Supreme Court asked to hear Zoloft case

Charlotte.com ^ | Dec. 18, 2007 | MEG KINNARD

[neverdem]

There are not as many cases like this as you might imagine.

If your talking about killing like Chris Pittmann, check the ANTIDEPRESSANT CASUALTIES link in comment 17. Many of the killers in school shootings were on SSRIs.

If you're referring to serotonin syndrome, a study in the 2005 New England Journal of Medicine found that 85% of docs were unaware of the diagnosis. It's linked in comment 49. I recieved FReepmail from two ladies who recognized their symptoms of it from my links serotonin syndrome. One likes to sing. When she was on a SSRI, she heard a duet.

[muawiyah]

The reason most of these guys do their killings is they are LOOSE AND RUNNING AROUND ON THEIR OWN.

Writing a prescription is much easier than going for a commitment. Even then you take the chance the judge will simply do an "outpatient commitment" ~ like the one for the killer at Virginia Tech.

Physical detention followed by forced treatment would seem to be a better route. Now, go sell that to the docs.

[the808bass]

RE: Antidepressant casualties.

I suspect either you've not bothered to actually read through the stories linked on the page or you're hoping no one else will.

Story 1: Yvonne Jenkins accuses boyfriend of assaulting her and defends herself by shooting him. Not sure how an SSRI is relevant in any way. Wait, I'm sure it's not.
Story 2: Man, 41, took an SSRI, relative conjectures he overdosed. No other information given. Almost relevant.
Story 3: Dr. Joseph Caldonato shoots estranged wife. Later asks cellmate to finish the job when he is imprisoned. Surely not the only estranged husband to try to kill his wife. SSRI is raised by defense lawyer to try to win a "not guilty by reason of mental defect" judgment.
Story 4: Mark Hobson kills several people in the UK. He was prescribed SSRIs in the period just before the killing spree. However, he had stabbed a friend in an argument years prior, already exhibiting a homicidal potential.
Story 5: No details given other than guy was on Prozac. Posted on "Antidepressantfacts.com" or some such agenda-driven site.
Story 6: Postpartum depressed woman commits suicide after killing baby. Not much detail other than she had taken large amounts of darvocet in conjunction with the SSRI.
Story 7: Man without prescription for SSRI but who had large amounts of the SSRI on him, shoots woman after she refused to give him a cigarette.
Story 8: Terminally ill woman concerned over the future of her children kills them then commits suicide. Was on SSRI.
Story 8: Man becomes a different person after taking prozac, disowns family, gives extravagant gifts to people. Oh, by the by, he had a brain tumor and an operation on said tumor.

I got bored after that. Surely they could put better evidence on the front end of the list.

[neverdem]

I suspect either you've not bothered to actually read through the stories linked on the page or you're hoping no one else will.

I haven't read all of them. I can't vouch for all of them. It was the most extensive compilation that I came across. But I don't think you can't verify that Eric Harris of Columbine was on the SSRI Luvox, and Jeff Weise in Minnesota had a recent increase in his dose of Prozac. You prompted me to stumble upon another article from Healy. Thank you.

Antidepressants and Violence: Problems at the Interface of Medicine and Law

[bpjam]

I would be troubled if there was some clearer reason for the connection between mass killings and a specific class of drugs.

If you want to talk about people who are just seriously mentally disabled to the point of being non-fuctional and as to whether they should be put on SSRIs or not, I don’t really care as much since people in institutions are not likely to kill me at a mall. But for your garden variety person who is simply ‘unhappy’ or ‘less than entirely happy’, I can’t imagine how anybody is making the case that we gamble with their lives by putting them on drugs as unpredictable as these.

On the last two shooters btw, the Omaha one hasn’t been linked to my knowledge. But lack of evidence is not proof of its non-existence. I’m perfectly willing to play the odds considering that there is a near 30 year streak going in America.

I have a running bet with a private investigator I used to partner with as to which drug it will be on each shooting. We bet $500 an incident and we each get to pick three different drugs that the shooter was on.

Aside from treating people on these drugs, I’ve also been hired as a private investigator to work on a couple of these cases. I got to work with the PIs from two of the drug companies who are on retainer and use to fly out to the scene of the killings to help spin the media and try to establish any proof they could of the cause of the killings OTHER than drug use.

It was a pretty lucrative business back then. Try calling a list of private investigation firms in Indianapolis, for instance, and ask if they done any work for a drug company before. It’s virtually impossible to find somebody without a conflict of interest.

So, as to convincing me of something. It would be easier if I hadn’t gained so much information first hand. I don’t have to believe anything I haven’t seen myself fortunately.

And I used to hear the correlation/causation argument from the drug researchers. But the tobacco company researchers had an unbelievably similar argument and their PIs were way, way, way better. Those were guys you didn’t want to screw with.

