Skip to comments.

From Prozac to Parkland: Are Psychiatric Drugs Causing Mass Shootings?

The New American ^ | Saturday, 17 February 2018 | Selwyn Duke

Posted on by nickcarraway

Whille mass killers generally have guns in their hands, another commonality is that they often have psychiatric drugs in their blood. The difference, though, is that it isn't guns that have the side effect of "homicidal ideation."

If you develop digestive problems after a change in diet, do you look for the cause in foods you always ate or the new ones you started eating? While the answer is obvious, this common sense is painfully uncommon when analyzing the new phenomenon of continual mass shootings: Many blame the long-present foods  guns in this case  and ignore the new diet whose embrace coincided with the problem. And part of whats new is the widespread use of psychiatric drugs.

As a case in point, the Parkland, Florida, shooter (I wont use his name and help provide the fame he craved), who murdered 17 on Valentines Day, was on medication for emotional issues, his aunt related. This is now a familiar story, too. As WND.coms David Kupelian put it Thursday, the following is par for the course: As information about a perpetrator emerges, a relative confides to a newspaper that the troubled youth who committed the mass murder was on psychiatric medications  you know, those powerful, little understood, mind-altering drugs with fearsome side effects including suicidal ideation and even homicidal ideation.

ULINE Shipping Supplies Huge Catalog! Over 31,000 Products. Same Day Shipping from 11 Locations www.ULINE.com Yet, Kupelian laments, the media have little appetite for exploring this issue. Politicians dont, either. Unlike with guns, legal drugs arent a sexy issue that can be used to scare people and win votes. Moreover, as The Guardian reported last year, Pharmaceutical companies spend far more than any other industry to influence politicians, having poured close to $2.5bn into lobbying and funding members of Congress over the past decade. This dwarfs the gun lobbys political contributions, mind you.

But what about pharmaceuticals contributions to mass shootings? Of course, correlation doesnt mean causation, but it can provide clues as to where causation may lie  and the correlation between mass shooters and psychiatric drug use certainly exists.

Consider Newtown, Connecticut, killer Adam Lanza (I will provide the names of perpetrators of older incidents), who killed 26 at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2013. He also was on medication, according to family friend Louise Tambascio. Thats all we heard about it, however; as Kupelian points out, there was little journalistic curiosity or follow-up.

But there should be. As Kupelian also informs, Fact: A disturbing number of perpetrators of school shootings and similar mass murders in our modern era were either on  or just recently coming off of  psychiatric medications. He then provides some examples (all quotations are Kupelians):

 Columbine mass-killer Eric Harris was taking Luvox  like Prozac, Paxil, Zoloft, Effexor and many others, a modern and widely prescribed type of antidepressant drug called selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, or SSRIs. Along with fellow student Dylan Klebold, Harris shot 13 to death and wounded 24 in a headline-grabbing 1999 rampage. Luvox manufacturer Solvay Pharmaceuticals concedes that during short-term controlled clinical trials, 4 percent of children and youth taking Luvox  thats one in 25  developed mania, a dangerous and violence-prone mental derangement characterized by extreme excitement and delusion.

 Twenty-five-year-old Patrick Purdy murdered five children and wounded 30 in a schoolyard shooting rampage in Stockton, California, in 1989. Hed been taking Amitriptyline, an antidepressant, as well as the antipsychotic drug Thorazine.

 Kip Kinkel, 15, murdered his parents in 1998 and the next day went to his school, Thurston High in Springfield, Oregon, and opened fire on his classmates, killing two and wounding 22 others. He had been prescribed both Prozac and Ritalin.

WNDs Leo Hohmann adds to the picture, having reported in 2015 (all quotations are his):

 Aaron Ray Ybarra, 26, of Mountlake Terrace, Washington, allegedly opened fire with a shotgun at Seattle Pacific University in June 2014, killing one student and wounding two others. Ybarra said hed been prescribed with Prozac and Risperdal to help him with his problems.

 Jose Reyes, the Nevada seventh-grader who went on a shooting rampage at his school in October 2013 was taking a prescription antidepressant [Prozac] at the time .

