Cho Seung-Hui is the 9th School Shooter Under Influence of Psychiatric Drugs

[ohio2007]

interesting ( blogger )) article about perscription drugs in the US.



Why another School shooting?
This post was written by marcoz on 18 April, 2007 (11:50) | All News, Breaking News
Cho Seung-Hui is the 9th School Shooter Under Influence of Psychiatric Drugs — Documented to Cause Homicidal Ideation, Suicide, Psychosis, Mania and Hostility

In the wake of the shooting rampage at Virginia Tech by gunman Cho Seung-Hui, state legislators, civic and human rights activists are asking why Congress has failed to investigate the link between psychiatric drugs and school violence, given the high rate of psychiatric drug use by the shooters. According to breaking news from investigators at Virginia Tech, Cho may have taken depression drugs—documented by the Food and Drug Administration to cause suicidal behavior, mania, psychosis, hallucinations, hostility and “homicidal ideation.” Cho Seung-Hui psychiatric drug use is confirmed, it brings the total to 61 killed and 77 wounded by psychiatric drug-induced school shootings.

The Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR), a mental health watchdog that initially discovered the psychiatric drug connection in the Columbine shootings, and first brought the violence and suicidal inducing side effects of antidepressants before the FDA in 1991 (see video) warns that the psycho-pharmaceutical industry will once again try to obscure the violence-inducing nature of psychiatric drugs in order to protect the billions in profit from drug sales. CCHR says that Congress must demand a full investigation into the link between senseless acts of violence and psychiatric drug use in the wake of recent FDA warnings on the documented drug risks.

{snip}
http://www.bloggernews.net/16106

[jpgray]

1. Interesting. But is it correlation rather than causation?

Presumably someone mentally unbalanced enough to shoot up a school would have psychiatric problems worthy of medication.

[karlrschneider]

10. Reminds me of the old psychiatrist "joke"

Two shrinks were chatting. One said "all of my homosexual patients have mental problems."

The other replied "So do all my heterosexual ones."

[jpgray]

15. Ha! That's a good way to describe it

[EFerrari]

2. The connection isn't to medication but to sloppy monitoring of medication.

Baby, bathwater.

[slackmaster]

7. Yes, this is exactly the problem

Many people lead very normal lives on psych meds. A lot of conditions are treatable. Some people do not respond well no matter how well they are monitored, but most can get some degree of relief.

[EFerrari]

21. At several points, they had my ex on a bad cocktail and he had

symptoms you'd have to have BLINDERS on not to notice. Jaw clamping shut, shaking, all kinds of stuff. Weight gain, loss, inability to hold a fricken conversation.

And, none of his health care providers were evil. They were stressed out, underfunded, understaffed and lord knows what else. Most of them were very good at their jobs but, how good can you be under those conditions? It's like trying to do surgery on a dusty Walmart counter with a kitchen sponge and a spatula.

And he was 100% cooperative.



Oh, man. We have to do better than this.

[LSK]

16. or more to the point, the extreme profits that go with pushing medications

[EFerrari]

23. Well, my experience is that doctors who write scripts don't then monitor

the effect of that drug on that brain.

Some people need drugs to correct what their brains do to them. I do get it about Big Pharma but my own experience is mostly with people who do need some kind of intervention that is botched by insufficient monitoring.

Big Pharma can go f*ck itself and there are people who need that kind of support but who don't get it.

Prescribing a drug for someone isn't the end all. You can't just throw a pill at someone like throwing a steak at a dog. You have to track and tweak and adjust those meds, over and over and over. Most people don't have access to a doctor who can/will do that.

[sandnsea]

Diagnosis too

Don't you think? I don't think GP type doctors should ever be allowed to prescribe psychiatric drugs, but psychiatrists don't always get the diagnosis right either. We need some serious huge mega attention to the mental health field on all fronts.

Also, it's possible the managed care people refused to cover, which is a whole other layer to this problem.

[EFerrari]

33. First doc Doug went to was a fancy guy with 11 books to his name

in a ritzy district here. Doug was looking for the best.

