School shooter took mood-altering drug

THE WASHINGTON TIMES ^ | March 25, 2005 | Joyce Howard Price

[neverdem]

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The Washington Timeswww.washingtontimes.com

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School shooter took mood-altering drug

By Joyce Howard Price
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Published March 25, 2005

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The teen who went on a deadly shooting rampage at a Minnesota high school Monday was on Prozac, adding to the list of youths involved in similar crimes who were taking antidepressants or other mood-altering medications.

    But medical experts say the role the drugs played in the school shootings is debatable.

    "When you look at the school shooters, some were on Luvox, Prozac, Ritalin, and Paxil. These are mood elevators, but they can push up the psyche and can cause agitation," said Robert Butterworth, a clinical psychologist in Los Angeles, who specializes in trauma.

    Dr. Robert Findling, chief of child and adolescent psychiatry for University Hospitals of Cleveland, said while some youths "may become more agitated or irritable" while on such drugs, their actions are the result of their illness, not the medication.

    "Association is not the same as causation," he said.

    Jeff Weise, 16, killed nine persons and himself in Red Lake, Minn., making it the second-deadliest school incident in the nation. A cultural coordinator at the school told The Washington Post that he was taking Prozac and had been previously hospitalized for suicidal tendencies.

    The deadliest school shooting occurred in Littleton, Colo. where Eric Harris, 18, who was on Luvox, and Dylan Klebold, 17, killed 13 persons and themselves at Columbine High School in 1999.

    Other school shooters who took prescription drugs include:

    •Kip Kinkel, an Oregon youth, who in 1998 when he was 15 years old, killed both his parents and then went to his school, where...

[Atlas Sneezed]

there is a wide division between the type of care available to the dog catcher and the CEO.

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No there isn't. Either can get any type of care they want by paying for it (or the insurance premiums to pay for it).

I haven't heard your position coming from a conservative before.

[KC_for_Freedom]

It make work every now and then but is it really 'treatment?' Remember that none of these kids are ever cured by these drugs. They just change the symptoms so they now are 'bi-polar' instead of manic depressive. Their lives still suck but now in a different way.

You make a good point that these drugs don't have the deep studies where teens are concerned, but you go too far. Under the guidance of a trusted psychiatrist (thats with an MD) many people have had life improving changes with these very same drugs. (Thats millions, not just every now and then) They are not a solution to everyone's problems, because as you note there are different mental illnesses out there. Certainly if a kid is having problems, and this kid was, more care would be better than letting him sort things out for himself. But in this case the guardian should not have been entrusted with firearms where the kid could get them. (Wonder what did transpire when the kid wanted the gun, did gramps say no? or was he killed in his sleep?

IMO this kid had problems beyond the use of prozac. He was clearly evil and should have been put away but was instead coddled by the system and given chance after chance. Also, it has not been reported but much of the problem with proxac involves the patient NOT following doctors orders. (I know, how can you stop this?) but quitting cold turkey has been shown to really bring problems to a peak in a troubled person's mind. So the final question is, was it using prozac or abrupting stopping the use that triggered the killings? Or is one thing the same as the other? And if prozac was not working, how about institutionalization before a killing spree? How about teachers being armed to stop a kid like this? And finally, why is the school forced to mainstream kids with problems when they also hinder the education process with their behavior well before they take up weapons and attempt to "get even" with those who have not given them their way?

[GovernmentShrinker]

Nowadays the dog catcher has an employer-provided insurance plan. It doesn't provide the range of options and choice of specialists that the CEO's plan (and personal cash) does, but I don't think there's any significant difference in lifespan between people employed full time in low paying jobs vs. high paying jobs. And frankly, the difference displayed by the non-working/welfare class has more to do with failure to maintain a healthy lifestyle, than with the lesser quality of public hospitals and Medicaid-participating doctors.

100-150 years ago, medical care beyond home remedies was on a cash-for-services basis. While most doctors would accept delayed payment, barter, etc. there was also a strong cultural value to avoiding debt. People who didn't have much money didn't call for the doctor unless circumstances were really dire, by which time it was often too late. And poorer people tended to live in rural areas, where less sophisticated doctors practiced and newer medicines and medical equipment were simply unavailable.

I'd be really surprised if the quality gap between medical care of the rich vs. poor is greater today than back then. However, I think the left has done an awesome job of promoting the belief that as society as a whole has gotten wealthier, more and more people are being excluded from the benefits.

