New Proposed Bill In Congress - Please Support It

You can find the federal bill here http://thomas.loc.gov/ by typing in HR 2387

Parental Consent Act of 2007 (Introduced in House)

110th CONGRESS

1st Session

H. R. 2387

To prohibit the use of Federal funds for any universal or mandatory mental health screening program.

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

May 17, 2007

Mr. PAUL (for himself, Mr. MILLER of Florida, Mr. EVERETT, Mr. BURTON of Indiana, Mrs. BLACKBURN, Mr. HUNTER, Mr. SIMPSON, Mr. MCCOTTER, Mr. NEUGEBAUER, Mr. HENSARLING, Mr. BARTLETT of Maryland, Mr. TANCREDO, and Mr. DOOLITTLE) introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on Energy and Commerce, and in addition to the Committees on Education and Labor and Ways and Means, for a period to be subsequently determined by the Speaker, in each case for consideration of such provisions as fall within the jurisdiction of the committee concerned

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A BILL

To prohibit the use of Federal funds for any universal or mandatory mental health screening program.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

This Act may be cited as the `Parental Consent Act of 2007'.

SEC. 2. FINDINGS.

The Congress finds as follows:

(1) The United States Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) issued findings and recommendations against screening for suicide that corroborate those of the Canadian Preventive Services Task Force. `USPSTF found no evidence that screening for suicide risk reduces suicide attempts or mortality. There is limited evidence on the accuracy of screening tools to identify suicide risk in the primary care setting, including tools to identify those at high risk.'.

(2) The 1999 Surgeon General's report on mental health admitted the serious conflicts in the medical literature regarding the definitions of mental health and mental illness when it said, `In other words, what it means to be mentally healthy is subject to many different interpretations that are rooted in value judgments that may vary across cultures. The challenge of defining mental health has stalled the development of programs to foster mental health (Secker, 1998). . . .'.

(3) A 2005 report by the National Center for Infant and Early Childhood Health Policy admitted, with respect to the psychiatric screening of children from birth to age 5, the following: `We have mentioned a number of the problems for the new field of IMH [Infant Mental Health] throughout this paper, and many of them complicate examining outcomes.'. Briefly, such problems include:

(A) Lack of baseline

(B) Lack of agreement about diagnosis.

(C) Criteria for referrals or acceptance into services are not always well defined.

(D) Lack of longitudinal outcome studies.

(E) Appropriate assessment and treatment requires multiple informants involved with the young child: parents, clinicians, child care staff, preschool staff, medical personnel, and other service providers.

(F) Broad parameters for determining socioemotional outcomes are not clearly defined, although much attention is now being given to school readiness.

(4) Authors of the bible of psychiatric diagnosis, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, admit that the diagnostic criteria for mental illness are vague, saying, `DSM-IV criteria remain a consensus without clear empirical data supporting the number of items required for the diagnosis. . . . Furthermore, the behavioral characteristics specified in DSM-IV, despite efforts to standardize them, remain subjective. . . .' (American Psychiatric Association Committee on the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM-IV 1994), pp. 1162-1163).

(5) Because of the subjectivity of psychiatric diagnosis, it is all too easy for a psychiatrist to label a person's disagreement with the psychiatrist's political beliefs a mental disorder.

(6) Efforts are underway to add a diagnosis of `extreme intolerance' to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual. Prisoners in the California State penal system judged to have this extreme intolerance based on race or sexual orientation are considered to be delusional and are being medicated with anti-psychotic drugs. (Washington Post 12/10/05)

(7) At least one federally-funded school violence prevention program has suggested that a child who shares his or her parent's traditional values may be likely to instigate school violence.

(8) Despite many statements in the popular press and by groups promoting the psychiatric labeling and medication of children, that ADD/ADHD is due to a chemical imbalance in the brain, the 1998 National Institutes of Health Consensus Conference said, `. . . further research is necessary to firmly establish ADHD as a brain disorder. This is not unique to ADHD, but applies as well to most psychiatric disorders, including disabling diseases such as schizophrenia. . . . Although an independent diagnostic test for ADHD does not exist. . . . Finally, after years of clinical research and experience with ADHD, our knowledge about the cause or causes of ADHD remains speculative.'.