That doc never tested him. He threw pills at him and then GOT MAD when Doug didn't do well.
His fee, which we paid in cash, was grocery money for a family of four for a week.

Imho, the problem is much more grave than what insurance will cover. It is the care that is available to anyone, no matter their resources. There is a severe lack of professional standards.

I don't mean to be an alarmist. That was just our experience.

[sandnsea]

39. I agree completely

I've gone through this with my step-son and brother. My husband was a CDA counselor in Montana so we knew all the facilities and many of the professionals as well. Some are good at what they do, some aren't. How much they're paid has nothing to do with it.

The addendum about insurance was because I had to fight a managed care company to pay for my step-son's treatment - they didn't want to cover anything because he wasn't "motivated" for treatment. Since when are people in the middle of a psychotic snap "motivated" for treatment. Good grief. Every time one of these murder incidents happens, I am so glad I just kept begging and pleading and yelling and screaming. He was mad at me for years, but he's doing well today and we're pretty good friends. Wish it could turn out that way for everybody - although I know life is never predictable. I'm just glad he was in a safe environment to grow up and cope with the information the professionals were trying to give him.

[EFerrari]

41. If it were only money, well, the problem would be much simpler.

Good wishes to you and yours, sandnsea.

/oops

[moc]

29. Bingo. Or prescription of the wrong medication.

GPs shouldn't be dispensing psychotropics, imo.

[EFerrari]

38. Well, we had the arguably best shrink in town prescribe something

that just didn't work. And Doug decompensated. That means: all the stuff he did to try to have a life buckled and collapsed when his brain chemistry was upset.

It wasn't his decision. It wasn't his fault. It wasn't a defect of character. It was like a big effen rash ON HIS BRAIN.

Prescribing seems to me, anyway, to be much more art than science. And, no, I'm not at all comfortable knowing that.

But, in our case, I began to know that prescribing isn't something that just happens once. It's a lifelong process and requires a lifelong level of commitment because some drugs stop working or your chemistry keeps changing or so many factors.

So: IT'S NOT ENOUGH FOR SOMEONE TO GO GET A PRESCRIPTION ONE TIME. THEY ARE MAKING A LIFELONG COMMITMENT AND THEY NEED SUPPORT TO KEEP THAT UP. OH, AND SO DOES THEIR DOCTOR, WHO NEEDS TO COMMIT TO MONITORING THEM FOR LIFE.

[kestrel91316]

3. Methinks he was plenty crazy enough to do the killing all on his own.

I don't blame the drugs for the violence, I blame the disease. Mental illness is a leading cause of violence.

Do you have PROOF he was on any meds??

[KittyWampus]

9. his roomates saw him take his meds.

[EFerrari]

24. And? Proper medication enabled my ex to have something like

a normal life.

[Cetacea]

40. He is in the minority.

But that is great that he is doing well.

[EFerrari]

43. Do you have a source for that? Because it seems to me

a very serious thing to put people off trying to balance their chemisty.

[Cetacea]

60. Yes, there are many sources.

The problem is mostly in the side effects, and this is well documented.
I am not discouraging anyone from taking medications. I do encourage people who are going from regimine to regimine without success to do research and find better meds that are being downplayed because they are cheap, or older.

[Cetacea]

62. Here ya go.

http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news04/2007/01/antidepre...


Just one of many, mind you. And again, I am happy for you that your husband is having success with his particular protocol.

[EFerrari]

72. Well, I have no idea if my exhusband is stable today or not.

But, this study is for only for second generation antidepressants and it says that 54% of consumers experienced partial abatement.

I agree though, that treating a psych condition with medications is an ongoing process that most people, including most doctors, don't pay enough attention to. It's not like buying soda at a vending machine.

[nashville_brook]

64. so like, people who are treated effectively for mental health are the minority

whooboy.

[Cetacea]

68. Effectively. Define effectively.

Do the research, whooboy.

[KittyWampus]

80. And proper medication enables my 2 paranoid schizophrenic brothers to have an almost normal life

I just answered Kestral's question.

