Prescription for Murder
Editorial: This evening a Panorama program aired on the issue of antidepressants and violence. The driving forces behind this were Andy Bell and Shelley Jofre, prompted in the first instance by Katinka Newman. The story is to my mind compelling. There have been considerable efforts to cloud the picture – see Honey I Shrunk the Shrinks on DH.
Prescription for Murder was not scaremongering about antidepressants. It said nothing new about antidepressants. The new message is about the legal system. If something like this happens to you, you will end up in the same quandary James Holmes found himself in – stuck with a legal system which has no idea how to defend you.
A MIND POISONED AGAINST ITSELF
In July 2012 James Holmes entered a movie theater in Aurora Colorado showing a premiere of Dark Knight Rises, and opening fire killed twelve and left 70 injured. From May through to July 2015, he stood trial. His lawyers were in an invidious position. It was certain from the start he would be found guilty – of manslaughter at the very least. Their role boiled down to playing the mental illness card as mitigation to avoid a death sentence. They nearly lost.
They nearly lost for a good reason. Holmes did not have a serious mental illness. Despite defence experts torturing every little personality quirk back to his pre-teen years, nothing could change the fact that before walking into a University clinic in March 2012 with social anxiety problems, Holmes was very average with no mental health problems.
The doctor seeing Holmes in the University clinic viewed him as being socially isolated, a loner, with anxiety and a certain misanthropy. She prescribed a benzodiazepine, and a Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibiting (SSRI) antidepressant, sertraline.
A week later, he complained of memory problems in class, and the benzodiazepine was swapped for a beta-blocker. His memory problems continued and the beta-blocker dose was reduced. Beta-blockers and benzodiazepines can cause memory problems – as can sertraline. Both can also act as antidotes to the anxiety and agitation sertraline can cause.
Meanwhile Holmes sertraline was increased from 50mg to 100mg to 150mg per day.
- He began flirting in a way that was out of character for him.
- He began spending wildly, where he had been frugal.
- He began visiting dating sites, where he had never done so before.
- He signed up for motorcycle classes without a reason to do so.
- He terminated a friendship in a way he would never have done before.
- He began talking for the first time of violence.
One friend said: “He began to “loosen up a bit” on medication and “became more talkative to random people.”
In a notebook, Holmes began keeping, he made clear he had lost his sense of fear and developed a “dysphoric mania.” This is a good description of the emotional instability that SSRIs can cause – a state in which anyone affected can rapidly swing from feeling energized and reckless, to depressed and suicidal.
SSRIs cause sexual dysfunction. Holmes had it. The higher the dose, the worse it became. Sexual numbing goes hand in hand with emotional numbing and this too was present and became more marked as the sertraline increased. His feelings were blunted.
Prior to sertraline, Holmes had thoughts that it might be no harm to “nuke” the human race. Thoughts not uncommon in introverts, and the socially anxious.
He told his doctors about these ideas, and it is clear that they didn’t regard this as mental illness.
But on sertraline, he began to think about specific homicidal acts. These new thoughts were entirely different to his former vague hostility. They were focused and specific, and “realistic.”
This is exactly what SSRIs can do to anyone – even normal volunteers. People who have been suicidal in the past, and who become suicidal on SSRIs, can distinguish the new ideas from their usual ideas. Some can hold both sets of thoughts in their mind at the same time.
SSRIs can also disrupt our motivational hierarchies (our values and priorities) leading to alcoholism, and disinhibited behaviors not usual for us.
Holmes did not just have thoughts that differed from those he had before, he had a different motivational link to his thoughts. There was now a possibility he might act on these thoughts in a way he would never have done before.
He tried to tell his doctors what was going on.
Their response was that he was responsible for his own thoughts and actions.
I face people threatening to kill themselves and others and react in exactly this way every week of the year – nine times out of ten this is the correct reaction and reduces the risk of violence to others. It is not the correct reaction when treatment with an SSRI goes wrong.
Holmes attempted to communicate the changes he was experiencing in messages to classmates but no-one knew him well enough to pick up.
There are difficulties in conveying alien thoughts of the kind that can be triggered by an SSRI.
- Few of us think a drug could do something like this making it difficult to make a link.
- At first when thoughts like these happen no-one knows how to manage them.
- With problems like this we often communicate obliquely. We think we have hinted enough for others to understand what is going on, only to find they don’t.
- There are recognized difficulties in communicating the adverse effects of a drug to the doctor who has put you on the drug hoping to help you. When things go wrong, the doctor can seem like the only way out of the problem and no-one wants to antagonize their doctor for this reason. Push too hard and the doctor gets nasty.
Holmes dropped out of College at the end of June 2012. After 3 months on sertraline, he stopped abruptly from a dose of 150mg unaware of the risks of dependence and withdrawal.
Over the next three weeks, he became confused and emotionally labile. The emotional blunting and depersonalization that started on sertraline continued as it can do for months after stopping treatment.
On Friday July 20 2012, he entered the movie theater, and opened fire.
He was arrested and hospitalized. Four months later, he became disturbed in hospital and was prescribed a variety of tranquilizers.
At the end of December, he was put on another SSRI for the first time since the end of June and 5 days afterwards attempted to kill himself.
Every expert who later interviewed him, interviewed a man on a cocktail of meds. He spoke reasonably but was blunted. There was no evidence of psychosis when I saw him.
Legal Quandary
This suicidal response on re-exposure to an SSRI makes Holmes’ case for a not guilty verdict very strong. In fact he had a prior bad response to a serotonin reuptake inhibiting antihistamine and unaware of her son’s treatment his mother had a very disturbing reaction to an SSRI after the event. But his attorneys felt the uncertainties were too great to risk playing the medication card even for mitigation.
Going with a mental illness defense, he escaped execution only because of the last minute qualms of one juror and ended up with 12 life sentences and 3300 years.
Why would his lawyers have found it impossible to grasp the treatment nettle? After all we banned some closely related drugs during the 1960s on the basis that they unquestionably caused violence, and criminality.
In part, this 1960s ban has meant the courts have not had to grapple with the issue of when we should agree that a person under the influence of a prescription drug is guilty and when not. Simply being on a proscribed drug is a crime.
Staking the amphetamines and LSD through the heart, we effectively declared that drugs available on prescription only cannot cause problems – if there are problems these can only stem from the mental illness for which the drug has been used.
Another problem arose 170 years ago when Daniel M’Naghten killed Edward Drummond, believing him to be the Prime Minister Robert Peel. This homicide triggered one of the most celebrated legal cases ever. M’Naghten was mad. The Court struggled with the question of his guilt. As a result the insanity defence to this day is discussed in terms of the M’Naghten Rules. We decided that individuals who are insane are almost always responsible for their actions. This seems right and tallies with the experience of those of us with mental disorders, even serious mental illness, who know we remain largely responsible for our actions.
But the drama in the M’Naghten case did not lie in the Courts agonising over whether to acquit someone who was mad. It lay the Court deciding to convict a madman. For over a century before that, faced with people who were delirious – raving mad – Courts had no trouble finding them Not Guilty.
Among the causes of delirium, or frenzy as it was called then, were high fevers and poisoning. So as Lord Chief Justice Matthew Hale put it in 1676 if you were slipped a drug by your enemies or poisoned by the incompetence of your physician and, under the influence of treatment, committed a crime you were Not Guilty.