 Navy Yard shooter Aaron Alexis sprayed bullets at office workers and in a cafeteria on Sept. 16, 2013, killing 13 people including himself. Alexis had been prescribed [generic antidepressant] Trazodone by his Veterans Affairs doctor.

 In 1988, 31-year-old Laurie Dann went on a shooting rampage in a second-grade classroom in Winnetka, Ill., killing one child and wounding six. She had been taking the antidepressant Anafranil as well as Lithium, long used to treat mania.

 In Paducah, Kentucky, in late 1997, 14-year-old Michael Carneal, son of a prominent attorney, traveled to Heath High School and started shooting students in a prayer meeting taking place in the schools lobby, killing three and leaving another paralyzed. Carneal reportedly was on Ritalin.

 In 2005, 16-year-old Jeff Weise, living on Minnesotas Red Lake Indian Reservation, shot and killed nine people and wounded five others before killing himself. Weise had been taking Prozac.

 47-year-old Joseph T. Wesbecker, just a month after he began taking Prozac in 1989, shot 20 workers at Standard Gravure Corp. in Louisville, Kentucky, killing nine. Prozac-maker Eli Lilly later settled a lawsuit brought by survivors.

And there are many, many more examples.

Of course, also relating to correlation, theres a chicken-or-egg question here: Is it that taking psychiatric drugs makes a person more likely to go crazy and commit murderous rampages, or is it that crazy people who are candidates for committing murderous rampages are more likely to be prescribed psychiatric drugs? In reality, most likely its both.

The truth is that because the human mind is complex and not wholly understood, taking mind-altering drugs is a risky proposition. Drug companies acknowledge this, too, mind you  just not very publicly. As Kupelian writes after relating the case of Andrea Yates, who drowned her five children in 2001 while on the antidepressant Effexor:

In November 2005, more than four years after Yates drowned her children, Effexor manufacturer Wyeth Pharmaceuticals quietly added homicidal ideation to the drugs list of rare adverse events. The Medical Accountability Network, a private nonprofit focused on medical ethics issues, publicly criticized Wyeth, saying Effexors homicidal ideation risk wasnt well publicized and that Wyeth failed to send letters to doctors or issue warning labels announcing the change. And what exactly does rare mean in the phrase rare adverse events? The FDA defines it as occurring in less than one in 1,000 people. But since that same year 19.2 million prescriptions for Effexor were filled in the U.S., statistically that means thousands of Americans might experience homicidal ideation  murderous thoughts  as a result of taking just this one brand of antidepressant drug. Effexor is Wyeths best-selling drug, by the way, which in one recent year brought in over $3 billion in sales, accounting for almost a fifth of the companys annual revenues.

Then, after mentioning the case of 12-year-old Paxil user Christopher Pittmans murder of his grandparents, Kupelian informs that Paxils known adverse drug reactions  according to the drugs FDA-approved label  include mania, insomnia, anxiety, agitation, confusion, amnesia, depression, paranoid reaction, psychosis, hostility, delirium, hallucinations, abnormal thinking, depersonalization and lack of emotion, among others.

In fact, as Ch 2 WCGH reported in 2009, One study shows a quarter of all children on drugs such as Paxil and Zoloft become dangerously violent and/or suicidal. Below is a 2011 news report on the subject by WCNC.COM 6 News; it includes the story of Christopher Pittman.

Of course, if these drugs pose such a threat, there should be a stream of high-profile lawsuits, right? Wrong. To avoid the bad exposure this would bring, drug companies spend hundreds of millions of dollars settling claims out of court and often cloak them with confidentiality agreements.

Having said this, its unlikely that psychiatric drugs are entirely to blame for mass shootings, for much has changed during the last many decades. Weve seen a decline in faith and rise in moral relativism/nihilism, which relates the notion that right and wrong are mere perspective; entertainment has become increasingly decadent and mindlessly violent (note that the Internets rise fairly closely coincided with the start of continual mass shootings); the family has continued to break down, and Americans today, immersed in electronics, are often more connected to things than people; and the fame committing a massacre brings can be alluring to lonely, disturbed people, thus breeding copycat crimes, to name just a few factors. Its a systemic problem.