[bpjam]

I’ll absolutely agree with you that the form of the incidents is almost entirely shaped by the media who cannot resist glamourizing these Columbine type episodes and make celebrities of the psychos who pull them off.

But since individual murder and suicide are not listed by coroners as being caused by anything, it is not really possible to get a valid number of how many of the killings are of people who are on, were recently on, SSRIs. But the high profile multiple killings make the news so those we can keep track of much more easily.

But I’d love to see a law preventing the media from every putting the face of one of these nutbags on TV so the next person who loses touch with reality will not have a made-for-TV episode implanted into their psych to follow in their own hometown.

[the808bass]

I’m perfectly willing to play the odds considering that there is a near 30 year streak going in America.

Streak? Cho Seung Hui had no SSRIs in his blood. None. How many antidepressants did Dylan Klebold take? None. The kid in Omaha was, by people who knew him, not currently on medication. Likewise for the last Colorado shooter. Your "streak" falls apart pretty quickly.

Additionally, to claim that SSRIs are even the major cause (not even the sole cause), you'd have to show that the shooter was non-violent, or without homicidal or suicidal thoughts prior to the use of SSRIs. In the case of Eric Harris, he was put on SSRIs as a result of being placed in a court-ordered anger management program. This was not a kid who did not have problems controlling his anger prior to the SSRI usage. Dylan and Eric had made pipe bombs. Eric had posted threats against another student on his website. In other words, this is not a benign kid who suddently became violent after taking Luvox.

Does forming a methodical, detailed plan including posting threats or making videos, and including procuring weapons and ammunition over a period of time indicate some sort of Adverse Event due to a drug problem or does it indicate something else? You'll probably have a hard time answering that question. I would be open to discussing whether or not SSRIs might allow a person to avoid some uncomfortable moments of "conscience" in the time before they execute their plan or even while they are executing it, but I see no reason to morph that into even a secondary or tertiary cause.

And I used to hear the correlation/causation argument from the drug researchers.

Probably because it's true.

Your resume grows with every post. Indianapolis is hardly the center of the drug world, Eli Lilly's existence notwithstanding.

[the808bass]

It was the most extensive compilation that I came across.

It's only extensive if it's accurate. It's clear that it is not from the first few links.

[neverdem]

"And I used to hear the correlation/causation argument from the drug researchers."

Probably because it's true.

It's only extensive if it's accurate. It's clear that it is not from the first few links.

The Wiese story, the first one, is definitely true. IIRC, I read it in the Washington Times. Of the 8 examples that you gave, SSRIs were involved with 7 of the cases.

I got bored after that. Surely they could put better evidence on the front end of the list.

What do you expect from the popular press, an article of Healy's quality? From the Healy et al. PLoS article: "DH has been an expert witness in nine cases involving antidepressants and suicide or violence. He has given views that the antidepressant was unlikely to be involved in approximately 100 further cases."

He has obviously had a change of heart. The popular press should only begin a serious inquiry followed by a serious professional investigation such as Healy's. IIRC, one of my links mention variations in cytochrome P450 show succeptibility to increased sensitvity to SSRIs, and another they asked patients with increased suicidal ideation to have their genotypes checked which showed at least two different genotypes. They didn't specify what proteins the genes coded for. I think it is obvious some folks should not get normal SSRIs dosages because of what is in their genes. They metabolize it too slowly and develop toxic levels, IMHO.

[the808bass]

Of the 8 examples that you gave, SSRIs were involved with 7 of the cases.

To post cases where SSRIs were simply involved is ridiculous, you know that. There has to be some sort of causation shown to have any sort of credibility. Otherwise, you might as well make a page with all the people who got an upper respiratory infections while on fexofenadine. Or who got poison ivy while taking zolpidem.

To be fair, I haven't read the Healy article yet. I will do so.

[neverdem]

To post cases where SSRIs were simply involved is ridiculous, you know that.

How do you think they bought a clue about fen-phen?

In addition to being linked to valvular heart disease, fen-phen has also been linked to primary pulmonary hypertension (PPH).

I too was skeptical initially about the school shootings and SSRIs. Luke Woodham and Kip Kinkel were also on Prozac. Kinkel was also on Ritalin. Antidepressants are basically stimulants. Why should anybody be surprised with psychotic episodes in folks taking stimulants? Here's the structure of amphetamine, an amino group two carbon atoms away from a benzene ring:

amphetamine

Here's fluoxetine(Prozac):

fluoxetine

The squiggly line indicates a racemic mixture.

You can see the amino group is just three carbon atoms from the benzene ring. There are other obvious modifcations to the molecule, but genetic differences in the receptors for these psychoactive amines have not been discussed to the best of my knowledge. The URLs for some images can't be posted, so I linked them.