The novelty in M’Naghten’s case was that he was mad but not frenzied. The Courts had never had to tackle this kind of problem before.
Every treatment with a drug or combination of drugs risks producing a frenzy. When the confusion is gross both medical and legal systems feel able to blame the drug, such as when a person goes berserk within 48 hours of having the drug as Don Schell did on Paxil in Wyoming in 1998, killing his wife, daughter and grand-daughter. The Wyoming jury in a civil case blamed the drug, not Schell. It might have been a different matter though if Schell was there in Court and it was a matter of letting him go free.
The problems arise if the delirium is masked and there is an extended period of time during which the person appears to function. Drugs from Zoloft to LSD can introduce thoughts of violence or suicide that the individual would never in the ordinary course of events have. Some of us can distinguish between drug induced thoughts and those linked to an illness but most of us at least first time round fail to make the distinction.
In some cases, believing these thoughts to be part of our illness we will increase the dose of treatment – or our doctors will do it for us as Holmes’ doctor did. Exactly the wrong thing to do if the treatment is causing the problem.
Some drugs simply produce a delirium but SSRI antidepressants also produce a partial chemical lobotomy. If the drug suits us and our doctor gets the dose right, there is just the right amount of disconnection from our feelings, especially our anxiety, so as to enable us to get on with life. Too great a disconnection and we are left able to contemplate thoughts of violence with an equanimity that others don’t possess. Over time some of us accommodate even to this – we know what’s wrong, make a rational adjustment and cognitively rather than emotionally inhibit behaviors harmful to others.
On an SSRI, some of us skirt the edges of delirium as shown in the fact these are the drugs most commonly linked to reports to regulators of horrific nightmares and sleepwalking. Sleep-walking is an absolute defence against murder.
Walking a Legal Tightrope
Because we banned all our problem drugs in the 1960s, neither medical experts nor the Courts have had to work out what the right outcomes are in scenarios of treatment induced dysphoric mania, emotional lobotomy and delirium.
There have been some cases where even the prosecution agrees the drug caused it and people have walked free but these cases don’t assist lawyers or experts in getting to grips with the underlying issues in the way a case like Holmes might have done.
But a lawyer brave enough to think about taking a case has to find an expert but most doctors figure it’s the kiss of death for a career to get involved in this way. Most doctors also come from a background of applying the law as it relates to mental illness to the situation and a mental illness defense doesn’t apply in cases of drug induced delirium. Few medical experts realise it requires a different expertise to marshal a drug related argument.
If she does find an expert, a lawyer can find herself with a set of pharmaceutical company new best friends keen to explain how treatment cannot be part of the picture. We don’t know if this played a role in the Holmes case.
If she finds an expert, the lawyer then needs to shepherd a jury along a narrow ledge. Questioning a prescription drug in a case like this questions the entire regulatory system on which most of us believe our safety depends. For many, better a James Holmes gets executed than we lose confidence in those responsible for looking after us.
After a horror like Aurora, families and the jury need someone to blame. Holmes was put on Zoloft by a doctor, to whom he clearly hinted on several occasions things were getting worse. Informing him about a possible link might have left him able to adjust. Should the doctor be in the dock? In 2013, French psychiatrist Danièle Canarelli was found guilty of manslaughter, when a patient of hers killed a third party. She had failed to recognize the risks.
In 1980 Dr Erling Oksenholt in Seattle put a patient on an antibiotic, Myambutol. She went blind and sued him for negligence. He settled. But then sued the drug company on the basis that it had withheld information that Myambutol could cause blindness from him which meant that he could not treat his patient safely. He won.
There is no doubt that Pfizer and Lilly and GSK are withholding more information about the risks of violence on SSRIs than was ever withheld from Dr Oksenholt about Myambutol.
There was compelling data from the Zoloft trials in adolescents that it could cause violence. These and other SSRI trials led to a Black Box warning on antidepressants, aimed particularly for those up to the age of 25 – Holmes was 24. The evidence shows that while these drugs trigger suicidality in some, they increase the risk of violence in others who like Holmes are more anxious and introverted than depressed.
But none of the experts who might be called upon to argue a drug or a mental illness defense have ever had access to the data underpinning company claims that the drugs work well and are safe. What does anyone do about the fact that in the Holmes case, every statement made by experts about sertraline or other SSRIs can only be based on ghost-written articles? Not even FDA has accessed the data.
Whose Mind was it?
The key thing for the Courts in deciding whether a James Holmes was guilty or not and what should be done about him hinges on what can be said about his intentions. Whether ill or not, on a drug or not, did his mind command his actions?
But if the question of whose mind commanded the action is key, then the first call has to be made by a James Holmes or you. Faced with the horror of what happened, especially if faced with evidence of some control, the person who has to make the call might, like Holmes, prefer death. It is all too easy to imagine being torn apart if he walked out of Court a free man.
It’s only if the jury in James Holmes’ head or your head gets to a point of wondering whose mind it was when these events happened that a proper case can be mounted.
The people best placed to shed light on the question of guilt are those of us who have experienced just what can happen when treatment goes wrong and can speak to what these drugs can do to our thinking and to the emotional ties in which our thoughts are bound.
The person in the dock has to be brave enough to take the risk of playing a card that has for all these reasons never been successfully played before.
They have to make a case to the jury that will require a jury to return a verdict of guilty against all of us. We are guilty for letting the bulk of the academic literature be ghost-written, for letting companies commandeer the data that would be needed to show their drugs can cause this problem and guilty for letting an immune-deficiency disorder like Sense about Science and related bodies colonize the public space with close to fascist denunciations of anyone who might raise questions.
This all matters because if it can happen to James Holmes it can happen to you or someone you love.
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If anyone has a link to the panorama documentary that aired on the 26th, please post a link here. I am abroad and didn’t get to see it.
A brilliant blog page, highlighting and exposing serious flaws in the way the safety of prescription medicines are regulated.
Change is so badly needed!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=InTukPOs_JE
I’m not able to watch this programme in Canada — restricted because of rights.
Our son was given 200 mg Sertraline as a starting dose, for anxiety, having been advised by psychiatrist to stop venlafsxine cold turkey, as in his opinion he wasn’t depressed. He then suffered AKATHISIA and confusion, wrote that he had voids in his thinking processes, memory mostly gone, only way out was death. He’d lasted about 4 weeks on that Sertraline, with Olanzapine lobbed in for good measure. Seeing the film on Panorama tonight we are horrified that he was put on such a high introductory dose. We tried endlessly in those 4 weeks to get GPs ( our son’s and, in desperation, even our own) to believe us when we explained what was happening to him, what he was saying to us, the head pain and confusion he was expressing, but we were brushed off with an irritated disclaimer and told it was all down to him and he needed to sort himself out. He sure did, but not the way presumably they meant.
Well done DH and Katinka tonight. Hopefully another film soon about other life changing side effects from SSRIs, including Katinka’s own story, maybe or maybe not involving legal system. But we were talking to an eminent QC this week who says that it is realised in high places in the judiciary that the use of these medications in prison, plus all the other problems going on in there, is going soon to produce some horrendous outcomes. It’s like a powder keg about to blow.
Well, Heather, that’s another new, interesting, but scary dimension to the very murky world of SSRIs etc – their use in prisons ….. I have given brief passing thought at times to how many law breakers are on psychoactive meds but not considered the likelihood of the ‘powder keg about to blow’ ….. also, I feel sure, as you confirm, that there is awareness in high places – judiciary, government etc – of the very real damage these medications cause both in prisons and the outside world, but it seems no one in these ‘high places’ is going to rock the boat because of too many vested interests. A great shame and a very great scandal!
Something i should have mentioned in my Rxisk report, was when i took fluvoxamine for 5 months back in 2008, i became what i can only describe as manic on the drug.
I didn’t have any homicidal or suicidal thoughts or urges, but i started acting in a way that was completely out of character for me.
I became very socially confident when i am usually quite reserved. I started asking for girls phone numbers in the street, flirting with women aggressively, shouting out to people in the street from my window, and being in general much less socially inhibited than i usually am.
I remember at the time i felt almost scared by how socially uninhibited i felt. I felt like i could talk to a crowd of 100’s of people, without feeling at all nervous, wheras usually public speaking is something i struggle with.
Thankfully after stopping fluvoxamine, these manic type symptoms went away quite quickly.
Looking back on some of that behaviour when i was on fluvoxamine, makes me cringe. Thank god i never did anything too inappropriate when i was on that drug.
“did his mind command his actions?”
You might be interested in reading this compilation of information about this case provided for us by Truthman.
Of particular interest is more background from James’s parents
Arlene and Bob Holmes sat through every day of their son’s trial but rejected all approaches to talk in public about their son out of respect for the victims and their families.
However, a book that Arlene wrote, When the Focus Shifts: The Prayer Book of Arlene Holmes 2013-2014, gives an insight into her thoughts in the run-up to the trial in April 2015.
https://truthman30.wordpress.com/2017/07/26/the-bbcs-explosive-documentary-on-ssri-antidepressant-induced-violence-airs-tonight/
“I have worked with David Healy in the past on a number of investigative films for the BBC’s current affairs programme, Panorama.
These films revealed cases where people with no previous history of suicidal thoughts or violence went on to seriously harm themselves or others after being thrown into a state of mental turmoil by the newer generation of SSRI antidepressants, such as paroxetine and fluoxetine.
Before meeting Holmes, Healy doubted the pills had played a part. But by the end of his prison visit he had reached a controversial conclusion.
Twitter seems to be awash with debate. The main argument from the pro-pill clan seems to be the mental health stigma line.
By using the term ‘stigma’ one wishes to enforce the idea that mental health is a serious problem that needs to be treated. The chemical imbalance theory doesn’t hold water anymore so it’s been replaced with the stigma argument. Both terms have an end goal.
I’ll be blogging about the show later and addressing some of the Twitter arguments.
This broadcast was powerful, compelling, brilliantly constructed and presented.
The impact of quietly spoken points based on great insight, real scientific understanding, vast experience, humility and absolute integrity was immense.
The importance of the program and the importance of this brilliant follow up analysis (above) is self evident.
I was taught as a young consultant that: –
“Real Science Begins With Asking The Pertinent Question”.
Prescription For Murder, and this blog addresses this superbly.
It appears that apart from D.H. “The Pertinent Questions” were not asked, hence the apparent absence of “Real Science”.
How do we get Medicine, The Law and Society to accept that ” it requires a different expertise to marshal a drug related argument”?
This question must be addressed with sincerity and objectivity as it addresses vast, intense and unrelenting human suffering in addition to morbidity and mortality which would appear to be entirely iatrogenic, and hence avoidable.
The suffering of James Holmes parents was palpable and tragic.
The suffering of their son is evident, yet it seems to be enfolded in the visible changes induced by undisclosed combinations of prescription psychoactive drugs.
The suffering and devastated lives of those killed, injured and the impact on those attending the aftermath is left to our empathy and our endeavours to understand. A tsunami of anguish and torment for life in those living on.
I am haunted by his attempts to explain the ADRs of sertraline to his prescriber, my family having lived that experience.
“But the most pernicious of all is that The System appears to have a complete inability to appreciate when the treatments it gives becomes the problem that it tries to treat by adding in more drugs and if need be detaining us in order to do so”. D.H.
Another life changing iatrogenic devastation experienced by my family.
“There are recognised difficulties in communicating the adverse effects of a drug to the doctor who has put you on the drug hoping to help you”.
When reporting psychotropic ADRs causing personality changes, bizarre behaviour, and psychological morbidity the resulting barrier of prescriber disbelief is impenetrable.
Even the crucial importance of challenge – de-challenge – re-challenge is only identified by D.H. and subsequently is not afforded an opportunity to be presented to the court.
How many consultations and appeals to prescribers to listen to us are dismissed when such compelling re-challenge effects are unnoticed or not understood?
Thank you to all those whose skill and determination ensured that Prescription For Murder was broadcast last night.
What a surprise that the pro psychiatry band wagon have come out in full force, promoting SSRI’s as misunderstood wonder drugs that have helped millions.
I wanted to vomit listening to that psychiatrist from the college of psychiatry going on about how amazing and harmless they are. It reminded me of when my ex psychiatrist told me that fluoxetine was an “excellent drug”.
I would like to see how the psychiatrist from the college of psychiatry would like it if he had to deal with PSSD for 9 years, or suffered protracted withdrawal for years, or had one of his family members take their lives because of an SSRI.
I get so bored of hearing it. So, so, bored. Every single time people try and point out the very real dangers of these drugs, it almost always turns into a publicity stunt by the drug companies to promote the benefits of antidepressants.
Its like impossible to win against big pharma. The voice of reason is drowned out by the big pharma drivle that is so carefully worded and measured, making anyone who says anything bad about SSRI’s, seem like a scaremongerer, who is harming people who could be “saved” by these miracle drugs.
SSRI’s are not miracle drugs, they can cause a huge amount of damage (for reasons most of us on this site know), often they dont work, and at best put you in this strange artificial state of manic happiness, and make you feel emotionally numb, and whatever problems you had before, are still there when you come off them, but often worse.
I seriously despair sometimes if the truth about these drugs will ever get a chance to come out. It gives me a headache!
At the moment i am afraid to say, it seems big pharma are definitely winning.
Can you clarify something David? Under M’naghten , defendants to murder are presumed sane (and responsible) unless they can prove they were suffering from a ‘disease of the mind’, which absolves them of (legal) responsibility for having killed someone. I’m a bit confused about your explanation above?
One mega problem with drug-induced rage/disinhibition/violence etc is classifying it as a ‘disease of the mind’ – without which an insanity defence cannot work. ‘damaged mind’ yes, definitely but that won’t satisfy a judge/jury.
As you say, sleep walking is a defence (automatism) because the conscious decision to do wrong is lacking –
apologies if I’m being a bit thick – but am confused at the mo.
Sally
McNaghten simplistically means that if you’re mad you have no defense. The old insanity defense – pre-McNaghten – was a delirium defense. The drugs make you delirious rather than insane
David
Isn’t it a shame that, at the root of this problem lies perceived unhappiness. If we could only get a truthful and honest approach from both sides isn’t it possible that a better understanding of the whole picture might emerge? Those who shout of the benefit from these drugs seem to me to be living in fear of ‘stigma’ – if THEY feel ‘stigma’ then how much higher must be the risk of the said stigma for those who suffer adverse reactions? If the benefits that they tell us about are so marvellous, how is it that they still have to fear stigma? I can only assume that, deep down, there is a fear of the removal of this class of drugs – following which their lives would also take a turn for the worse. They praise their medication, not because their mood is uplifted but rather because they know that they are hooked and their ‘need’ must be endlessly fed.
The never-ending denial of possible harm that the ‘harmed’ are expected to accept is cruel. It is cruel when it comes from the pharma companies, even more so when it comes from their doctors – usually in the form of throwing the problem as being to do with their ‘personality. To my mind, the most cruel turn of all is when a whole set of patients – lucky enough not to suffer severe adverse reactions – create an underclass of those unfortunate beings who, through no fault of their own, have their lives turned upsidedown simply because the truth of the situation wasn’t fully explained to them and their cries of ‘unexplained changes’ on the medications were ignored.
From the angle of a Carer ( parent, close friend, whatever) the drug takes over the rational mind of the user, so however much you reason with them, they seem unreachable. They are convinced they are to blame, evil, useless, whatever. You can’t engage with them anymore, like you once did when they were just ‘feeling down’. They are intractable in their beliefs now. It’s like they have dementia. You just can’t find them ‘in there’ any more. But they are able to plan their death down to the last careful details, trying to spare everyone any pain. They are ‘rational’ enough to do that. So are they mad, or not? Can you imagine what it’s like, listening to your beloved youngster asking your permission to let him die? Knowing he’s not attention-seeking, he’s deadly serious. You run around like a mad thing, begging for help to save him. But he doesn’t want to be saved. Or should I say, his drug controlled mind doesn’t want him to be saved. AND THERE IS DAMN ALL YOU CAN DO. and then the police come into your kitchen and confirm the worst. They are so kind. Much kinder than any doctor or psychiatrist. They give you a hug. You kiss the body goodbye. It’s all finished now. Or is it? You can’t let it be, even 5 years on. I’m not writing this for sympathy, I’m telling it as it is to raise the alarm. Too late for Olly, not too late for some. Talking of killing, there’s quite a few I’d like to kill, but murder is too good for them. Sensible retribution is better. But like you Spruce, I do wonder if that moment will ever come. I do agree with your feelings about these complacent doctors. DH was shown in the film as a lone figure out in the wilds, maybe a voice on its own in the wilderness. But a voice you could believe in, unlike the others. A voice of calm sincerity and self belief. Long may he reign.
I can’t understand why doctors – actually psychiatrists in general – aren’t aware that these drugs can enhance suicidal or homicidal thoughts, such as was stated by Professor Peter Tyrer. My daughter was put on Mirtazapine, a slightly different antidepressant to the normal SSRIs, despite having had at one time attempted suicide by overdose a few years before. She was only 16 when she was put on this drug and in the following few days attempted to strangle herself – fortunately she was in a CAMHS unit by then. However, despite the drug not seeming to benefit her after a couple of weeks, her dose was increased and once again she attempted suicide. Her dose was increased to the maximum adult dose, still with no benefit to her depressive condition and each time it was increased, she attempted suicide again. After 3 months she was put on Sertraline at the same time as the Mirtazapine, and after a few weeks was allowed home for a weekend visit. She stockpiled paracetamol and other painkillers and took another overdose just before returning to the unit. The staff realised something was wrong and she was taken to the A&E department of the general hospital and kept in overnight – fortunately she was ok. The Sertraline was stopped but the Mirtazapine was continued – why? I have no idea, being as it wasn’t helping. She continued to have suicidal thoughts and escaped from the unit, intending to jump off the motorway bridge. At this point she was sectioned. She appealed, writing a letter to explain why she should be allowed to leave and end her life. She was moved to a secure unit, her medication finally having been changed to Agomelatine, which did not make her feel suicidal. She eventually realised with my help that she had to take the situation into her own hands and challenged the new psychiatrist who wanted her to restart Sertraline, despite the effects it had on her before.
To cut a long story short, she is now recovered and has been off any psychiatric drugs for 2 years now, says she feels better than she has ever felt, and definitely benefited from nutritional supplements that we had to force her doctors to let her have whilst in hospital. My feeling is that her whole problem started when she developed anorexia nervosa and the subsequent depression was exacerbated by nutritional deficiencies.
The good news is that she is going to Exeter university in September to study Applied Psychology, she is helping support young people at CAMHS in the area where she was living and is determined to help raise awareness of the problems that drug treatment can cause.
Thank you David for your efforts on the Holmes case and your continued devotion to this important issues.
The Panorama program was very careful in its presentation of the evidence that James Holmes’ shooting spree was triggered by sertraline. The people who understand that SSRIs can cause serious thought distortion – even delirium/psychosis – emphasize that most of the time, the drugs do not cause suicidality or violence against others. They stress that such reactions are rare. Prof Tyrer states that when taking an SSRI correlates with declining mental state we cannot assume the drug is to blame.
Panorama pinpointed the root problem with using drug effects as a legal defence. Nobody believes that the meds can sometimes cause serious thought distortion leading to violent behaviour. Because juries and judges “won’t buy it”, the truth cannot be presented. Those who dismiss Prescription for Murder? don’t explain why the medication guides and boxed warnings make specific reference to paranoia, aggression, suicidal and violent thoughts, sudden changes in behaviour, and other “psychiatric side effects”. If the meds can cause these things, why do we have a hard time accepting that such reactions can sometimes lead to disaster? And if the drugs cannot cause these things, then why are the manufacturers admitting to it in their literature?
On SSRIstories.org, there are over 6,000 cases of SSRI disasters. Most are suicides. Over 1,870 are homicides. Through these news articles that actually mention medication (almost certainly a small fraction of cases that actually involve medication), it is easy to spot common themes:
1) People take antidepressants and their mental state deteriorates dramatically. The usual presentation includes phrases like “despite taking citalopram/ venlafaxine/paroxetine/sertraline/medication for depression, X became moodier/angry/manic/more depressed etc”.
2) People start taking antidepressants for minor anxiety or boyfriend/girlfriend worries and end up doing terrible things that are totally out of character for them. Family and neighbours line up to state their disbelief that X could have murdered his family and killed himself (or whatever X did).
3) People stop taking their SSRI “cold turkey” and commit a violent act. In these cases there is often a reference to the person having “snapped”.
4) People on some SSRI/SNRI have a few drinks and do some violent awful thing and the alcohol is considered to be relevant but not the medication, even though there is obviously an interaction effect.
And so on.
It is truly amazing that we understand that illegal drugs can be mind-altering in a negative way but not chemically similar prescription meds. But powerful drugs are poisons that have beneficial potential if used carefully. They are not necessarily harmless or even safe in all circumstances.
I finished watching the panorama documentary; prescription for murder.
Overall i thought it was well done.
Something that slightly annoyed me about it was the message that in 99.9 % of cases antidepressants are helpful, and that it is only a tiny minority that are harmed by antidepressants. I also felt the panorama programme was in more of a pro antidepressant tone overall, compared to previous programmes.
From my experience of taking these drugs, and from talking to a lot of people who have also taken these drugs, i really dont feel this is true.
I would say from my experience a lot more people are harmed by SSRI’s, than are helped. I would say it is the minority that are helped, rather than the majority.
Am i missing something here?
Spruce, you are probably right. It’s difficult to speak to anyone about this at all if they have a positive view of the meds. Acknowledging the positive, even if it’s an exaggeration, is perhaps a way to have a conversation.
Thanks to the person who posted the link to program in this thread.
I feel for everyone involved. Our society is so deeply sick. The idea that what he was receiving was “mental health care” is as troubling as how poorly he did on the medicine.
Vannie’s account of her daughter’s journey to hell and back is uplifting for it’s ending but appalling in most of its content. The question she asks, ‘why aren’t psychiatrists aware that these drugs can enhance suicidal or homicidal thoughts’ is the crux of this whole nightmare. Yes, WHY? Answer, they surely must be, and Dr David Healy cannot be (apart from a few well publicised others) the only one who can say with calm certainty that Sertraline most probably did cause James Holmes to kill as he did, with precision planning. So why do they act as though they can’t do anything about this?
Might the answer be that in today’s society, no one wants to be seen to accept responsibility for any decision. They hide in packs, behind collective groups. One can see this even with banks. You can’t speak to a ‘person’ any more. You have a telephone central number so never speak with the same person twice. Your personal circumstances are irrelevant. Letters come to you, if you raise a complaint, signed by ‘The Team’.
Isn’t this what’s happening with so-called mental health care. Our son, over a period of 3 months of interaction with them, had 26 different flitting bees of social workers and 4 psychiatrists ‘overseeing’ or buzzing in and out of his case. He had to explain how he felt, over and over again, to different people, in limited allocated time, who were themselves stressed out in the main. Despite our best efforts, after his tragic death we could get no one to accept responsibility for the appalling treatment he received, (Trust CEO, GMC etc) except some NHS personnel who witnessed it, gave us advice from the sidelines, (even when he was still alive), met us covertly, passed us information, and who would lose their jobs if the half of what they told us came out in the open. We can’t protect Olly now but we can protect them. We need to keep them in their jobs, to protect others where they can. It’s no good telling them to whistleblow. The orchestrated denial about the effect of Sertraline and other meds, for those unsuited to taking them, is too strong and loud. And blasé psychiatrists seem to be the worst elements in this. One passes the buck to the next, under cover of collective non- responsibility.
One other point – is there any public campaign to show that James Holmes was wrongly blamed, that the buck should be passed to Big Pharma, or is this a hopeless crusade?
PS – I mean, to try to free him? Or would he be killed by the mob if released? Do people write letters of support to him? I feel so desperately sorry for him and his parents. Our son was killed by prescripticide and his death left us with lots of practical problems to sort out, but at least he only ended his life and no one else’s. But of course he devastated his girlfriend’s life at the time, who’d been with him, loving him for 9 years. We are in absolutely no doubt that the final drugs, Sertraline and Olanzapine made his vague escapes into suicidal thoughts, these brought on by an unbearable load of awful life stresses, made him act as though in a dream he couldn’t be wakened from by us, and those thoughts became a well planned reality.
So it is in the product literature that Sertraline can cause violent thoughts, and thoughts of suicide, agitation , disorded thinking, sudden changes in behaviour etc etc, and SSRI’s have been linked to thousands of suicides, and almost two thousand murders (according to SSRI stories.org), and this is even up for debate??
Of course these drugs could cause someone to become violent. A complete moron could make the connection. Almost every school shooting in America the shooters have been on SSRI’s.
I am getting sick to my back teeth of big pharma getting rich off of our very real suffering, and lying through their teeth about the harm these drugs cause. These are real peoples lives we are talking about.
As far as i am concerned the psychiatrists who stand by and defend these drugs saying they are safe 99.9% of the time (what idiot came up with that figure), are almost as guilty as big pharma.
There is a very bad smell coming from big pharma, and its about time it got cleaned up.
They say a picture says a 1000 words.
The picture for this blog, is indeed, very powerful and profound.
To me, SSRI’s and benzodiazepine are equivalent to having given me a loaded gun.
Taking that Valium sixteen years ago, was the worst mistake of my life.
The gun was not pointed at my head.
As gruesome as it sounds, it was pointed in my mouth and then did the damage to my delicate brain.
Excruciating pain and pressure to my delicate brain, was enough to make me end my life.
I know you have read my story in previous blogs however, it is important that we discuss our experiences in the open.
If I had ended my life and I am so glad it did not get to that stage, my story would have never been told.
I don’t have the privilege of media exposure or a journalist publishing my story in Women’s Weekly.
It never made the front page headlines.
Perhaps I have not earned my stripes yet however, one thing I do know is that gracious David Healy has given me a platform here, on RXISK and this is a starting point.
Benzodiazepine for me, was like putting my body and mind through relentless torture.
The intense pain and pressure, lasted for 7 months and there were days when I didn’t know what to do with myself.
Benzodiazepine ingested alone, in my opinion, can cause harm to our good mental/physical health.
I witnessed what it did to my husband’s cardiovascular system.
He had no other meds in his body.
I, on the other hand, had other meds/vaccine in my system and it did more harm to my physical/mental wellbeing.
My husband was given a reasonable standard of care.
I, on the other hand was sent home and was told that I was depressed, prescribed an antidepressant and was given a video to educate me in regards to the benefits of another med.
I was suffering and I did not need another med to add to my anguish!
Luckily, I listened to my gut instincts.
I tossed the script in the bin and told my husband to return the video back to the clinician.
I believe I would not be here if I had followed through with the clinicians advice.
For me, benzodiazepine combined with other meds, created a chemical fog to my brain. Similar to having dementia.
There were times when I hallucinated to the extent where it felt like I was out of my body and looking at myself on the outside. I believe this is called depersonalisation.
t felt like I was detached from my physical self. What a very weird feeling.
The memory problems, never existed before I ingested benzodiazepine.
For example: I learnt how to drive a manual and when I could stand up on my own two feet to get back to driving, I did not know how to go from 1st gear to 2nd and alternating between brake, the accelerator and clutch, was just too much for my brain to cope with. Eventually, baby steps at a time, I did learn how to drive a manual again.
Then there are certain memories I cannot remember and if I look at a picture or a video, I would think that it would ‘ jump start’ my memory. Spark brain in the brain has been burnt out. It is like there is a shield place in front of the movie theatre of my mind that does not allow me to access these important memories, Grrrrrrrrr : (
Other times, my brain felt like it was very swollen. On very cold days, I still experience this horrible feeling. It is akin to, when one hits a hammer on a thumb and you experience that throbbing painful feeling. Imagine when you get that throbbing feeling of the brain. ~ Some days, it is unbearable! :’ (
Back to what I am trying to say.
I believe these meds impact personality A and personality B individuals.
My theory:
Some introverted individuals become cheeky and test the boundaries. They lose all inhibitions and may take RXISKS that would not have taken otherwise. They don’t know when to put on the brakes.
Some individuals who may be extroverted may become more aggressive, exhibit over excessive anxiety or exhibit behaviour they would be too ashamed of before having ingested the meds.
Having experienced what the meds are capable of doing to one’s mind, is real.
I believe chemical drugging to the brain makes one exhibit apathy, reckless, pervasive, aggressive, uninhibited, and suicidal behaviour.
It is like cranking up the volume on your radio. As the volume increases, the chemical drugging begins to take effect. It is very similar to perhaps what recreational drugs and alcohol do to one’s brain. The neural pathways of the brain start creating unusual pathways that are not familiar to one way of thinking. It becomes distorted and irrational
From my experience, chemical drugging to the brain is real and it can be a nightmare for some. The chemicals derange ones thought process and creates confusion and fogging of the brain especially, if the blood brain barrier has been damaged which makes it easier for chemicals to seep through to all delicate areas of the brain.
I have had to work extremely hard to regain myself before I ingested this med. It has not been an easy journey.
Yes, we are responsible for our own thoughts and actions however, I must stress, once you add something that one is not completely sure about, I would err on the side of caution. You never know when you are going to end up with a loaded gun that can cause harm or damage to one’s delicate brain.
The courts have to deal with such dilemmas.
If no one has had these meds in their blood stream, then it is a question of one’s personality.
If on the other hand, someone has committed a crime, of any nature, whilst under the influence of these meds, we have to question if the meds had something to do with the crime.
If we listen to stories of how these meds have impacted people’s behaviour, we have to take heed and understand that there is something larger in play here.
A lot of people say they feel themselves, once they are clean from these meds.
Others say it has benefitted their mental wellbeing.
We, as a civil society, have to understand that there are two sides to story.
Perhaps, if we have a better understanding of how these meds impact the brain, we would have a different perspective of how we view/judge things.
No one is born a monster.
If we challenge and expand our way of thinking especially in regards to how these meds can harm the brain, for some, we have to acknowledge that these problems (harm to the brain) can influence and distort the thought process.
To get a better understanding of these meds, we have to talk to people who have been impacted by them.
They understand how it has impacted them and they can tell you things that many never have never been disclosed.
Unfortunately, for some it is too late.
For those of us who are remaining, we have got stories to tell and if I knew my gun was loaded with a med that was going to harm me, I would have thrown the gun at sea.
Then an experience would never be known?
if we want to evolve as a society and push beyond the rigid beliefs, we have to demonstrate compassion for those who have suffered in the name of science.
Good can only be achieved when we learn from past mistakes.
If we are continuing with the rinse/repeat cycle, we have to ask ourselves this question:
Have we evolved beyond our rigid, conformed, safe way of thinking and if the answer is No, we have got a lot of learning to do!
Crime rates, violence, aggression and suicide is certainly on the rise.
To better understand peoples behaviour, lets look beyond what we have been programmed to believe.
Look at the persons prescription history. It may give one a better insight and clarity as to what is really going on!
A big thank you to Kim Ledger trying to create awareness about prescription drug abuse.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-07-14/heath-ledger-dad-kim-opioid-addiction-prescription-painkillers/8705292
Carla thank you for a marvellous explanation of what Valium did to you, and some very interesting observations on what society is evolving into and what we could do to improve it. I think your last sentence is particularly bang on the money –
‘look at the persons prescription history. It may give better insight and clarity as to what is really going on!’
And Spruce, like you say, what idiot came up with the ‘most of the time 99.9% safe’ figure for these drugs. Plucked from the air, a blasé comment made by a seemingly ‘happy to be Pharma brain washed’ psychiatrist one could assume.
This week, and the Panorama BBC film has finally explained to me the major reason why our son planned so carefully his exit from this world. 200mg of Sertraline, accompanied by Olanzapine, for a very short period of time. All the other stresses in his life were just manageable hurdles that he was well able to deal with, even the horrific rudeness of the Home Treatment Lead psychiatrist. But Olly was in a dream. He was literally ‘away with the fairies’ and yet he appeared so calm near the end.
The night before he died, he wanted to take his father and me out to dinner at his favourite restaurant. We were unaware of this at the time. His father called in at his flat to see him alone that evening. (We’d tried to subtly get a rota of his friends visiting during the days, despite the social worker and HT psychiatrist telling us he should be left alone to effectively ‘stew in his own juice’ as he was simply attention-seeking when he told us repeatedly that the pain in his head was too bad, his memory gone, and he wanted to die). I didn’t go with him that evening and Olly was visibly disappointed. I’d waited elsewhere as for days he’d been begging me to ‘let him go’ (die) every time he saw me, he wanted to say goodbye, and my eyes were so swollen with tears, crying, awake all night, pleading with GPs to help (to no avail) and I didn’t want him to see me looking upset in case he felt it was all due to him. In a way of course, yes it was, but no, then again, it wasn’t, it was the Sertraline skewing his rational mind, making him see things as hopeless.
He knew we’d got an appointment to see a private neuro-psychiatrist to ask if he could get a scan to see what the unbearable head pains were. He was living on paracetamol to try to bear it, but his social worker told him ‘it was just his anxiety and he needed to address it’….. He knew where we’d be next day, but he felt it would be a waste of our time and money to get another opinion because he truly believed HE was all to blame, (thanks to the tirade of the HT psychiatrist), he’d made a Will (we later discovered), his affairs were carefully put in order, he wanted that last dinner together obviously before dying next day when we were away, but it didn’t take place because I wasn’t there.
If I’d seen him that night, I would have realised, with a mother’s instinct, and somehow we’d have maybe tried to get him kept safe next day. But had we managed, against all the odds, to get him into hospital again, he’d have simply had more meds given to him. And felt even worse. How awful for a mother to admit this, but due to the brain damage already inflicted on him by the previously prescribed meds, in massive doses, I think he’s better off where he is now. His suffering ended. ‘First do no harm’. What happened to this epithet that Olly’s own family of doctors followed for generations before? Tim has consistently reminded us of this on this Blog. He is so right. Where did it go?
when one your blokes said:
“If he hadn’t taken the Sertraline he wouldn’t have murdered anyone.”
Dear Panorama
https://memyselfnmentalhealth.wordpress.com/2017/07/27/dear-panorama-my-response/
helping the debate
http://askyerfather.com/mental-health/panorama-prescription-for-murder-helping-the-debate-on-mental-health/
This is a question for Dr Healy.
Do you think a panorama programme done on PSSD is possible within the next few years. And if not, why not?
Unlikely. I have been trying to get the media interested for years. I’d have thought sex should sell. Seems like the absence of sex doesn’t sell.
DH
I.e if panorama wont do a programme on PSSD, what do you reckon would be the reasons they wouldn’t be interested in doing it etc.
Proposals have to go through management. And management won’t find this sexy as it stands. We have to find another angle. We will have some posts on this issue on RxISK soon that just might deliver a new angle
DH
Thats a real shame a programme like panorama isn’t interested in PSSD.
So nobody really cares that people are being left with horrible sexual side effects that can last for many years, and might be permanent, all being caused by one of the most commonly prescribed group of drugs.
I am disappointed and a little surprised.
I would have thought the media would have been all over it.
I mean what a scandal, if it became common knowledge that there is a chance that by taking an SSRI you could never experience sexual pleasure again for the rest of your life.
If someone had told me that before prescribing me an SSRI, i wouldn’t have touched an SSRI with a bargepole.