(9) There has been a precipitous increase in the prescription rates of psychiatric drugs in children:

(A) The use of antipsychotic medication in children has increased nearly fivefold between 1995 and 2002 with more than 2.5 million children receiving these medications, the youngest being 18 months old. (Vanderbilt University, 2006)

(B) More than 2.2 million children are receiving more than one psychotropic drug at one time with no scientific evidence of safety or effectiveness. (Medco Health Solutions, 2006)

(C) More money was spent on psychiatric drugs for children than on antibiotics or asthma medication in 2003. (Medco Trends, 2004)

(10) A September 2004 Food and Drug Administration hearing found that more than two-thirds of studies of antidepressants given to depressed children showed that they were no more effective than placebo, or sugar pills, and that only the positive trials were published by the pharmaceutical industry. The lack of effectiveness of antidepressants has been known by the Food and Drug Administration since at least 2000 when, according to the Food and Drug Administration Background Comments on Pediatric Depression, Robert Temple of the Food and Drug Administration Office of Drug Evaluation acknowledged the `preponderance of negative studies of antidepressants in pediatric populations'. The Surgeon General's report said of stimulant medication like Ritalin, `However, psychostimulants do not appear to achieve long-term changes in outcomes such as peer relationships, social or academic skills, or school achievement.'.

(11) The Food and Drug Administration finally acknowledged by issuing its most severe Black Box Warnings in September 2004, that the newer antidepressants are related to suicidal thoughts and actions in children and that this data was hidden for years. A confirmatory review of that data published in 2006 by Columbia University's department of psychiatry, which is also the originator of the TeenScreen instrument, found that `in children and adolescents (aged 6-18 years), antidepressant drug treatment was significantly associated with suicide attempts . . . and suicide deaths. . . . '. The Food and Drug Administration had over 2000 reports of completed suicides from 1987 to 1995 for the drug Prozac alone, which by the agency's own calculations represent but a fraction of the suicides. Prozac is the only such drug approved by the Food and Drug Administration for use in children.

(12) Other possible side effects of psychiatric medication used in children include mania, violence, dependence, weight gain, and insomnia from the newer antidepressants; cardiac toxicity including lethal arrhythmias from the older antidepressants; growth suppression, psychosis, and violence from stimulants; and diabetes from the newer anti-psychotic medications.

(13) Parents are already being coerced to put their children on psychiatric medications and some children are dying because of it. Universal or mandatory mental health screening and the accompanying treatments recommended by the President's New Freedom Commission on Mental Health will only increase that problem. Across the country, Patricia Weathers, the Carroll Family, the Johnston Family, and the Salazar Family were all charged or threatened with child abuse charges for refusing or taking their children off of psychiatric medications.

(14) The United States Supreme Court in Pierce versus Society of Sisters (268 U.S. 510 (1925)) held that parents have a right to direct the education and upbringing of their children.

(15) Universal or mandatory mental health screening violates the right of parents to direct and control the upbringing of their children.

(16) Federal funds should never be used to support programs that could lead to the increased over-medication of children, the stigmatization of children and adults as mentally disturbed based on their political or other beliefs, or the violation of the liberty and privacy of Americans by subjecting them to invasive `mental health screening' (the results of which are placed in medical records which are available to government officials and special interests without the patient's consent).

SEC. 3. PROHIBITION AGAINST FEDERAL FUNDING OF UNIVERSAL OR MANDATORY MENTAL HEALTH SCREENING.

(a) Universal or Mandatory Mental Health Screening Program- No Federal funds may be used to establish or implement any universal or mandatory mental health, psychiatric, or socioemotional screening program.

(b) Refusal to Consent as Basis of a Charge of Child Abuse or Education Neglect- No Federal education funds may be paid to any local educational agency or other instrument of government that uses the refusal of a parent or legal guardian to provide express, written, voluntary, informed consent to mental health screening for his or her child as the basis of a charge of child abuse, child neglect, medical neglect, or education neglect until the agency or instrument demonstrates that it is no longer using such refusal as a basis of such a charge.