[bpjam]

Okay, lets pretend that everything you say is entirely dispositive on its own.

The explanation as to why kids who become spree killers AFTER being put on medication but not BEFORE is? (1. Coincidence. 2. Statistical probability. 3. Didn’t actually happen. Those are the most popular defense arguments.)

You have to be careful about who is and who is not currently taking SSRIs at the time of their shootings. Withdrawal from SSRIs is considered an even MORE dangerous time. Although the class was original submitted to the FDA as having ‘no addictive qualities’ it became imperical within a decade that you couldn’t stop taking them because of the withdrawal symptoms. Would Dylan Klebold have killed a bunch of stranger in the next few years had he NOT been on Luvox? Can’t say. But we know for sure that he was put on Luvox and we know he did shoot all those people.
Was it the only factor? Of course not. That would be as irrational as saying that it was NOT a factor.

I remember when Ritalin got converted into from a drug used to treat seniors with dimentia to a cure for over active kids. We also were told that there were no long term effects and no addiction problems. And now we have a generation of males who are adult age but have developmental problems because they spent their developing years on a Sch II drug. But the Ritalin is no longer in their system. And that doesn’t mitigate the damage to their ability to process information or duplicate reality around them.

If I’m going to trial, I like my odds on this streak. And because the media didn’t report on the last shooter in Omaha being on drugs yet doesn’t yet interrupt the streak. It just means that we don’t yet know which drugs he was on. And honestly, I haven’t been spending any time looking for it. I’ve spent more time corresponding with you that I have looking into that last shooting since I already know what happened from having done this before. If something miraculously different comes up, I will gladly take it under advisement.

As to your argument about prior deliberated acts prior to he crime, I think this is a good argument for not prescribing these drugs to people (especially children) who have violent ideation or histories. Don’t you? If we can see that people who were previously violent can get even more violent when introduced to or removed from SSRIs, wouldn’t any responsible physician avoid prescribing them? Of course, responsible physicians would need to have responsible information from their drug reps in order to form those decisions.

Vioxx was a great drug except for all the dying patients. Bextra was also very effective as long as it didn’t kill you. And I would bet that with better screening, those drugs could be administered with very small risks. But I don’t hear anybody saying that about SSRIs.

As to my resume, I’m presume you are not pretending to express disbelief in things I’ve personally seen on done myself. And considering that I’ve never posted a resume on FR or anywhere else on the web I’m not sure what you think you are saying by referencing it. Is this the point where you accuse me of being in the pocket of the trial lawyers? Or being a Scientologist or a Homeopath? Knock yourself out, it’s already been done in this thread.

I’m not pretending there is some magical cure to violent people here or that they should be put in a retreat where they can sing Kumbayah. But I also don’t want to see them put in stressful situations where that problem will likely be exploded or put them on drugs which will remove the subjects ability to perceive reality.

[CholeraJoe]

Since the number one spokesperson against antidepressant use is a high school dropout who repeatedly professed to know more than the entire medical profession, what else do you expect?

[cinives]

Look up Peter Breggin and you’ll get the story from a psychiatrist.

Cruise is a detriment to a serious message.

[cinives]

Good post.

Don’t you love all the scientology smears, as tho scientologists are the only people who see these drugs as a problem ?

[cinives]

LOL - I knew someone like you would prove me right :)

[ridesthemiles]

If he can murder two people in cold blood at the age of twelve I don’t want him to ever get out. But that’s just me.”

AMEN, friend.

What was cruel and unusual punishment was what happened to the grandparents.

[cinives]

It’s my understanding that your brain never goes back to “normal” - ie normal as you were before you ever took the drug. That your brain chemistry is forever altered as a result ?

[cinives]

“would this pass FDA approval if it were a heart medication?”

- and that’s the real problem, isn’t it ? Psychiatry and the pharm companies concocted the “chemical imbalance” theory of mental illness, with no provable science behind it, and now they are trying to have the FDA and the general public think that the SSRIs are as well tested for mental illnesses as Synthroid is for thyroid disease.

[neverdem]

It’s my understanding that your brain never goes back to “normal” - ie normal as you were before you ever took the drug. That your brain chemistry is forever altered as a result ?

That may be true, but I don't know of any hard, scientific evidence such as permanent changes to gene expression, i.e. epigenetics, nerves or their receptors, supporting that opinion. IIRC, the same has been claimed for alcohol, tobacco and schedules I, i.e. illegal, and II drugs. Just about all of the latter involve the dopaminergic system and exhibit withdrawal phenomena, physical dependence, tolerance, etc. Reports of withdrawal symptoms on disconuation of SSRIs seem to be much less frequent.