Nonetheless, adding mind-altering drugs to this equation adds up to nothing good, and this brings me to my story. I knew a good-natured man who was the epitome of even-temperedness, who had some problems and was prescribed an antidepressant by a psychiatrist (whod never treated him before). Well, he swallowed one pill  and only one, ever. In his case, that was all it took. Fifteen minutes later, he flew into a rage and was never the same again. Mental instability, irrationality, and some violent episodes  in a word, insanity  would define the rest of his life.

Famed psychiatrist Sigmund Freud once believed that cocaine, legal during his younger days, was the best cure for depression thered ever been. Bayer Heroin was once advertised as a remedy for all sorts of ailments. Today, with one out of six Americans on some psychiatric medication, we ought to perhaps bear in mind that just because a drug is on the right side of the law doesnt mean it wont bring you to the wrong side of sanitys line.



TOPICS:

Crime/Corruption

Culture/Society

Extended News

News/Current Events

US: Florida

KEYWORDS:

florida

massshootings

parkland

psychiatricdrugs

schoolshootings





To: nickcarraway

psychotropic drugs are a major cause PLUS forcing certain kids to stay in academic classes instead of working/industrial arts.



by 2 posted onby vooch (America First Drain the Swamp)

To: vooch

The various drugs are used on those under 30 with very poor results. Just because one is past the calendar age for recommended usage, does not mean it is safe. I have seen suicide due to this mistake.



by 3 posted onby KC Burke (If all the world is a stage, I would like to request my lighting be adjusted.)

To: nickcarraway

YES...along with bad parenting and NO GOD in the home or school!



by 4 posted onby Ann Archy (Abortion....... The HUMAN Sacrifice to the god of Convenience.)

To: nickcarraway

Many of these drugs have their worst side effects when the patient goes cold turkey, for whatever reason. A societal collapse will be made all the more interesting when the supply lines are interrupted...



To: nickcarraway

We have had guns in the US since colonial times, and rapid-firing semi-autos have been available to people for over a century. In the 1920’s you could get a full auto Thomson submachinegun mail-order. Up until the Gun Control Act of 1968 people could walk into a store and walk out with whatever guns they wanted, paying cash, and not even being required to identify themselves. But it’s only been in the last few decades that we’ve had these nuts going off. Nuts who society used to be able to commit before they harmed people.



by 6 posted onby PapaBear3625 (Big governent is attractive to those who think that THEY will be in control of it.)

To: nickcarraway

This is being discussed by "Q" right now. 779



Feb 16 2018 17:19:07

Anonymous ID: ee1bed

402088

behold-the-pale-horse-scho .png



>>388822



Q, Anons, I've been following these drops since day one, but this is the first I'm hearing of this "Behold a Pale Horse" book from 1991, by Bill Cooper. It actually describes clowns planning to use school shootings as a way to disarm the citizenry.



This looks legit to me, astonishing as the quotes are. What say you all?



Behold a Pale Horse  Milton William (Bill) Cooper, 1991 http:// a.co/0IZY9ra



Bill Cooper, former United States Naval Intelligence Briefing Team member, reveals information that remains hidden from the public eye. This information has been kept in topsecret government files since the 1940s. His audiences hear the truth unfold as he writes about the assassination of John F. Kennedy, the war on drugs, the secret government, and UFOs. Bill is a lucid, rational, and powerful speaker whose intent is to inform and to empower his audience. Standing room only is normal. His presentation and information transcend partisan affiliations as he clearly addresses issues in a way that has a striking impact on listeners of all backgrounds and interests. He has spoken to many groups throughout the United States and has appeared regularly on many radio talk shows and on television. In 1988 Bill decided to "talk" due to events then taking place worldwide, events that he had seen plans for back in the early 1970s. Bill correctly predicted the lowering of the Iron Curtain, the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the invasion of Panama. All Bill's predictions were on record well before the events occurred. Bill is not a psychic. His information comes from top secret documents that he read while with the Intelligence Briefing Team and from over seventeen years of research.