[kestrel91316]

76. I read where they saw him APPLY HIS ACNE MEDS TO HIS SKIN. Can

you cite a link to a reputable source that says he was actually on psych meds?

I happen to think, even if such had been prescribed for him, this dude was like most unsupervised delusional types and wouldn't have taken them.

[KittyWampus]

79. Nope, just read in NYTimes yesterday they saw him take meds. No specification

I just posted info that was written yesterday.

BTW, I have 2 brothers diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic. One must go to a hospital weekly for a shot of anti-psychotics and the other lives at home is is of the sort who will stop taking his meds if not supervised.

Just saying, DU'ers get really snotty when it comes to discussing medical topics and make all kinds of prejudgements about my posts related to this topic.

[Cetacea]

35. You've bought right into the Prison Industry Paradigm.

Mental Illness is NOT the leading cause of violence. Violent people are.
And you are oblivious to the fact that drug firms such as Lily covered up the fact that Prozac induced violence in studies BEFORE it was approved by the FDA.

[kestrel91316]

77. Don't presume to lecture me on mental illness. As a family member of a schizophrenic,

I am intimately familiar with mental illness and its effect on society.

Why are you yapping on about Prozac? Schizophrenia predates Prozac by millennia, I would imagine.

[OPERATIONMINDCRIME]

4. What Total Malarkey.

No. The drugs didn't cause him to do this. You want that to be the case so that you have some other pet issue you can rally outrage toward, but that desire does not make this legitimate. Medications help millions of people and with proper use do not cause people who otherwise wouldn't partake in such things to go out and slaughter 32 people. To put forth such a premise is laughable.

[jpgray]

6. Well, it would be worth it to look at the evidence of increased suicidal tendencies, etc.

I don't think potential side effects from such drugs should be totally dismissed, given our general lack of understanding in most aspects of neurology.

[OPERATIONMINDCRIME]

17. Hey, At The Same Time Look Into His Shoes Please. They May Have Been Uncomfortable.

Ever have uncomfortable shoes? God they can make one cranky. Seriously. We should look into this angle for sake of due diligence.

[jpgray]

19. As I said elsewhere, it's futile to tie down such extreme behavior to a single cause

But it's worth looking at potential similarities in these cases.

[Bluerthanblue]

45. one thing you might want to consider-

if a person is deeply depressed, sometimes they don't have the energy to act on the hopelessness.
If you alieviate the depression somewhat, they may have enough ...gumption... to take the action which was "too much effort" before.

I think if you look at the statistics, most people kill themselves as they 'appear' to be getting life back in control-

so, it would not be surprising that people who are being treated for depression, would also be people who 'did' things- ?? not sure if this is making sense.

[rinsd]

14. Its a Scientology propaganda outfit

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_Commission_on_Hum...

[Orsino]

50. And there you go.

"Once prescribed" equated to "under the influence." If this shooter turns out to have needed some medication, but not to have been taking it, will their tune change? No.

[MonkeyFunk]

57. Yep

glad you noted that. I was about to.


How many people DIDN'T go on rampages because of psychiatric treatment?

This is pure scientology bullshit (but that's redundant).

[BeHereNow]

27. Tell the UK that it is "malarkey." They have BANNED these drugs for people under 18 BECAUSE

of the well documented cases, covered up here in the US, of
suicidal and homicidal ideations related to the drugs.
BHN

[Cetacea]

36. Bingo.

Lily's cover up regarding Prozac is fairly well known.

[sandnsea]

30. Oh gosh, not malarkey at all

The acne medication is known to cause violence in teens. Most anti-depressants are known to cause violence if stopped too quickly. Go read the warnings on some of these medications before you make a statement like that. People need better monitoring. We should not be handing this stuff out like aspirin. They can save lives for sure - but they can cause tragedy too.

[kiahzero]

44. The Scientology source is bogus, but there is peer-reviewed science here.

http://medicine.plosjournals.org/perlserv/?request=get-...

Our main finding is that unselected sets of placebo-controlled trials of antidepressants show evidence for an increased relative risk of aggressive behaviours on treatment, although such outcomes apply to only a small subset of patients.