(c) Definition- For purposes of this Act, the term `universal or mandatory mental health, psychiatric, or socioemotional screening program'--

(1) means any mental health screening program in which a set of individuals (other than members of the Armed Forces or individuals serving a sentence resulting from conviction for a criminal offense) is automatically screened without regard to whether there was a prior indication of a need for mental health treatment; and

(2) includes--

(A) any program of State incentive grants for transformation to implement recommendations in the July 2003 report of the President's New Freedom Commission on Mental Health, the State Early Childhood Comprehensive System, grants for TeenScreen, and the Foundations for Learning Grants; and

(B) any student mental health screening program that allows mental health screening of individuals under 18 years of age without the express, written, voluntary, informed consent of the parent or legal guardian of the individual involved.

It's Not A "Party" Issue

Fox National News exposes the link between psychiatric drugs and school shootings:

Click here to watch 3 min. video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9S-7aNPf33A

Filmmaker Michael Moore calls for a federal investigation into school shooters and psychiatric drugs:

Click here to watch 3 min. video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSZ9YTnSkLc

In September 2005, following confirmation that Red Lake Indian Reservation school shooter, Jeff Weise, was under the influence of the antidepressant Prozac, the National Foundation of Women Legislators called for a Congressional investigation into the
correlation between psychiatric drug use and school massacres.

Congress has yet to investigate the role of psychiatric drugs relating to school shootings despite international drug regulators warning these drugs can cause mania, psychosis, hallucinations, suicide and homicidal ideation.

At least eight of the recent school shooters were under the influence of such drugs, and according to media reports, investigators working on the Virginia Tech school shootings claim Cho Seung-Hui may also have been taking
drugs for "depression."

Click here to send a form letter to your Congressman (and Speaker Pelosi) requesting they act and call for a full investigation.

http://www.democracyinaction.org/dia/organizationsORG/Ablechild/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=11069

Cho Seungo-Hui Toxicology Report

The Governor of Virginia has commissioned an independent "Virginia Tech Incident Review Panel" to review all data regarding the Virginia Tech shooting.

The coroner has yet to release the the toxicology report of the shooter (Cho Seung-Hui). THIS MUST BE DONE. In addition, the panel needs to investigate the link between psychiatric drugs and school shootings.

Investigators reportedly found anti-depression drugs among Cho's belongings -- drugs documented by the Food and Drug Administration to cause suicidal behavior, mania, psychosis, hallucinations, hostility and "homicidal ideation."

If Cho Seung-Hui's psychiatric drug use is confirmed, it would bring the total to 61 killed and 77 wounded by psychiatric drug-induced school shootings. See list of 8 other school shooters (below) and the link to psychiatric drugs.

Please take 2 minutes and click here
http://www.vtreviewpanel.org/CitizenComments/# to send your request that the toxicology report be released and a full investigation be conducted into the link between psychiatric drugs and the school shootings:

Please forward to your friends and family to do the same,

In eight recent school shootings, psychiatric drugs were the common factor, in other instances, the shooter's medical records were never made public and their psychiatric drug use remains in question.

a.. September 28, 2006: Bailey, Colorado: Duane Morrison, 53, entered Platte Canyon High School and shot and killed one girl, and sexually assaulted 6 others. Antidepressants were found in his vehicle.

b.. March 21, 2005: Red Lake Indian Reservation, Minnesota: 16-year-old Native American Jeff Weise was under the influence of the antidepressant Prozac when he shot and killed nine people and wounding five before committing suicide.

c.. April 10, 2001: Wahluke, Washington: 16-year-old Cory Baadsgaard took a rifle to his high school, and held 23 classmates and a teacher hostage while on a high dose of the antidepressant Effexor.

d.. March 22, 2001: El Cajon, California: 18-year-old Jason Hoffman was on two antidepressants, Effexor and Celexa, when he opened fire at his California high school wounding five.

e.. March 7, 2000: Williamsport, Pennsylvania: 14-year-old Elizabeth Bush was on the antidepressant Prozac when she blasted away at fellow students in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, wounding one.

f.. May 20, 1999: Conyers, Georgia: 15-year-old T.J. Solomon was being treated with a mix of antidepressants when he opened fire on and wounded 6 of his classmates.

g.. April 20, 1999: Columbine, Colorado: 18-year-old Eric Harris was on the antidepressant Luvox when he and his partner Dylan Klebold killed 12 classmates and a teacher and wounded 23 others before taking their own lives in the bloodiest school massacre to date. The coroner confirmed that the antidepressant was in his system through toxicology reports while Dylan Klebold's autopsy was never made public.

h.. April 16, 1999: Notus, Idaho: 15-year-old Shawn Cooper fired two shotgun rounds in his school narrowly missing students; he was taking a mix of antidepressants.

i.. May 21, 1998: Springfield, Oregon: 15-year-old Kip Kinkel murdered his own parents and then proceeded to school where he opened fire on students in the cafeteria, killing two and wounding 22. Kinkel had been on Prozac.

