Before everyone gets carried away blaming the drugs for the mayhem isn’t this a bit like blaming guns for the violence?
All these people were so mentally screwed up they were being perscribed some sort of drug or other to control or remedy their situation. The fact they went psycho doesn’t mean the drugs caused the problem, it could be they failed to prevent the problem.
Unless someone can conclusively prove that the drugs altered the mental state of the patients to cause them to take their murderous actions than there is nothing much to discuss here.
Well, a friend of mine was on these prescription for years - and according to him, the initial period, before the thing sets in, is characterized by increased instability, and best be supervised. Count it as a side effect.
I was sceptical about the link initially, but not any more. The class of antidepressants called selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, SSRIs, recently merited an FDA order to include a black box warning that they increase the risk for suicidal ideation in folks started on these drugs or had a recent increase in dose. Enter serotonin syndrome or serotonin withdrawal syndrome into PubMed.
These drugs are primarily metabolized by the cytochrome P450 system of enzymes. There's a fairly wide variety of genotypes that determines how fast or slow that any particular individual metabolizes these drugs.
I recently read a pharmacology paper that said 30 percent of Chinese were slow metabolizers of antidepressants, IIRC. A recent human genome study said that for all intents and purposes, there's no difference in between the Chinese and Japanese gene pools. I doubt that folks of Korean heritage, like Cho, have much difference either.