Essential Estrogen

This got long so go grab yourself a frosty beverage and settle in.

There has been a great deal of hub-bub lately regarding the need for and/or the possibility of tightened gun control as a response to Seung-Hui Cho's rampage at Virginia Tech. Unfortunately, there aren't nearly as many people willing to discuss the correlation between psychiatric drugs and massive acts of violence.

Cho was one of many school shooters found to be under the influence of psychiatric drugs. These are drugs which have been documented by the Food and Drug Administration to cause suicidal behavior, mania, psychosis, hallucinations, hostility and “homicidal ideation.” Further proof of documentation is available on the Citizens Commission on Human Rights site where they have a video of a 1991 FDA hearing on the connections between psychiatric drug use and harm to self and others -- as well as class action lawsuit protection for the manufacturers.

For those who doubt this nation needs to have a serious discussion on this topic, here is a list of other shootings where psychiatric drugs were a common factor (links to online materials have been provided when available):

1986: 14-year-old Rod Mathews beat a classmate to death with a bat in the woods near his Massachusetts home. He had been prescribed Ritalin since the third grade.

1988: Laurie Dann walked into a Winnetka, Illinois second grade classroom carrying three pistols and began shooting, killing on and wounding five others before taking her own life. Subsequent blood tests revealed she was on a psychiatric drug.

1988: 19-year-old James Wilson went on a shooting rampage at Greenwood Elementary School in South Carolina. He killed two eight-year-old girls and wounded seven others. He'd been on Xanax, Valium and five additional drugs.

1989: 25-year-old Patrick Purdy opened fire on a school yard filled with children in Stockton, Calif. Five children died and 30 were wounded. Purdy had been treated with Thorazine and Amitriptyline.

1993: Steve Lieth walked into a Chelsea, Michigan school meeting and shot and killed the school superintendent and wounded two others. He was on Prozac.

1996: 10-year-old Tommy Becton grabbed his three-year-old niece as a shield and aimed a shotgun at a sheriff's deputy who had accompanied a truant officer to his Florida home. He was being medicated with Prozac.

1997: 14-year-old Michael Carneal opened fire on students at a high school prayer meeting in West Paducah, Kentucky's Heath High School. Three students died and one was paralyzed. Carneal was reportedly on Ritalin.

1998: 11-year-old Andrew Golden and 14-year-old Mitchell Johnson faked a fire alarm at Westside Middle School in Joseboro, Arksansas. They then shot students as they exited the building. Four students and one teacher lost their lives. The boys were reportedly on Ritalin.

1998: 15-year-old Kip Kinkel murdered his own parents in Springfield, Oregon and then proceeded to school where he opened fire on students in the cafeteria, killing two and wounding 22. Kinkel had been on Prozac.

1999: 15-year-old T.J. Solomon was being treated with a mix of antidepressants when he opened fire on and wounded six of his classmates in Conyers, Georgia.

1999: Todd Smith walked into a high school in Taber, Alberta, Canada with a shotgun. He killed one and injured a second student. He had been give a psychiatric drug following a five-minute phone consultation with a psychiatrist.

1999: Steven Abrams drove his car into a preschool playground in Costa Mesa, Calif., killing two. He was on probation and required to take Lithium.

1999: 18-year-old Eric Harris was on the antidepressant Luvox when he and his partner, Dylan Klebold, killed 12 classmates and a teacher and wounded 23 others in Littleton, Colorado. The pair took their own lives in what was considered the bloodiest school massacre until Virginia Tech. The coroner confirmed that the antidepressant was in Harris' system through toxicology reports; Klebold's autopsy was never made public.

1999: 15-year-old Shawn Cooper fired two shotgun rounds in his school in Notus, Idaho, narrowly missing students. He was taking a mix of antidepressants.

2000: 13-year-old Seth Trickey of Fort Gibson, Oklahoma was on a cocktail of prescriptions when he opened fire on his middle school class, injuring five.

2000: 14-year-old Elizabeth Bush was on the antidepressant Prozac when she blasted away at fellow students in Williamsport, Penn., wounding one.

2001: 16-year-old Cory Baadsgaard took a rifle to his high school at Wahluke, Washington and held 23 classmates and a teacher hostage while on a high dose of the antidepressant Effexor.

2001: 18-year-old Jason Hoffman was on two antidepressants Effexor and Celexa when he opened fire at his El Cajon, California high school, wounding five.