Are meds to blame for Cho's rampage?

Experts say psychiatric drugs linked to long list of school shooting sprees.

By Bob Unruh
© 2007 WorldNetDaily.com

Cho Seung-Hui

Cho Seung-Hui's murderous rampage – during which he killed 32 students and faculty members at Virginia Tech – is prompting research into gun laws, resident aliens and graphically violent writings. Investigators also may want to check his medicine cabinet, because psychiatric drugs have been linked to hundreds of violent episodes, including most of the school shootings in the last two decades.

The New York Times has reported the killer was on a prescription medication, and authorities have said he was confined briefly several years ago for a mental episode. They also have confirmed that the "prescription drugs" found among his effects related to the treatment of psychological problems.

Dr. Peter Breggin, a prominent critic of psychiatric drugs and founder of the International Center for the Study of Psychiatry and Psychology, said even if Cho wasn't taking psychiatric drugs the day of the shooting, "he might have been tipped over into violent madness weeks or months earlier by a drug like Prozac, Paxil, or Zoloft."

While media reports have focused on guns and gun laws, Cho's violent writings and autistic behavior at Virginia Tech and the delay in notifying students and faculty of the beginnings of the shootings, there are those who say the focus should be on his medical history.

"In my book 'Reclaiming Our Children,' I analyzed the clinical and scientific reasons for believing that Eric Harris's violence was caused by prescribed Luvox and I've also testified to the same under oath in depositions in a case related to Columbine," Breggin wrote, referring to the 1999 tragedy when Harris and classmate Dylan Klebold shot and bombed students at the Colorado school until a dozen were dead.

"In my book "The Antidepressant Fact Book," I also warned that stopping antidepressants can be as dangerous as starting them, since they can cause very disturbing and painful withdrawal reactions," he added.

The TeenScreenTruth website, dealing with the campaign to "screen" children for "problems" and then prescribe drugs, has documented an extended list of violent episodes believed connected to the use of psychiatric drugs.

They range as far back as 1985, when Atlanta postal worker Steven W. Brownlee, who had been getting psychotropic drugs, pulled a gun and shot and killed a supervisor and a clerk.

Among the specifically school-related attacks the site documents are:

