Editorial Note: This post is by Julie Wood, the central figure behind SSRI Stories in its current incarnation. SSRI Stories has collected and posted 47 stories about pilots flying and crashing while on antidepressants. The majority are airplanes but several of the crashes involve helicopters. With the current focus on the possible contribution of psychoactive drugs to the … [Read more...] about Pilots and Antidepressants
Violence
An Irish Epidemic: Suicide and Homicide on Antidepressants
Editorial Note: This post is by Leonie Fennel. Ireland is currently in the midst of an unprecedented suicide/homicide epidemic. Parents are uncharacteristically killing their children; husbands are killing their wives; brothers are killing their brothers; mothers are killing themselves and their babies, all at an alarming rate. Dr Michael Curtis, Deputy State Pathologist, … [Read more...] about An Irish Epidemic: Suicide and Homicide on Antidepressants
Chantix and Violence
Editorial Note: On October 16, there is an FDA hearing about Chantix and violence which is widely expected to feature an effort by Pfizer to roll back the warnings on the drug. One of the fascinating things about the Chantix story has been to see perfectly normal friends who use it to stop smoking become very agitated, and distressed. I don't personally know anyone who has … [Read more...] about Chantix and Violence
When is a Drug Guilty?
Editorial Note: We desperately need you to undertake some jury duty - we need you to explore why we react so strangely when it comes to changes on behavior linked to prescription drugs? In the last two posts Doctor Faces Marriage-Buster and Homicide of a Husband, there were two scenarios where drugs were involved and the questions were - can a drug change a person so they … [Read more...] about When is a Drug Guilty?
Lupron: Homicide of a Husband
Editorial Note: This post starts with Michelle Millikan's report to FDA of the night she killed her husband. The event Several days after my 6th injection of Lupron Depot, in some kind of an impossible-to-understand and difficult-to-explain 'fugue state', I killed my husband with a gunshot to the head while he was sleeping. I have NO MEMORY of waking up at 4 am in the … [Read more...] about Lupron: Homicide of a Husband
The Strange History of Lariam
Editorial Note: This is the second part of a Lariam Odyssey by Dr Sam Ramsay Smith. The first part ran last week - Lariam Hell. Like most good stories this one involves expediency, hegemony, immorality, greed and even scientific bias, blindness and dishonesty all in the quest for power and money at the national and international levels. At the personal level there is a range … [Read more...] about The Strange History of Lariam
Lariam Hell
Editorial Note: This post and the following one on the strange story of the Birth of Lariam come from Dr Sam Ramsay-Smith who has some questions he wants answered. In October, ‘The Independent’ printed the news that the US Armed Forces had banned the use of the anti-malarial drug mefloquine, otherwise known as Lariam. To many this may mean little or nothing, but to quite a few … [Read more...] about Lariam Hell
Shooters on Prescription Drugs
The news from Washington this week (September 17 - See Scientific American) of another shooting where the shooter has been on psychotropic medication - this time trazodone - raises once again questions about the interaction between violence and medication. The data points absolutely convincingly to the fact that the drugs can and do cause violence. Some of the data is laid … [Read more...] about Shooters on Prescription Drugs
Daily Mail Online: What is wrong with randomised trials Part 2
May 5, 2013 By Jerome Burne Could alcohol get a licence as a drug for depression? How do you test for the safety of a drug that causes the same side effects as the disease it is used to treat? These are just two of the points I didn’t have room for in my post last week on randomised controlled trials (RCTs) and why they don’t tell you what you want to know. (More on these … [Read more...] about Daily Mail Online: What is wrong with randomised trials Part 2
BBC Radio: The Prozac Economy
Prozac is 25 years old. It has been taken by over 40 million people around the world and made billions of dollars for Eli Lilly, the company that created it. But does it work? And what effect has the promise of a "happiness pill" had on society? Will Self examines the legacy of the so-called 'wonder drug'. As he sets off on a personal exploration of the conflicting and … [Read more...] about BBC Radio: The Prozac Economy