Feb 16 2018 17:53:19

Q !UW.yye1fxo ID: 732b35

402380

>>402088

BIG!

Q



by 7 posted onby SubMareener (Save us from Quarterly Freepathons! Become a MONTHLY DONOR)

To: nickcarraway

I think the proliferation of these drugs its scary.



To: nickcarraway

MK Ultra.



by 9 posted onby pgkdan (The Silent Majority STILL Stands With TRUMP!)

To: nickcarraway

The Right is absolutely insane on the subject of psychiatric drugs. Just the way the Left is nuts on the subject of guns. You’d think taking a gelatin tablet of Prozac turns people into maniacs. Well, it doesn’t. Every drug has a drawback and you can take blood pressure medication that indicates if misused or subscribed incorrectly can cause death. It is so obvious that this kid had Alcohol Fetal Syndrome - a condition that leads to reckless impulsiveness if not controlled early in life. We know nothing about his somewhat shady lineage, nothing about his adoptive parents and nothing about the home he was living in. There are multiple reasons this young adult became a madman. Drugs, may or may not, have played a part. Was the Las Vegas shooter on Ritalin?



To: miss marmelstein

Genetics or damage while in the womb is a very strong possibility. Drugs can help or exasperate the condition. Everyone has a unique brain chemistry and responds differently to the meds. When kids begin to self medicate, they can further alter and rewire their own brains. A forensic examination of his brain could be informative. There is no cure for FAS. There is no cure for paranoid schizophrenia. Medication can sedate or control the symptoms.



To: Beautiful_Gracious_Skies

No one should self-medicate, least of all kids! But a good doctor, along with therapy and/or medication, can help a depressed or ill kid. But when I hear ignorant people like Sean Hannity inveighing against some of the wonderful drugs that are available for the mentally ill, I just wanna tell him to shut up. I wonder if we’ll ever find out about this man’s background. The spelling of his first name is curious, too.



To: nickcarraway

Are Psychiatric Drugs Causing Mass Shootings? No, crazy people who could benefit from psychoactive drugs cause mass shootings.



by 13 posted onby Strac6 ("Mrs. Strac, Pilatus, and Sig Sauer: All the fun things in my life are Swiss!")

To: Strac6

More so, they could benefit from involuntary commitment to mental institutions. The drugs may be precipitating these murders.



To: nickcarraway

drugs were prescribed to try to curb certain behaviors...its hard to say the drugs were the cause of the homicides..... because we do not have the whole picture... where is the report on all the kids on these drugs that don't commit any crimes whatsoever... everyone was condemning that poor mother of the wild and screaming toddler on the plane the other day... besides medication, what would you want her to do?...



To: nickcarraway

This is a chicken and egg dilemma Its like do heart drugs cause death or is it that heart drug taking folks are already more likely to die Biggest contributor is the death of Christianity here and the breakdown of family and community Leaving more than usual alienated



by 16 posted onby wardaddy (As a southerner I've never trusted the Grand Old Party.....any questions?)

To: nickcarraway

from what I understand, such powerful drugs should not be given to teens, whose brains are still developing.



To: miss marmelstein

Self medicate = booze, pot, recreational drugs of any sort they get hands on to experiment or alter the mental state.



To: miss marmelstein

And it didnt have to be alcohol. Kids his age were already born to crackheads etc. I know of a young woman with terrible impulse control, expelled from a few schools, and her mother admitted snorting cocaine a few times in early pregnancy. It sounds like his adoptive parents were good parents, but since he was the older kid, he probably spent two or so years with the birth mother. That is a rough age to be adopted at. Who knows what happened to him during those early years?



To: KC Burke

under 30 ? try under 8; govt schools are filled with heavily drugged little children.



by 20 posted onby vooch (America First Drain the Swamp)

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

FreeRepublic , LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794

FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson