramble to find racism everywhere while insinuating that one’s mental health is at risk.

Interestingly enough, “woke mental health” has likely led to the Drug Enforcement Administration loosening its restrictions on prescriptions for Schedule II controlled drugs via telehealth appointments during a public health emergency. Such drugs previously required in-person physical evaluations. Nothing like a pandemic to increase the patient pool for psychiatric mental health care.

We call it “care” loosely. It isn’t really care; it’s coercive social control.

According to psychiatric thinking, the solution for everything from the most minor to the most severe personal problem is strictly limited to diagnosis with the fraudulent Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), assigning a mental illness label, and prescribing a restrictive, generally coercive and costly range of harmful treatments, none of which have been shown to cure anything.

Ultimately, psychiatry must be eliminated from all social institutions and their coercive and unworkable methods should never be funded by the government. Contact your local, state and federal officials and let them know what you think about this.

The Serotonin Theory Of Depression Is In The News Again

Monday, August 1st, 2022

While the fraudulent psychiatric “brain chemical imbalance” theory has been debunked for many years, it has been held firmly in place by the psycho-pharma public relations machine in order to sell more harmful and addictive psychiatric drugs. These drugs make patients for life since the drugs do not cure anything and have devastating side effects.

We discuss serotonin because many psychiatric drugs deliberately alter the levels of serotonin in the brain, in the mistaken belief that this is the cause of depression.

July 20, 2022 marks the publication of another study debunking the serotonin theory of depression, the so-called brain chemical imbalance theory.

To quote the study, “Our comprehensive review of the major strands of research on serotonin shows there is no convincing evidence that depression is associated with, or caused by, lower serotonin concentrations or activity. … This review suggests that the huge research effort based on the serotonin hypothesis has not produced convincing evidence of a biochemical basis to depression. … We suggest it is time to acknowledge that the serotonin theory of depression is not empirically substantiated.”

Serotonin is a neurotransmitter hormone synthesized in the adrenal glands and elsewhere in the body from the essential amino acid tryptophan, found in the brain, blood, and mostly the digestive tract, which allows nerve cells throughout the body to communicate and interact with each other.

Since serotonin impacts every part of the body, messing with it can cause unwanted and dangerous side effects. Obviously, the body must closely regulate and balance the level of serotonin, since both a deficiency or an excess can be extremely harmful.

Psychiatrists have known since the beginning of psychopharmacology that their drugs do not cure any disease. Further, there is no credible evidence that depression is genetic or linked to serotonin transport; these are just public relations theories to support the marketing and sale of drugs. The manufacturers of every such drug state in the fine print that they don’t really understand how it works. Psychiatric drugs are fraudulently marketed as safe and effective for the sole purpose of earning billions for the psycho-pharmaceutical industry.

Messing with neurotransmitters in the brain without totally understanding how they work is serious business, essentially one is playing Russian Roulette with one’s brain.

These drugs mask the real cause of problems in life and debilitate the individual, so denying him or her the opportunity for real recovery and hope for the future. This is the real reason why psychiatry is a violation of human rights. Psychiatric treatment is not just a failure — it is routinely destructive to the individual and one’s mental health.

Contact your local, state and federal officials and insist they stop funding this insanity.