School shooter took mood-altering drug, like too many others.
Who else could they blame? The producers of Prozac have the deepest pockets.
War on Some Drugs...
This is just anecdotal myths, it was probably the depression that was the cause. Why not write an article about chewing gums and the violent crimes...
They really need to get these drugs of the market - what happened to cheap beer - when i grew up, you were either too happy to committ massacres or too hungover to even think about loud noises like gunfire. :-)
"Family Wonders if Prozac Prompted School Shootings, Contacts Lawyer for Big Cash Payout from Drug Companies."
60 mg a day of Prozac is a lot. I was on it once and I think I was on 10 or 20. (I was on the lowest therapeutic dose.) If people are bipolar II and put on antidepressants, things can go very badly. IMO, as a humble person not of the medical community, it is far better to look into mood stabilizers or antipsychotics for certain people.
In the immortal words of Chris Rock:
"Whatever happened to crazy? You can’t be crazy no more? Did they eliminate crazy from the dictionary…When I was a kid they used to separate the crazy kids from everybody…they went to school on a little-ass buss, they had a class at the end of the school and they used to get out of school at 2:30, so just in case they went crazy, they would only hurt other crazy kids. And we was all safe."
Nope, I'm sure it was a lethal combination of Naziism, envionmentalism and loserism.
The drugs did it.
The gun did it.
The bullies did it.
Society did it.
No, the kid did it!
Depression has been part of the human condition for thousands of years. Guns have been around for centuries. School shootings are a recent phenomenon.
What changed in the past 10-15 years?
If the NYT is, it's forty five years too late. The therapeutic culture began in the 1960's, when JFK became president and it had a friend in the White House. The elimination of state and federal mental care facilities began with pressures from the Kennedy Administration, advised by the APA, the American Psychiatric Association. As well, President John Kennedy remarked in his 1963 State of the Union speech that:
"#3. Finally, and of deep concern, I believe that the abandonment of the mentally ill and the mentally retarded to the grim mercy of custodial institutions too often inflicts on them and on their families a needless cruelty which this Nation should not endure.".....JFK, SoU speech, 1963.
The closing of mental institutions had already begun. Now the mentally ill are abandoned on Americas streets to the detriment of all. The APA has often been referred to as the American Pharmacologic Assn. And with good reason. Whether it was Prozac that caused this kids ultimate insanity is still subject to opinion, but I have no doubt that this kid fell through a crack that started over 42 years ago.
I haven't read the posters yet but I can guess where this will head before I page down and read.
A lack of consistency is hypocricy.
That's not news, it's an editorial. And any good journalist would be quick to point out the salient point of the entire piece - that correlation is not causation.
If the writer doesn't know that, then the editor better correct them, if the writer and editor do (know) what are they trying to do?
"FReeper Melbell Wonders if Lack of Discipline and Proper Upbringing Prompted School Shootings."
There, I fixed the title.
No, the problem was that he should have been on ritalin too. And maybe some valium along with the prozac. </sarcasm>
God forbid the family take responsibility or accept the fact that there was a sociopath in their midst. Oh no, it's the drug company's fault. Can't wait to read about this court case. He'll wind up a millionaire for sure.
Judging by the picture... I'd guess that the prozac was the least of his problems. His parents ought to do 6 months just for letting their kid dress like that.