Posted on 03/24/2005 7:09:06 AM PST by Nov3
Report: Accused School Shooter Was On Prozac
WEB EXTRA: Red Lake Coverage.
Mar 24, 2005 6:47 am US/Central Red Lake, Minn. (AP) The teenager accused of killing nine people and then himself on the Red Lake Indian Reservation was apparently struggling with depression.
A cultural coordinator at Red Lake Middle School told the Washington Post that Jeffrey Weise was taking the anti-depressant Prozac and was hospitalized for suicidal tendencies at least once.
A bus driver for a local health center told the paper he once drove Weise 60 miles to a psychiatric ward in Thief River Falls. The boy's grandmother also said he suffered from depression.
Students described Weise as a loner. He apparently posted messages on a neo-Nazi Web site, and a computer animation attributed to him shows a person shooting four people, blowing up a police car and committing suicide.
I once had a coworker on Prozac who explained that Prozac is a "motivator" and that the bad came with the good. She said it didn't make you want to stop killing your husband, it just motivated you to get off your butt and do it as much as it could motivate you to do good stuff. I steered pretty clear of her after that.
I wouldn't give her any reason to obsess over killing you!
Newer antidepressants and the discontinuation syndrome.
However, SSRI discontinuation is also associated with novel symptom clusters, including problems with balance, sensory abnormalities, and possibly aggressive and impulsive behavior.
I understand that Paxil is the worse to get off by far. I will read the link after work.
True enough, but I wouldn't discount the possibility that they might not have acted as such if they hadn't been on one of these drugs.
I fully agree, that parents make all the difference in the world. My 4 year old daughter is adopted - her birth parents were both barely 15 when she was born. I shudder to think what her life would be like if her young mother decided to keep her. But I also believe that God worked it out to allow us to have this beautiful child when we couldn't have one of our own.
In an earlier post, I related how my wife had suicidal/homicidal feelings while on Prozac. I've seen too many children drugged to keep them under control in our society and I don't like it. I would have been diagnosed with ADHD when young, but there were no drugs at that time to treat it. I learned self control instead of chemical control. Sometimes I feel that the drugs are used by parents and teachers who don't want to deal with the problems that the children have. I WILL NEVER LET THEM DRUG MY CHILD!!!!
Well as long as you are not looking forward to the prospect which is a grim thing to think about given that most of us depend on it for just living.
I am not one bit surprised. The Columbine shooters were also on prozac, and other drugs, as were all the other school shooters. The anti-gun folks do not address this issue they just scream for taking the guns.
The schools are advocating giving kids ritalin, apparently other drugs are also given to kids that are
deemed disruptive. (mostly boys) but young boys think it is their "job" to not sit still in school and not play. (I am speaking of 5 and 6 year old)In my view this has to stop!
(Having said all that I am aware that some kids do need ritalin especially those kids that are born from drug addicted mothers.)
It's a matter of drug half-life. Paxil has a short half-life. Prozac has the longest of the SSRI class.
Initiation of therapy with these drugs, changes of doses and discontinuation should require very close observation for 4 - 6 weeks, IMHO. That's the same time period that the "Black Box" warning for suicidal ideation that the FDA finally generated.
You have stated it well. Our neighbor, new mother, went off her meds and killed herelf. Left her new child with her husband. It was the going off the meds that resulted in her demise. She was being helped on the meds but could not face the fact that she needed to be on these chemicals (mayber for the rest of her life).
In many cases the suicidal behavior comes from quitting the drug cold turkey without notifying the prescriber. Prozak can and does help many people who for one reason or another do not have enough seritonin.
I just heard on The News Hour with Jim Lehrer that the kid recently had the dose of Prozac increased.
FReepmail me if you want on or off my health and science ping list.
Apparently, the meds didn't work.
It also causes halitosis and ingrown toenails.
The first thing I thought of when I heard about the shooting was that the kid was on antidepressants.
We have a pattern emerging.
It worked, but not the way it was intended. It seems mostly all of the school shooters were taking these SSRIs like Prozac. These drugs just received BLACK BOX warnings mandated by the FDA because a review of all the testing showed an increase in suicidal ideation after starting one of these drugs or increasing the dosage. These possible acts of violence are most likely to happen after starting one of these drugs or increasing the dosage for a period up to about 6 weeks. The kid who killed his grandparents in South Carolina just had his dose increased a few days before he killed them. There was another murder of family members out west that I read about. The drug maker was successfully sued, IIRC.
See comment# 73 and the link.
Thank you.
The whole thing is just sad.
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