I would imagine if PSSD was eventually accepted as a real side effect, that can definitely happen to some people after taking an SSRI, that the sales of SSRI’s might take quite a hit.
And people should be made aware of the risk of developing PSSD after taking an SSRI, because it is a very real risk.
In the past there has often been a great struggle to get damaging side effects of psychiatric drugs officially acknowledged.
It took many years for it to be accepted that tardive dyskenisia was caused by antipsychotics. For a long time psychiatrists attributed the symptoms of tardive dyskinesia to schitzophrenia and not the medication.
It took around about 20 years for it to be properly accepted that benzodiazepines were physically addictive, and that they could often have a severe withdrawal. Again withdrawal symptoms were for a long time attributed to the return of the “original anxiety” instead of anything to do with the benzodiazepines.
I assume something similar might have happened with SSRI’s causing suicidal and homicidal urges and thoughts, i.e it took a good while before it was accepted that SSRI’s could do this to some people. I believe the drug companies even had to include it in the side effects leaflet.
Another question to Dr Healy;
Do you think that like past serious effects of psychiatric drugs that i mentioned, that given enough time, PSSD might also get the official recognition it deserves by mainstream medicine?
If some company brings a new kind of drug, like a ketamine related drug for instance, on the market for depression, they will market the PSSD and violence caused by SSRIs – the reason benzo dependence was recognized was because there were new drugs acting on the serotonin system in the pipeline.
DH
UK survey #prescriptiondrugdependence seeking experience of existing NHS services by 5 Aug #benzos #antidepressants https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/692JXMP
So what you are saying is if there is a new drug that can make them just as much money, or more money than the SSRI’s, then they will finally admit to PSSD, and the other problems caused by SSRI’s, and say “look this new drug is better because it doesnt cause PSSD or cause people to take their own lives, or become violent”.
Also they dont mind if they lose sales on SSRI’s, because they can make lots of money on the new drug?
Is this what you mean Dr Healy?
Close to what I mean. The companies have already admitted to violence and PSSD etc – its written into the labels. This is done for legal reasons – so they can point to the fact that its there. But its not there in a way that most doctors would recognize. In order to get doctors to recognize it you have to market it and this might mean for instance that a company might approach me and offer me a lot of money to give a talk on PSSD. The fact that I appear on a company platform saying these things – along with someone else perhaps saying that if doctors don’t warn patients about this they risk being sued (successfully sued as opposed to now when the risk to them is minimal) is the kind of thing that causes doctors to develop a concern about something like PSSD.
DH
To a certain extent this already happened in the USA about 15 years ago with bupropion, a/k/a Wellbutrin. It’s a stimulant that is marketed only as a smoking cessation drug in most countries (under the name of Zyban). But in the USA it’s an antidepressant. I guess our brains are different.
Wellbutrin does not seem to depress libido or cause genital numbing. Some people experience a mild uptick in sexual interest. In that, it’s similar to other stimulants such as amphetamine proper. (It does, however, cause a lot of agitation and suicidality. The FDA actually has more reports of suicide attributed to Wellbutrin than to Zoloft, Celexa or other SSRI’s.)
Wellbutrin was openly advertised as the antidepressant with “No Sexual Side Effects!” This was actually the first time I (and many other patients) were told that antidepressants could have any effects on sexuality. Yet this didn’t lead to a new epoch of “honesty” about the sexual problems caused by antidepressants. Why not?
I think it was because of the way the message was managed by the drug companies. First, they were careful to minimize the SSRI “sexual side effects” that were discussed. Doctors and patients were led to believe that these were limited to performance problems (chiefly erections), and were entirely temporary in nature. Stop the SSRI, or substitute Wellbutrin, and the problem would go away. After all, Wellbutrin was a GSK drug — and why on earth would GSK destroy the market share of a whole class of drugs just to promote this one pill?
The second way they managed the message was this: “It’s not so much that SSRI’s are libido destroyers, it’s that Wellbutrin is a libido enhancer!” Drug reps and paid psychiatric “thought leaders” started marketing it to doctors as “the happy horny skinny pill.” Doctors were encouraged to prescribe it for weight loss, pep and, well, renewed horniness. I’m sure a lot of the worst agitation was experienced by people who got prescriptions for these reasons.
You see this time and again with drugs that are promoted as being free of a nasty side effect of a previous drug. A few years ago vortioxetine, or “Trintellix”, was informally promoted as being a lot like duloxetine but less likely to make patients fatigued and mentally foggy. Before long, however, Takeda was promoting it as actually improving cognitive skills that were dulled by — you guessed it — Depression Itself! It’s a win-win for Pharma: First the obvious problems of the old drug are portrayed as trivial. Then the new drug is portrayed as having amazing new virtues rather than simply having fewer side effects.
So anyway: Yes, the advent of a new drug can sometimes influence doctors to recognize the problems of an old drug. But don’t hold your breath expecting major change via this route.
I was near to kill someone on Trintellix before I got hospitalized.
Are there any ‘ketamine related drugs for depression’ in the pipeline at the moment? Or is this an example of a possible research if we could get someone interested? I do know that Liverpool Uni. are doing something regarding ‘allergic reactions’ and that my niece is really interested in having a better understanding of the possible adverse reactions to SSRIs. Sorry to be so vague – a wedding reception was not the best place for a proper full-on chat about this! My niece is a medical statistician; a senior lecturer in statistics, rather than being a ‘researcher’ as such but she was one of a group who published a paper to do with trials on ‘folic acid use in depression’ a few years ago.
Yes there are. Companies have two problems with ketamine. Its an old drug so they can’t make money off it unless they find some new delivery system such as intra-nasal ketamine that can be patented. The other problem is that ketamine given intra-muscularly only needs to be given once or twice to produce dramatic improvements in severe depression. But for a company to make money off it, they ideally need people to be on it daily for the rest of their lives. These are the issues that are holding it up at the moment
DH
This is so interesting. You say it only needs to be given once or twice – surely the ‘once or twice’ would need to be repeated so often would they? What would happen if this became another one in use for anxiety etc. – could that lead, again, to similar problems now seen with SSRIs? I take it that it has a different name in clinical use does it – farming communities are used to Ketamine as a treatment for horses. Can’t imagine that it would be well received without a name change somehow!
Is the ketamine of old a medication that was in use at some point? Still fairly popular in street use I understand – would that be the ‘medical ketamine’ or the vet’s equivalent I wonder?
Yes–ketamine for “treatment resistant depression.” I went to a NIMH talk on this and they don’t acknowledge that depression is treatment resistant due to treatment. A whole other issue…
Couldn’t it be that all the recent chatter about the gut influencing depression, and about inflammation being another link to the cause of mental unwellness, is really about Big Pharma rolling out new ‘gut etc’ treatments ready to sidestep when the shit hits the fan on SSRIs? In the same way, most of us realise we’ll never get rid of RoAccutane-isotretinoin when used for acne, but this week someone is talking about an acne vaccine being ready in 2 years’ time. Maybe that would get rid of RoAccutane. But heaven knows what else it might trigger. Or what it comprises. Might be good, might not.
But psychiatrists are increasingly confident that, within a few years, things could be very different, with patients being tested to find out whether a drug is likely to work for them.