2005: 16-year-old Chippewa Native American Jeff Weise was under the influence of the antidepressant Prozac when he shot and killed nine and wounded five people at Red Lake Indian Reservation, Minnesota. He then committed suicide.

2006: 53-year-oldDuane Morrison entered Platte Canyon High School in Bailey, Colorado. He shot and killed one girl, sexually assaulted six others and then took his own life. Antidepressants were found in his vehicle.

If these aren't enough, visit SSRI Stories for over 1,500 news stories, mainly criminal in nature, that have appeared in the media and/or were a part of FDA testimony in either 1991, 2004 or 2006 in which antidepressants are mentioned.

On March 22, 2004, the FDA issued Public Health Advisory entitled Worsening Depression and Suicidality in Patients Being Treated With Antidepressant. This was followed by an additional advisory in June of 2005 entitled Suicidality in Adults Being Treated with Antidepressant Medications. This second advisory discusses a "comprehensive review" involving "many hundreds of individual clinical trials and many thousands of adult patients" to be completed in roughly one year. It was anticipated to take so long because of "the large number of trials and the thousands of adverse events that must be checked for possible evidence of suicidality." Unfortunately, the FDA has either not completed such a review or has not made the findings public (as promised in the public health advisory from June 2005).

Of course, when considering a cause and effect for actions, it is important to be able to determine if the cause is true. That is, would the person with or without the stimulus have made the same choices which would result in the same action/outcome. It's part of the whole "which came first: the chicken or the egg" argument. As usual it appears our government may be planning a program which will provide an answer to that question in this instance.

Despite all the testimony and evidence building links between psychiatric drug use and violence toward self or others, in April of 2002 the Bush administration established the New Freedom Commission on Mental Health and gave it the directive of identifying policies to be enacted at all levels of government for both adults with serious mental illness and children with serious emotional disturbance. The 22 Commissioners met between June 2002 and April 2003 and presented their final report to the President on July 22, 2003.

The Commission, using the Texas Medication Algorithm Project (TMAP) as a blueprint, recommended screnning both American adults for possible mental illness and children for emotional disturbances. It reported that "despite their prevalence, mental disorders often go undiagnosed" and, therefore, it recommended comprehensive health screening for "consumers of all ages," including preschool children.

For those who are unaware, TMAP was founded in 1995 under then-Gov. George W. Bush as a collaborative effort between individuals from the University of Texas, the Texas Corrections System and the pharmaceutical industry. The project was funded by a Robert Wood Johnson grant and by several pharmaceutical companies. TMAP, which advises the use of newer, more expensive antipsychotics and antidepressants, has been the subject of controversy in Texas, Pennsylvania and other states where efforts have been made to implement its use. In particular, Allen Jones (PDF file), an employee of the Pennsylvania Office of the Inspector General, revealed that key officials with influence over the medication plan in his state received money and perks from pharmaceutical companies with a stake in the medication algorithm. After making his concerns public, Jones was fired.

In July 2004, Illinois became a "testing ground" for the NFC's recommendations. The Illinois Children's Mental Health Partnership was created and it issued a plan with a priority of having all children receive periodic social and emotional screens for and that all women be screened for depression during pregnancy and for up to one year postpartum. Chairperson Barbara Shaw told Psychiatric Times, "What is happening in Illinois is a testing ground for the President's New Freedom report goals." When asked about opposition to the plan she added, "These are people who feel the schools have no place futzing with their children's mental health. They also distrust psychotropic medications."

Indiana became a battleground in September of 2005 when the Rutherford Institute joined with parents Michael and Teresa Rhodes to file a lawsuit (PDF file) challenging a school for subjecting a teenager to a mental health screening test (TeenScreen) without her parents knowledge or consent. Following the short, yes or no test the 15-year-old was informed that based on her responses (i.e., "she liked to clean and didn't like to party very much") she suffered from at least two mental health problems, obsessive compulsive disorder and social anxiety disorder.

(Author's note: I promise to follow-up at a later date with more information on TeenScreen, but this is getting long and the particulars aren't important for the present discussion.)

Whether or not all of these dots are at some future point connected is secondary to the real and immediate need of our nation.

• Do the benefits of such pharmaceuticals outweigh the risks?
• Is there a link between harm to self and others and the use of prescription medication?
• Is there a reason why so many of these SSRI medications are prescribed without accompanying therapy?
• Finally, why isn't anyone in a position of authority asking these questions?