What do you think, that I'm some gullible fool? I'm a family practice doc with an interest in adverse drug reactions. Asperger's patients are not at increased risk for violence. Any patient taking these selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor, SSRI, meds are. If you read the list of murders and suicides, one guy complained of insomnia. The idiot doc made a presumptive diagnosis of depression, even though SSRIs can cause insomnia.
Ritalin is methylphenidate. It works like amphetamine.
And combat vets are given these meds...and veteran and military suicides are a huge issue. Husband was wounded, brain injury, and he swears these meds made him think things that he wouldn’t have normally. He won’t take them at all now. VA docs push them heavily to him though.
First off, Ritalin is not an antidepressant.
Secondly, it’s no surprise that people who are prescribed antidepressants kill themselves and at times others.
As a Family doc, what question do you ask of every patient that has a complaint of depression? It should be, “are you having thoughts of harming yourself or others?” WHY? Because people with depression often have suicidal/homocidal ideations. Right?
So, you prescribe the meds and roughly 3 things can happen. One, they take it and get better. Two, they take it and it’s not effective and you try another med. Or, three, and most likely, they take it for a short time and for various reasons become noncompliant with it followed by a return of the suicidal/homocidal ideations.
Both the Left who want to ban guns and the Right who want to blame meds are both wrong. Knee jerk reactions are dangerous secondary to their unintended consequences.
There are 330 MILLION people in this country. 330 MILLION! How often does this happen? Despite how God awful it is, it’s a low frequency event that will induce a great deal of ineffective action by the government, but to little avail because it’s relatively rare. There have been 61 mass shootings in the US since 1982. How many hundreds of millions of people have lived in this country over that period of time?
I've found the ramp-up period with SSRIs to be problematic myself (not to mention my family). The mood changes themselves can be "violent". In fact, any titration causes problems. I would not dream of stopping one abruptly. Bad enough when tapering off over a ridiculously long period of time. Have even had visual disturbances. Now on SAM-e, which has so far not caused any problems during start, stop or dosage change, and has worked with equivalent effectiveness. I recommend it highly although not all patients may respond (as with any drug).
“Any patient taking these selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor, SSRI, meds are.”
If indeed you are a practicing physician, then I have to question your professional competence in making such blanket statement.
Are these drugs overprescribed? Yes, most certainly. However, to state that SSRIs make some (implied all) homocidal is borderline malpractice. You are as bad as those physicians that overprescribe.
A great many persons have been helped by the SSRIs. However, like ALL drugs, there will be adverse effects. Prudence is always called for in their use - all medications.