Can Antidepressants Cause Violence?

[donnay]

[angelatc]

I hate video. So I"m not watching that one. But I'd like to see some studies done on it.

But seeing that more people are on anti-depressants now than ever before, but mass shootings are actually happening less than they used to....I'm inclined to think they don't.

[thoughtomator]

The problem with this method of treatment is it leaves the patients perpetually one incident away from a psychotic break. Medications are basically the abdication of responsibility for personal behavior - everything is then blamed the (faux) illness, or the drug.

[angelatc]

The problem with this method of treatment is it leaves the patients perpetually one incident away from a psychotic break. Medications are basically the abdication of responsibility for personal behavior - everything is then blamed the (faux) illness, or the drug.

You can't possibly believe that the best cure for mental illness is to buck up and not be crazy, can you? A drug that can keep someone away from a psychotic break is a GOOD thing.

[Peace Piper]

I hate video. So I"m not watching that one. But I'd like to see some studies done on it.

But seeing that more people are on anti-depressants now than ever before, but mass shootings are actually happening less than they used to....I'm inclined to think they don't.

Forget about the FEDERALLY MANDATED warning that comes with each bottle of these pills that states that violent and suicidal behavior is a known side effect.



Here are studies:

US National Institutes of Health: Antidepressants and Violence-problems at the Interface of Medicine & Law
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1564177/

Top expert on violence and SSRI: David Healy. From his wiki:

Healy has written many papers and presented many lectures on his view that all SSRI antidepressants - Prozac, Paxil and Zoloft - should show warning labels, as they could "trigger suicidal and violent behavior in some patients".[8] Some of Healy's more recent refereed journal articles on antidepressants and suicide include:[12]
Healy D (2000). Good Science or Good Business? Hastings Center Report 30, 19-23.
Healy D (2000). Antidepressant induced suicidality. Primary Care Psychiatry 6, 23-28.
Boardman A, Healy D (2001). Modeling suicide risk in affective disorders. European Psychiatry 16, 400-405.
Healy D (2003). Lines of Evidence on SSRIs and Risk of Suicide. Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics 72, 71-79.
Healy D, Cattell D (2003). The Interface between authorship, industry and science in the domain of therapeutics. British Journal of Psychiatry 182, 22-27.
Healy D, Whitaker CJ. (2003) Antidepressants and suicide; Risk-Benefit Conundrums. J Psychiatry & Neuroscience 28 (5) 331-339, with response by Y Lapierre 340-349.
Fergusson D, Doucette S, Cranley-Glass K, (2005). The association between suicide attempts and SSRIs: A systematic review of 677 randomized controlled trials representing 85,470 participants. British Medical Journal 330, 396-399.
Healy D, Aldred G (2005). Antidepressant drug use and the risk of suicide. International Review of Psychiatry 17, 163-172.
Healy D, Herxheimer A, Menkes D (2006). Antidepressants and violence: Problems at the interface of medicine and law. PLoS Medicine 3, September
Healy D (2006). Manufacturing Consensus. Culture, Medicine and Psychiatry 30, 135-156.
Healy D, Harris M, Tranter R, Gutting P, Austin R, Jones-Edwards G, Roberts AP (2006). Lifetime suicide rates in treated schizophrenia: 1875-1924 and 1994-1998 cohorts compared. British Journal of Psychiatry 188, 223-228. With Commentary by T Turner, 229-230.
Reseland S, Le Noury J, Aldred G, Healy D (2008). National suicide rates 1961-2003: further analysis of Nordic data for suicide, autopsies and ill-defined death rates. Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics 77, 78-82
Healy D (2009). Trussed in Evidence: Ambiguities at the interface of clinical practice and clinical evidence. Transcultural Psychiatry 46, 16-37.
Healy D, Brent D (2009). Are Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors a risk factor for adolescent suicides? Canadian Journal of Psychiatry 54, 69-71.
Healy D (2009). Perplexity is our product. Canadian Journal of Psychiatry 54, 76.
Healy D (2011). Science, rhetoric and the causality of adverse events. International J Risk & Safety in Medicine 24, 1-14.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Healy_(psychiatrist)

Edit to add: Dr. David Healy is not popular with organized medicine
An example of why is his brilliant book Pharmageddon
http://www.amazon.com/Pharmageddon-D.../dp/0520275764


Dr. Peter Breggin testifies before Congress 2010



Surely one can imagine why the Mass Media avoids this subject.

[torchbearer]

Seroquil will cause violence, especially the day after taking it.

[angelatc]

But they also can reduce violent tendencies in people who already have them.

The point remains that mass shootings have fallen while the use of anti-depressants is up.

I don't think it's a coincidence that mentally disturbed people are committing the shootings. And I don't think it should be shocking to find out that mentally ill people take drugs designed to treat mental illness.

Where's the link to the implied assertion that these drugs increase the likelihood that someone will snap and start shooting?

[shane77m]

Yes.

Welbutrin

[torchbearer]

But they also can reduce violent tendencies in people who already have them.

The point remains that mass shootings have fallen while the use of anti-depressants is up.

I don't think it's a coincidence that mentally disturbed people are committing the shootings. And I don't think it should be shocking to find out that mentally ill people take drugs designed to treat mental illness.

Where's the link to the implied assertion that these drugs increase the likelihood that someone will snap and start shooting?

Here is a problem.
You can't force someone to take a pill daily.
I know a lot of people on suicide pills.
The worst one appears to be Effexor(not sure on spelling).
If they skip a day on the pill, they freak the $#@! out.
And that is something else to consider.
You may say, as long as the person is taking the medicine they are mentally castrated.
But, they are the ones who put the pill in their mouth.
Perhaps they think they are feeling better and don't need it anymore.
They stop taking it- (which there are warnings against) and end up going nuts as the chemicals in their brain are now completely jacked up.

[coastie]

I hate video. So I"m not watching that one. But I'd like to see some studies done on it.

But seeing that more people are on anti-depressants now than ever before, but mass shootings are actually happening less than they used to....I'm inclined to think they don't.

Your reply glaringly illustrates why maybe you should have watched the video before you replied. The title was "Can anti-depressants cause violence?". Mass shootings are not the only form of violence attributed to these drugs, and in fact are the rarest form of all.Head on over to ssristories.com and read a while - don't worry, there are no videos to have to suffer through. There already have been exhaustive studies done on this subject, 10 seconds of google will find them for you.

You can't possibly believe that the best cure for mental illness is to buck up and not be crazy, can you? A drug that can keep someone away from a psychotic break is a GOOD thing.

Nowhere in his reply did he say that, you just (somehow) extracted that out of there. He's 100% correct, however. Look up "Prozac Defence", "Effexor Defense", "Paxil Defense", and so on. The lady in Texas that drowned her 5 children one by one in a bathtub years ago? She was on twice the recommended dose for Effexor for one month before killing her kids...(my wife was on it for just as long when she tried jumping out of a moving vehicle). Big Pharma was forced to include "homicidal idealization" on the box shortly after her trial.

What about drugs that are PROVEN to CAUSE psychotic breaks?

[coastie]

Here is a problem.
You can't force someone to take a pill daily.
I know a lot of people on suicide pills.
The worst one appears to be Effexor(not sure on spelling).
If they skip a day on the pill, the freak the $#@! out.
And that is something else to consider.
You may say, as long as the person is taking the medicine they are mentally castrated.
But, they are the ones who put the pill in their mouth.
Perhaps they think they are feeling better and don't need it anymore.
They stop taking it- (which there are warnings against) and end up going nuts as the chemicals in their brain are now completely jacked up.

I believe Effexor is the worst...am I biased? Of course. But I also saw the most violent and profound behavioral and thinking changes to occur when my wife was on Effexor - same dose Andrea Yates the bathtub drowner took.

When she missed a dose, life was living hell for all around her. She missed a dose one night and then went and had a couple of drinks with a friend...wen into uncontrollable gran mal seizures the next night. Good stuff. (/s)


Effexor is not a SSRI(Serotonin–serotonin reuptake inhibitor), but a SNRI (Serotonin–norepinephrine reuptake inhibitor). Rgardless, if you really read the literature on these drugs as I have, they actually have NO $#@!ING IDEA how the really work. Seriously, read the inserts that come with them, especially in re: how long the test these drugs for. The average time is two weeks on humans. TWO $#@!ING WEEKS. That is the amount of time it takes the drugs to get to a "therapeutic level" in your bloodtream...and this is how pharma avoids admitting the actual amount of craziness these drugs cause, becasue the worst doesn't show up until after the clinical trial is over.

The inserts and commercials are replete with phrases such as "Effexor (or any other drug) is thought to work by....is believed to work by..."

[shane77m]

I believe Effexor is the worst...am I biased? Of course. But I also saw the most violent and profound behavioral and thinking changes to occur when my wife was on Effexor - same dose Andrea Yates the bathtub drowner took.