[Lex]

5. Psychotic people are often on anti-psychotic drugs.

nt

[karlrschneider]

12. That might cause some to wonder if they work.

...?...

[Cetacea]

61. Well, some of the side effects are...psychosis.

Seriously.

[EFerrari]

75. There are different kinds of ant psychotic drugs and all of them

don't work for all people who could use one of them. They also can work to a degree and sometimes in combination with other kinds of medication for co-occurring conditions like anxiety or depression.

The thing is, most of them are sedating and many doctors take sedation to mean improvement and they don't push further to find out if their patient is actually better or not.

And, in all the years I lived with someone who had episodes, no medical practitioner suggested that we learn crisis prediction, containment or diffusion. Ain't that NUTS? And no practitioner informed us that stress management could reduce the number or intensity of those episodes. That's NUTS, too.

[hlthe2b]

8. I don't know that they have confirmed that he was on psych

drugs, as yet.... This seems a bit speculative at best...

[rinsd]

11. Umm the CCHR is a SCIENTOLOGY Org

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_Commission_on_Hum...

Its a bogus watchdog group that is against psychiatry in general.

[jpgray]

13. Well that changes things--I wouldn't trust that as a source

Are the basic facts about the killers taking such meds correct?

[rinsd]

18. Possible but I doubt it.

[LostinVA]

42. I wouldn't trust this source on anything, JP

[Puregonzo1188]

20. Citizens Commission on Human Rights is Scientologist group (n/t)

[Berry Cool]

22. Interesting.

And a lot of people don't understand psychiatric drugs. They think, for example, that SSRIs are "happy pills"--that you take them and you instantly become happy, forget all your troubles, and no longer feel unhappy about things that a normal person would feel unhappy about and be EXPECTED to be unhappy about or not be very human. That's not how they work.

This is not as simple a situation as "Blame it on the drugs." You might as well say that a killer who smoked pot before he went out and killed people did it because he was a pot smoker.

[rox63]

25. Psych drugs have saved my life and lots of other lives n/t

[BeHereNow]

26. Two words: Andrea Yates

Her husband tried to bring the medication issue to light
in reference to her killing their children.
It was completely covered up, the fact that she was
prescribed a KNOWN contra-indicated drug by her
doctor just hours before she murdered her children
The pharmacy did not catch the dangerous prescription
combination and as a result, five children were dead
only hours later.
Not a fucking peep about it in the media.
BHN

[Berry Cool]

28. She was another story.

She had postpartum disorder. Whether she was on meds or not, without some sort of intervention, what she did may have been horribly inevitable.

[LostinVA]

32. Correct -- the pregnancies caused it, not the meds

Her husband was just CYAing.

[HuffleClaw]

31. $cientology propaganda

as usual they JUMP to exploit a tragedy.

[jberryhill]

34. Joe-Bob Nobody is the 8 millionth non-shooter also taking psych meds

It was the dry cleaning fumes.

That, combined with irradiated genetically-modified food and cell phone use.

[Bluerthanblue]

37. no, it was his penis

being male is far more of a "contributing factor" in mass killing sprees such as this.

(i'm only partly joking)

[KitchenWitch]

47. not his penis, but his testes

I am also only partially joking.

[ecstatic]

46. Would he have been better off with no meds at all?

Or perhaps, if he had not taken any meds at all, he would have displayed behavior so disturbing to the point where he would have been institutionalized long before snapping?

[EFerrari]

48. Isn't that what he just did?

Meds that aren't properly monitored are like no meds at all.

[Daedelus76]

49. Citizens Commision on Human Rights is linked to Scientology

And Scientology is an anti-psychiatric mind-control cult.

It's not surprising so many school shooters have taken psychiatric drugs. Millions of Americans have, too, and they haven't gone on shooting rampages.

The truth is antidepressants don't always work, for one reason or another. Or sometimes, the people have problems beyond simply depression, such as anxiety or impulsiveness, that a single medication cannot effectively treat. That's hardly a reason to blame the drugs for things like school shootings.