• In 1988, 31-year-old Laurie Dann, who had been taking Anafranil and Lithium, walked into a second-grade classroom in Winnetka, Ill., and began shooting. One child was killed and six wounded.
• Later that same year, 19-year-old James Wilson went on a shooting rampage at the Greenwood, S.C., Elementary School and killed two 8-year-old girls and wounded seven others. He'd been on Xanax, Valium and five other drugs.
• Kip Kinkel, a 15-year-old of Springfield, Ore., in 1998 murdered his parents and proceeded to his high school where he went on a rampage killing two students and wounding 22 others. Kinkel had been prescribed both Prozac and Ritalin.
• Patrick Purdy, 25, in 1989 opened fire on a school yard filled with children in Stockton, Calif. Five kids were killed and 30 wounded. He been treated with Thorazine and Amitriptyline.
• Steve Lieth of Chelsea, Mich., in 1993 walked into a school meeting and shot and killed the school superintendent, wounding two others, while on Prozac.
• 10-year-old Tommy Becton in 1996 grabbed his 3-year-old niece as a shield and aimed a shotgun at a sheriff's deputy who accompanied a truant officer to his Florida home. He'd been put on Prozac.
• Michael Carneal, 14, opened fire on students at a high school prayer meeting in Heath High in West Paducah, Ky. Three died and one was paralyzed. Carneal reportedly was on Ritalin.
• In 1998, 11-year-old Andrew Golden and 14-year-old Mitchell Johnson apparently faked a fire alarm at Westside Middle School in Jonesboro, Ark., and shot at students as they left the building. Four students and a teacher were killed. The boys were believed to be on Ritalin.
• In 1999, Shawn Cooper, 15, of Notus, Idaho, took a shotgun to school and injured one student. He had been taking Ritalin.
• April 20, 1999, Eric Harris, 18, and Dylan Klebold, 17, shot and killed 12 classmates and a teacher and wounded 24 others. Harris had been taking Luvox.
• Todd Smith walked into as high school in Taber, Alberta, Canada in 1999 with a shotgun and killed one and injured a second student. He has been given a drug after a five-minute phone consultation with a psychiatrist.
• Steven Abrams drove his car into a preschool playground in 1999 in Costa Mesa., Calif., killing two. He was on probation with a requirement to take Lithium.
• In 2000, T.J. Solomon, 15, opened fire at Heritage High School in Conyers, Ga., while on a mix of antidepressants. Six were wounded.
• The same year Seth Trickey of Gibson, Okla., 13, was on a variety of prescriptions when he opened fire on his middle-school class, injuring five.
• Elizabeth Bush, 14, was on Prozac. She shot and wounded another student at Bishop Neumann High in Williamsport, Pa.
• Jason Hoffman, 18, in 2001 was on Effexor and Celexa, both antidepressants, when he wounded two teachers at California's Granite Hills High School.
• In Wahluke, Wash., Cory Baadsgaard, 16, took a rifle to his high schooland held 23 classmates hostage in 2001. He has been taking Paxil and Effexor.
• In Tokyo in 2001, Mamoru Takuma, 37, went into a second-grade classroom and started stabbing students. He killed eight. He had taken 10 times his normal dosage of an antidepressant.
• Duane Morrison, 53, shot and killed a girl at Platte Canyon High School in Colorado in 2006. Antidepressants later were found in his vehicle.
• In 2005, 16-year-old Native American Jeff Weise on the Red Lake Indian Reservation in Minnesota was under the influence of the antidepressant Prozac when he shot and killed nine people and wounding five before committing suicide.

Another case involving a school-age youth – although not at a school – happened in 1986, when 14-year-old Rod Mathews of Canton, Mass., beat a classmate to death with a baseball bat while on Ritalin.

And just a few among the dozens of incidents cited, but not apparently related to schools:

• William Cruse in 1987 was charged with killing six people in Palm Bay, Fla., after taking psychiatric drugs for "several years."
• The same year, Bartley James Dobben killed his two young sons by throwing them into a 1,300-degree foundry ladle. He been on a "regimen" of psychiatric drugs.
• Joseph T. WesBecker, 47, just a month after he began taking Prozac, shot 20 workers at Standard Gravure Corp. in Louisville, Ky., killing nine. Eli Lilly, which makes Prozac, later settled a lawsuit brought by survivors.
• In 1991, 61-year-old Barbara Mortenson, on Prozac for two weeks, "cannibalized her 87-year-old mother …"
• In 1992, Lynnwood Drake III, shot and killed six in San Luis Obispo and Morro Bay. Prozac and Valium were found in his system.
• Sixteen-year-old Victor Brancaccio attacked and killed an 81-year-old woman, covered her corpse with red spray-paint. He was two months into a Zoloft regimen.
• While on four medications including Prozac, Dr. Debora Green in 1995 set her Prairie Village, Mo., home on fire, killing her children, ages 6 and 13.
• Kurt Danysh, 18, shot and killed his father in 1996, 17 days after his first dose of Prozac. "I didn't realize I did it until after it was done. … This might sound weird, but it felt like I had no control of what I was doing, like I was left there just holding a gun."
• In 1998, GlaxoSmithKline, maker of Paxil, was ordered to pay $6.4 million to surviving family members after Donald Schnell, 60, just 48 hours after taking Paxil, flew into a rage and killed his wife, daughter and granddaughter.

The website also cites psychiatrist Chester M. Pierce, in a speech advocating for the treatment of children and youth.

"Every child in America entering school at the age of five is insane because he comes to school with certain allegiances to our founding fathers, towards our elected officials, towards his parents, towards a belief in a supernatural being, and towards the sovereignty of this nation as a separate entity. It's up to you as teachers to make all these sick children well – by creating the international child of the future," Pierce told a 1973 childhood seminar.