When she missed a dose, life was living hell for all around her. She missed a dose one night and then went and had a couple of drinks with a friend...wen into uncontrollable gran mal seizures the next night. Good stuff. (/s)


Effexor is not a SSRI(Serotonin–serotonin reuptake inhibitor), but a SNRI (Serotonin–norepinephrine reuptake inhibitor). Rgardless, if you really read the literature on these drugs as I have, they actually have NO $#@!ING IDEA how the really work. Seriously, read the inserts that come with them, especially in re: how long the test these drugs for. The average time is two weeks on humans. TWO $#@!ING WEEKS. That is the amount of time it takes the drugs to get to a "therapeutic level" in your bloodtream...and this is how pharma avoids admitting the actual amount of craziness these drugs cause, becasue the worst doesn't show up until after the clinical trial is over.

The inserts and commercials are replete with phrases such as "Effexor (or any other drug) is thought to work by....is believed to work by..."

These drugs should be pulled from the market. I have never understood how a drug could make it onto the shelves when the makers don't even know how it works. I think some pockets got padded with some money somewhere along the line.

[donnay]

These drugs should be pulled from the market. I have never understood how a drug could make it onto the shelves when the makers don't even know how it works. I think some pockets got padded with some money somewhere along the line.

That's how Big pHARMa rolls. They pay off doctors and politicians all the time.

[MoneyWhereMyMouthIs2]

These drugs should be pulled from the market. I have never understood how a drug could make it onto the shelves when the makers don't even know how it works. I think some pockets got padded with some money somewhere along the line.

Erry day, erry day, erry day.

[Eagles' Wings]

That's how Big pHARMa rolls. They pay off doctors and politicians all the time.

Great topic. +rep

[coastie]

That's how Big pHARMa rolls. They pay off doctors and politicians all the time.

There is a great website(name escapes me now) where you can type up your doctor's name, and see which big pharma companies give him/her kickbacks, and how much.

One of my wife's past doctors received over 150k in one year, just for speaking fees alone! I don't remember which pharma company it was, but it was the one that made 3 out of the 5 drugs he had her on. Coincidence, I'm sure.

[donnay]

There is a great website(name escapes me now) where you can type up your doctor's name, and see which big pharma companies give him/her kickbacks, and how much.

One of my wife's past doctors received over 150k in one year, just for speaking fees alone! I don't remember which pharma company it was, but it was the one that made 3 out of the 5 drugs he had her on. Coincidence, I'm sure.

Is it this one? http://projects.propublica.org/docdollars/

[Philhelm]

The point remains that mass shootings have fallen while the use of anti-depressants is up.

Are mass shootings (however that may be defined) necessarily falling? Besides, I'd imagine that most of the people using anti-depressants are people with real grievances or bored, suburban soccer-moms, rather than deranged killers.

[coastie]

Is it this one? http://projects.propublica.org/docdollars/

That's the one, madame! +rep for your google-fu.


ETA: WOW- they have really expanded that website since I was last on it. The front page alone is horrifying, before you even type your doctor's name in. I highly recommend everyone in the thread check it out, regardless if you or a loved one are on these drugs...

[angelatc]

Are mass shootings (however that may be defined) necessarily falling? [

Yes. I posted a link to back up that assertion.

Besides, I'd imagine that most of the people using anti-depressants are people with real grievances or bored, suburban soccer-moms, rather than deranged killers.

Violent crime has plummeted in the past 20 years while the use of psychotropic drugs has sky-rocketed. If those drugs were to blame, wouldn't we see some correlation?

[donnay]

Yes. I posted a link to back up that assertion.

Violent crime has plummeted in the past 20 years while the use of psychotropic drugs has sky-rocketed. If those drugs were to blame, wouldn't we see some correlation?

SSRI Stories
http://www.ssristories.com/index.php?sort=date

[angelatc]

Your reply glaringly illustrates why maybe you should have watched the video before you replied. The title was "Can anti-depressants cause violence?". Mass shootings are not the only form of violence attributed to these drugs, and in fact are the rarest form of all.Head on over to ssristories.com and read a while - don't worry, there are no videos to have to suffer through. There already have been exhaustive studies done on this subject, 10 seconds of google will find them for you.

Uh, no. I'm not going to a place that with such an obvious biased agenda and pretend that it's the only truth that matters.

Nowhere in his reply did he say that, you just (somehow) extracted that out of there. He's 100% correct, however. Look up "Prozac Defence", "Effexor Defense", "Paxil Defense", and so on. The lady in Texas that drowned her 5 children one by one in a bathtub years ago? She was on twice the recommended dose for Effexor for one month before killing her kids...(my wife was on it for just as long when she tried jumping out of a moving vehicle). Big Pharma was forced to include "homicidal idealization" on the box shortly after her trial.

What about drugs that are PROVEN to CAUSE psychotic breaks?