[Pachamama]

70. True about this Scientology group's position, but that doesn't mean that there isn't a real issue

and concern about the effect of psychiatric drugs. I think there are some really serious problems with what I would personally describe as the overprescribing of medications and often to people who have perhaps been misdiagnosed, and then the actual physical effects on the people taking them.

I have seen sadly enough in a few cases the effects in my own life. I have a family member who was suffering from depression, was prescribed a bunch of medication, among them Paxil, and then he tried to kill himself. Thankfully, he didn't succeed and is okay now, but this is someone who was never suicidal and there is no question now that the Paxil and drugs he was taking led to his suicide attempt. There have also been numerous documented cases and investigations in to other cases like his as it relates to Paxil and other drugs. Also, locally where I live, there have been two cases of some kids who committed suicide after taking psychiatric drugs for depression. Granted, what makes a drug lead some people to be more suicidal, can also have a different effect on someone who instead of committing suicide, will instead be led to committing an act of violence.

I think that there are serious, serious reasons to investigate these things further, and this has nothing to do with Scientology and their beliefs.

[WinkyDink]

51. What is the reluctance to think Big Pharma might be selling us BAD DRUGS??

Anti-depressant mandated warnings:
http://www.webmd.com/depression/news/20041015/fda-order...

[LeftCoast]

81. It's called Evidence Based Practice

Medicine today is based on this principle. When evidence surfaces of a problem with a medication, it's taken care of. Tried to get a prescription for Viox lately?

[Kelly Rupert]

88. They're called double-blind, randomized control trials. n/t

[Sparkly]

52. "psychiatric drug-induced school shootings"

That cause-effect is NOT a given!!

There are plenty of people who'd be far more dangerous to themselves and/or others without their psychoactive medications.

I think automatically blaming the medications is a dangerous, irresponsible reaction.

[librechik]

53. Is there any evidence he was on the drugs?

It seems possible, but I haven't heard any confirmation on that fact as yet. In fact the feds claim to have a list of those users, and Cho isn't on it.

[Berry Cool]

54. I just saw a thread pointing to a news story that mentioned that he used "acne medicine"

and posters were jumping all over it! "There! He did it because he went crazy from using ACCUTANE!!"

Nowhere did it even say he was using Accutane. "Acne medicine"? Could be Stridex, for Pete's sake! But no, we have it all figured out...Accutane drove him nuts.

*sigh*

[LostinVA]

85. Tell me about it

[Geek_Girl]

55. I'd like to see more facts about what medications he was on

I think it's speculative that he was even taking medications. But it is something to think about.

[intheflow]

56. Worth a K&R.

Not sure if it's the meds themeselves or the dosage, but it certainly points to a failure of medicine somewhere on down the line.

[MonkeyFunk]

58. I'm not really interested

in what Scientology has to say about this topic.

Their notion that psychiatry is totally evil is just off-the-wall bullshit paranoia.

[AZBlue]

59. Seems to me more like he wasn't on the right drugs or the right amount of drugs.

Or he wasn't taking his drugs. Pick one.

[TacticalPeek]

63. From Harper's Index:

Percentage of American adults in either prisons or mental institutions in 1953 and today, respectively : 0.67, 0.68

Percentage of these adults in 1953 who were in mental institotions : 75

Percentage today who are in prisons : 97


http://harpers.org/archive/2007/04/page/0019

[1932]

65. Perfect storm: over-medicated/go off meds suddenly + easy access to guns + bad healthcare system

[nashville_brook]

66. Scientologist propaganda on the greastest page -- niiiiiice

[PermanentRevolution]

67. The Law Project For Psychiatric Rights

AFAIK, this group is not a Scientology front.

http://psychrights.org/Issues/SSRIViolence/SSRIViolence...

While antidepressants only cause violent or suicidal thoughts in a small percentage of users, there is enough evidence to suggest that they DO cause violent and/or suicidal thoughts. While there is no conclusive evidence that any of the school shootings involving SSRI's would have been prevented if the subjects were NOT on these drugs, there is also no way to prove that they were unrelated.