Jerome Burne reports today .. Professor Pariante, Ketamine, now doctors have identified a surprise new treatment ..
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-4747554/How-Ibuprofen-pills-help-cure-low-mood.html
By Jerome Burne for the Daily Mail
Published: 23:03, 31 July 2017 | Updated: 23:49, 31 July 2017
This could make a significant difference to patients. ‘Half of all patients with depression fail to find an effective drug with their first prescription,’ says Professor Pariante, ‘and a third don’t benefit from any of them.’
Exactly how this causes depression isn’t yet clear, but recent research has found that blocking it with a tranquilliser called ketamine, normally used on horses, can have a dramatic effect on long-term depression and suicidal thoughts. Nearly half of a group of 100 patients with severe depression given a ketamine injection once a week responded to treatment for the first time, according to a report in April from the Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust.
Who better to perfect the ketamine infusion for depression than the people who discovered it!…
http://ketamineinstitute.com/
What The NIH Says About Ketamine
“Recent data suggest that ketamine, given intravenously, might be the most important breakthrough in antidepressant treatment in decades”….
Thomas Insel MD, Director, National Institute of Mental Health
Thanks Annie,
“Are YOU one of the thousands who don’t respond to anti-depressants?
How common ibuprofen pills can treat your low mood”. (DAILY MAIL).
(But!) –
7-9-2015.
FDA is strengthening an existing label warning that NSAIDs increase the risk of
Heart Attack and Stroke.
“Patients taking NSAIDs should seek medical attention immediately if they experience symptoms such as chest pain, shortness of breath or trouble breathing, weakness in one part or side of their body or slurred speech”.
“A DAILY DOSE OF IBUPROFEN CAN MAKE YOUR LUNGS FEEL YOUNGER” ???
A friend of a friend has just ploughed his car into some other cars while on seroquel and alcohol He has no memory of this. The forensic assessment states that this was a deliberate act. I have just ploughed through google scholar looking for articles on violence caused by prescription drugs and have found the exact opposite – page of page of research stating antipsychotics reduce violence. Violence and psychotropic drugs is the elephant in the room – not trauma. I now relise that what passes for research is Micky mouse opinion garnered from little more than advertising and misinformation disseminated in media and on kellogs corn flake packets that pass a medical and health care education at university (taught by caniving, manipulative persons). To go against the grain of this campaign of misinformation in a scholarly and novel manner takes significant work. We know what is going on on the street. I think these drugs are deliberately precribed to cause social division and conflict – especially in families. This is a form of social engineering. It is also precribed to people with deliberate intent that they take there own lives – marked people, dead people walking. Overblown emotion and generalizations about violence and these drugs will not work. We need to start making considered counter arguments and narratives.
Fiona show your friends friend this https://rxisk.org/driven-to-drink-antidepressants-and-cravings-for-alcohol/
Forensic assessments will always blame you but its down to your Solicitor/Barrister to prove their wrong. 99.9% of the time even that doesn’t work. You end up thinking its because they are all members of the same country club or something. I think they keep that 1% open just to get their own club members out safely.
I am more and more convinced now we live in a corrupt world where we are all being deliberately harmed and set up to have our lives destroyed.
Why else would they ignore the obvious?
In an ideal world there would be genuine concern and calls for an investigation or something into these drugs but that will not happen I think until a new drug comes along and replaces the old and we are all dead buried and forgotten about in maybe 50 plus years time.
I second Anne-Marie’s suggested reading for your friend’s friend but I must warn you that the fact that alcohol was present will be the only factor that will be taken notice of – unless they are VERY, very lucky. It matters not how little alcohol there was, just having that word present means that they need not bother to look any further. It’s easy money for them. It happened to our son some 15 years ago – those present at the incident reported an ‘unearthly calmness’ about him as he got out of his car; his solicitor stated that he ‘knew this was something quite different – not the alcohol’, yet, the judge saw NOTHING beyond the alcohol. It breaks my heart to think that fifteen years have passed yet things have stood still in the acceptance of adverse reactions to psychiatric drugs.
https://youtu.be/feWWrkzUrso
Hi Donna Marsh,
Thank you for the interesting documentary you have put on RXISK.
It is about time that mothers are given a voice and are able to courageously explain how these psychiatric drugs have impacted their children.
If they are unsafe for children under 18 years of age, one has to question their safety for those above 18 years and over.
We just don’t hear the devastating effects of how adults have been impacted by these meds and we certainly don’t hear how many people mysteriously pass away whilst they are ingesting them.
This is an insightful documentary which creates awareness and a true understanding of what these meds are sadly capable of inducing.
That poor forensic psychiatrist has been an advocate for children since the 90’s.
At least we have David Healy being an advocate for everyone.
Worse side effects just don’t happen with children.
These drug do not discriminate.
Sadly, it can impact anyone, from all walks of life.
Are there no professionals specifically trained in mental illness in the comments? I happen to be one. The symptoms he experienced after starting an SSRI are very typical of a person who actually suffers from bipolar disorder, not unipolar depression. It’s pretty clear to me that he was misdiagnosed and given the wrong treatment in the first place. His is a very extreme example of the risk in treating bipolar disorder with an SSRI or SNRI, instead of a mood stabilizer. His example couldn’t be anymore textbook if I’d written it myself. Read the DSM-V and Stahl’s Psychopharmacology. Painting SSRIs with a broad brush is dangerous as it puts people at risk of not seeking out help when they are having thoughts of self-harm.
As the mental health professional who wrote the post and the definitive history of bipolar disorder and interviewed JH in the flesh, he did not have bipolar disorder. Several forensic psychiatrists assessed him and none mentioned bipolar disorder -even though in the United States there is a mania for diagnosing bipolar disorder.
The other point to make is that healthy volunteers given these drugs become disinhibited, suicidal and aggressive. These problems clear once the drug is stopped. The most sensible explanation is the drug is causing the problem in these cases.
DH
Some have talked about the extent of the cumulative misery, even atrocities, doctors may soon have to face they played a huge part in by mindlessly following orders.
This case alone (and many others) makes me think of the potential diameter of the pain and misery which could be caused by only a single very serious adverse effect without appropriate warning, without appropriate recognition and without appropriate treatment:
The Diameter of the Bomb by Yehudi Amachai:
The diameter of the bomb was thirty centimeters
and the diameter of its effective range about seven meters,
with four dead and eleven wounded.
And around these, in a larger circle
of pain and time, two hospitals are scattered
and one graveyard. But the young woman
who was buried in the city she came from,
at a distance of more than a hundred kilometers,
enlarges the circle considerably,
and the solitary man mourning her death
at the distant shores of a country far across the sea
includes the entire world in the circle.
And I won’t even mention the crying of orphans
that reaches up to the throne of God and
beyond, making a circle with no end and no God
I have been told several times by mental health professionals that all antipsychotic meds come with a long list of side effects. That if they took any notice of them they would never prescribe. For many years I have said that anti-psychotics were causing a family member to behave aggressively, but my concerns have been repeatedly dismissed. As a result someone almost died and my relative was sectioned for over ten years. When eventually the medication was changed the aggressive incidents stopped, but they claim that is the effect of the replacement medication. They refuse to accept the person was not aggressive before starting antipsychotics.