What he said was that the pills were being used to absolve people of personal responsibility, indicating that the crimes might not have happened if the people were not on the pills already. But the pills were prescribed because the people already had mental problems.

All drugs have potential side effects. Identifying the triggers is important to research, but denying millions of people relief because 1 guy in a million might have a bad reaction isn't the free market solution.

[tod evans]

I won't take SSRI's and neither will my child..

These "drugs" are the result of politicians not wanting people to "get high" combined with the need of drug companies to make boatloads of profit.

There are, and have been for years, drugs that help the depressed. Problems are they'll either get the user a buzz or the profit margin is thin..

Too me the risks outweigh the reward with SSRI's.

[angelatc]

I won't take SSRI's and neither will my child..

These "drugs" are the result of politicians not wanting people to "get high" combined with the need of drug companies to make boatloads of profit.

There are, and have been for years, drugs that help the depressed.

Like what?

[coastie]

Uh, no. I'm not going to a place that with such an obvious biased agenda and pretend that it's the only truth that matters.

Who told you to pretend anything? Biased agenda, huh? And that would be, what - posting stories and reports of adverse reactions to these drugs? Get real.

What he said was that the pills were being used to absolve people of personal responsibility, indicating that the crimes might not have happened if the people were not on the pills already. But the pills were prescribed because the people already had mental problems.

That's because THEY ARE BEING USED TO ABSOLVE PEOPLE OF PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY!!!. Did you bother looking up what I suggested of the defenses used everyday in courtrooms in this country? It's obvious you didn't, and you won't. I think I know why.

All drugs have potential side effects. Identifying the triggers is important to research, but denying millions of people relief because 1 guy in a million might have a bad reaction isn't the free market solution.

The numbers are MUCH higher than 1in a 1,000,000, but since any research whatsoever on this subject is above you, I'm not going to bother any further with you. Good day.

[angelatc]

That's because THEY ARE BEING USED TO ABSOLVE PEOPLE OF PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY!!!

Well, I think the insanity defense also does that, though.

And I think it's pretty fair to assert that a site that brays ""Antidepressant Nightmares"
while bragging about selectively reprinting stores that appear in the media clearly has an agenda.

The numbers are MUCH higher than 1in a 1,000,000, but since any research whatsoever on this subject is above you, I'm not going to bother any further with you. Good day.

Good day? More like good grief. This illustrates why you can't talk to an ideologue.

But I'd like to know if you can show me that the rate of violence is higher in mentally unstable people who take these drugs than it is in mentally unstable people who don't take these drugs. Because everything I read leads me to this conclusion:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11473500

RESULTS:
A small proportion of patients treated with SSRIs may become akathisic and others may show increases in anxiety in the initial phase of treatment, but no increased susceptibility to aggression or suicidality can be connected with fluoxetine or any other SSRI. In fact SSRI treatment may reduce aggression, probably due to positive effects on the serotonergic dysfunction that is implicated in aggressive behaviour directed towards oneself or others.

CONCLUSION:
In the absence of convincing evidence to link SSRIs causally to violence and suicide, the recent lay media reports are potentially dangerous, unnecessarily increasing the concerns of depressed patients who are prescribed antidepressants.

[coastie]

Well, I think the insanity defense also does that, though.



Good day? More like good grief. This illustrates why you can't talk to an ideologue.

But I'd like to know if you can show me that the rate of violence is higher in mentally unstable people who take these drugs than it is in mentally unstable people who don't take these drugs.

I think part of your problem is your ASSUMING that ONLY people that are "mentally unstable" (that definition is incredibly broad now), are being prescribed these drugs. You're ASSUMING that doctors are prescribing these drugs in "good faith". They are not.

I personally don't have to show you $#@!, others have provided the links the questions you asked(and keep asking). Its not my problem that you refuse to look at the evidence.

[tod evans]

Like what?

Any type of speed.

Some psychedelics, depends on the person.

Weed.

Barbiturates and hypnotics to help sleep.

These SSRI's are the new kid on the block, they're value engineered and frankly scare the crap out of me.

However, the very last thing I would support is government intervention...I'm of the belief that it's government in all it's various incantations, that pushed big-pharm into synthesizing SSRI's in the first place...

[angelatc]

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22395429

RESULTS:The findings indicated a significant negative association between lethal violence (homicide and suicide) and prescription of antidepressants in the Netherlands, indicating that in a period in which the exposure of the Dutch population to antidepressants increased, rates of lethal violence decreased.


CONCLUSIONS:
These data lend no support for an important role of antidepressant use in lethal violence.

[Brian4Liberty]

Like what?

Some guesses:

Coffee? Cocaine? Crack? Meth?

They have known side effects though too.