[durasell]

I arrived at my conservative viewpoint through a study of facts.

The divide in medical care because of price, is a fact. Will socialized medicine/universal health coverage or whatever they're calling it this week bridge that particular playing field? No.

In a discussion like this, the trick is not to think about health care in political terms. Think of it in terms of technology. As technology expands you get more treatment options. And, you get technology/expertise (which tend to be expensive) pooling in certain geographic regions. Small town hospitals, for instance, don't have micro-surgery expertise.

Then, as technology gets cheaper, sometimes it spreads. Just a few years ago, MRIs were a really big deal and almost exclusively owned by big city hospitals. Now, almost every hospital has an MRI capability. In 20 years you may have portable MRIs that ambulance drivers can use on the scene. Who knows?

However, the bottomline is, those who can afford it receive superior medical care. Just as those who are able to pay also receive superior education, food, clothing and shelter. That's simply the way it is and pretty much the way it always has been in many areas of life.

[durasell]

I would guess the lifespans of the dog catcher and CEO are much closer today than 100 years ago. That's excluding lifestyle choices, accident and the advent of a major illness brought on by genes, etc. However, the gap is still greater in terms of the type of health care received.

[Atlas Sneezed]

Now, almost every hospital has an MRI capability.

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And now, everyone has much higher health bills.

[durasell]

More comprehensive testing using expensive equipment means higher medical bills. Those MRIs don't grow on trees. On the other hand, technology tends to drop in price as it spreads and advances in the systems themselves are made. For example, defibulators (sp?) used to be highly specialized pieces of eqiupment requiring a lot of training. Then they got cheap enough to send out in ambulances. And now they have home versions that any idiot can use.

Also, medical bills are more expensive in part because we're having more done. Knee surgery is very common. So is hip replacements. Heart bypass surgery is an everyday event in most hospitals. This is quite different than even 30 years ago.

[enviros_kill]

Savage rocks.

[LibertyRocks]

Perhaps a better question would be; How come kids who are screwed up haven't been doing this for years. How come there were no school shootings BEFORE they started drugging every child with a "behavioral problem"? Surely it's not because there were no children with these problems, and surely it's not because guns were not easy to obtain (many schools had shooting classes years ago and kids kept their rifles in their lockers). (Is society in general to blame for these problems? Are the parents to blame? The media? Video Games? The Internet? Are these all "copy-cat" killings?)

Personally, I think there IS a correlation between these shootings and the fact that these drugs are not the "magic pill" some doctors and school officials think they are... I worry about the kids taking these meds nowadays who never receive help for their conditions and grow up, lose their insurance and can't get their meds - what will happen to these kids who have never learned to deal with life without drugs?

I will also throw in here that my husband had a friend through work that was put on Prozac for stress... He never expressed any suicidal thoughts before starting the Prozac but within weeks of starting this medication he ended up killing himself...

[maine-iac7]

my husband had a friend through work that was put on Prozac for stress... He never expressed any suicidal thoughts before starting the Prozac but within weeks of starting this medication he ended up killing himself...

My grandson had a 14 year old friend in school that was on Prozac - and was threatening suicide as well as bringing a gun to school...my grandson went to the school counselor and demanded help for him ----He was interviewed and taken by ambulance for emergency treatment. He was gone for 6 weeks and then came home. Little or no follow up after and one month later, he jumped off the bridge with a rope around his neck. someone in a car saw it and rushed to pull him up...miraculously, he was able to be revived.

But here is something that would refute to people who are saying it's not the drugs, it's because these kids are already screwed up. (these drugs are still the common denominator!)

But how about this - I know a gal whose little boy had been put on prozac. a few months later he was having violent outbreaks - On her way to the emergency room with him (5 years old) he was in such a state that he kicked the windshield of the car out!

He was in the hospital for several days while they regulated the drugs...

These drugs have never been tested for safety in children and I call it legal drug-pushing

[wku man]

You know, this doesn't surprise me one bit. A former girlfriend of mine had a young daughter who wasn't challenged in school, and spent a lot of time daydreaming instead of paying attention in class. The school's first suggestion was to put the 7-year old girl on Ritalin! The suggestion was made by her first grade guidance counselor! I never even heard of a guidance counselor until my freshman year in high school, and now first graders have them!

Anyway, my relationship with her mother ended because she wouldn't even consider actually disciplining the girl (I was called a "Drill Sergeant" for even suggesting it).

Scouts Out! Cavalry Ho!