The question we have to ask is, is it worth the risk of contributing to incidents like this in order to help treat the majority of cases which don't result in violence? I'm not making a judgement one way or another, but it seems that if you defend the use of antidepressant drugs, you must also be willing to accept that their use may provoke violent acts in a small percentage of patients.

[ShortnFiery]

69. It is my understanding that when someone WHO is clinically depressed is first placed

on antidepressants, they begin to re-gain their energy before the chemical changes that lighten their depressive mood state can kick into action (2-3 weeks). This initial time frame is very critical as the patient has enough energy to follow through with suicidal ideation while remaining in the same "low mood state."

The problem is that this young man was placed for only TWO days in psychiatric care during 2005. Further, as there is no hint of follow-up appointments for medication management, whatever psychiatric drugs he may have been prescribed in 2005 were NOT being taken daily through this past Monday.

The vast majority of time, GOOD Psychiatrists schedule both therapy sessions and medication treatment for their FIRST EVENT (Depressive Episode) patients.

IMO, the problem with Cho was that he CHOOSE not to follow through with the Mental Health Treatment offered to him. Unless someone makes threats or poses to be a danger to himself or others, you can not involuntarily FORCE them to either seek counseling/therapy or take psychotropic medications.

Many systems failed this mentally ill man, albeit he is legally culpable for his actions.

[murloc]

71. I wouldnt expect stable people to Psychiatric Drugs

Nor shoot up schools.

I think this is a case of flawed logic.

Maybe Cho didn't have ENOUGH Psychiatric Drugs for his condition?

[Philosoraptor]

73. We've doped our kids for decades by the millions.

I just don't know what to do with Timmy, he's just so hyperactive and uncontrollable, are there any pills we can give him? And some for me too please.

Oh and remember kids, drugs are bad, just say no.

[The Backlash Cometh]

74. Any chance that the military might be using this on our soldiers?

Even, possibly unwittingly? I mean, requirements have gone down, so would we be surprised that they were taking in soldiers with mental health problems?

[BlooInBloo]

78. How do you know it wouldn't have been worse had he not been doped up?

[Kelly Rupert]

82. CCHR is a Scientology outfit. Don't spread this crap. n/t

[camero]

83. Maybe he was misdiagnosed

From the little I've seen, his medication was strictly anti-depressants, and schizoprhenia and psychosis are usually treated with a combination of anti-depressant and anti-psychotic drugs.

[LostinVA]

86. There is zero evidence he was schizophrenic

His actions fit certain disorders much more closely.

[camero]

90. Like Psychosis

Which is also treated with anti-psychotics. My best friend's wife and my half-brother were treated with those drugs and they worked just fine for them. I wasn't saying he was schizophrenic. I was pointing out 2 segments of the population that are treated with those drugs.

[LostinVA]

91. I also don't think he was psychotic

I'm not arguing with you, actually -- sorry! I've seen alot of posts saying he was schizophrenic, when, all the evidence we KNOW, seems to point to certain pathologies instead.

[Kelly Rupert]

84. HOSPITALS CAUSE CANCER

Seriously. The percentage of people who have cancer who are in hospitals is WAY WAY WAY above the national average. HOSPITALS CAUSE CANCER. STAY AWAY FROM HOSPITALS.

[kineneb]

87. I am on anti-depressants and they allow me to function

I don't care what detractors say about psych meds. Some of us must take them to function in the day-to-day world. If I had stop taking the meds, I would have to check myself into a medical facility, because I would soon deteriorate into uselessness and suicidal thinking.

The problem in the US is with poorly treated (or untreated) mental illness, not the meds. Those who have mental health problems must be monitored constantly, and sometimes need to have the medications adjusted. Those in the non-MH world do not understand that mood disorders do not cure themselves or get better with age.


In many ways, organic mental illness is like diabetes: it doesn't go away, the treatment (and therapy) must be ongoing, and medications often need to be adjusted to the patient's changing biology.

[Kelly Rupert]

89. Psych drugs saved my life nt