Breggin's conclusion that whatever mental manifestations were causing Cho's dangerous behavior, resulting in a professor asking for him to be removed from her class and two complaints of stalking, there was a solution.

"The answer to vengeful, violent people is not more mental health screening or more potent mental health interventions. Reliance on the whole range of this system from counseling to involuntary treatment failed. There is not a shred of scientific evidence that locking people up against their will or otherwise 'treating' them reduces violence. As we'll see, quite the opposite is true," he wrote. "So what was needed? Police intervention."

He wrote that "it's not politically correct to bring criminal charges against someone who is 'mentally ill' and it's not politically correct to prosecute him or to remove him from the campus. Yet that's what was needed to protect the students. Two known episodes of stalking, setting a fire, and his threatening behavior in class should have been more than enough for the university administration to bring charges against him and to send him off campus."

He continued with a warning, "And what about drugs for the treatment of violence? The FDA has not approved any medications for the control of violence because there are no such medications. Yes, it is possible to temporarily immobilize mind and body alike with a shot of an 'antipsychotic' drug like Haldol; but that only works as long as the person is virtually paralyzed and confined – and forced drugging invariably breeds more resentment.

"Instead of offering the promise of reducing violence, all psychiatric drugs carry the potential risk of driving the individual into violent madness. For example, both the newer antidepressants such as Prozac, Paxil, Zoloft and Celexa, and the antipsychotic drugs such as Risperdal and Zyprexa, cause a disorder caused akathisia – a terrible inner sensation of agitation accompanied by a compulsion to move about. Akathisia is known to drive people to suicide and to aggression."

He said he's been writing for more than 15 years about the capacity for psychiatric drugs to cause mayhem, murder and suicide, but it wasn't until 2005 when the FDA issued a warning that such drugs produce "anxiety, agitation, panic attacks …"

He said in the Columbine case, Harris "looks the most like Cho. Both were very emotionally disturbed in an extremely violent fashion for a prolonged period of time."

Carolyn Rude, chairwoman of Virginia Tech's English department, said Cho's writings were so disturbing he was referred to the school's counselors.

"Sometimes, in creative writing, people reveal things and you never know if it's creative or if they're describing things, if they're imagining things or just how real it might be," she said. "But we're all alert to not ignore things like this."

In a statement posted on the TeenScreen opposition site, Sidney Taurel of Eli Lilly noted that it would be "unreasonable" to expect "that there is such a thing as a risk-free drug."

Another website concerning the psychiatric drugs, called RitalinDeath, also documents some of these cases, as well as additional ones.

Dr. John Breeding concluded in a report shortly after Columbine that there were about five million school children now being given psychiatric drugs, and the number had been doubling every 10 years since the 1970s.

"This has got to be a cause for major alarm in all adults," he said. "The bottom line is that we are giving stronger and stronger psychiatric drugs to more and more children. Many of our children are taking more than one of these drugs at a time, and many of these drugs were never even tested and approved for children."

Top Psychiatrists Admit Their Profession is Compromised

Mental Health Watchdog Group Says Psychiatric Industry Will Implode

While evidence of the inherent problems within the psychiatric industry mounts, leading psychiatrists are beginning to concede the undue influence pharmaceuticals have on their field. Recent national media attention on unscientific diagnoses, patient deaths and conflicts of interest with drug companies has riddled the mental health field with sharp, public criticism.

Steven Sharfstein, former president of the American Psychiatric Association, admitted in a front-page New York Times (NYT) article Thursday that psychiatrists have become too cozy with drug makers. The Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR) says that even this admission by a high-ranking psychiatrist is a substantial understatement. “The horrible consequences of pushing dangerous drugs on unsuspecting patients by psychiatric vested interests to treat invented ‘disorders’ will cause the industry to implode,” said Bruce Wiseman, President of CCHR for the U.S.

Sharfstein’s comment follows similar statements this week by other top psychiatrists:

· Daniel J. Carlat, an assistant clinical professor of psychiatry at Tufts University, told the Boston Globe on Monday, “Our [psychiatric] field as a whole is progressively being purchased lock, stock, and barrel by the drug companies: this includes the diagnoses, the treatment guidelines, and the national meetings."

· Steven E. Hyman, former director of the National Institute of Mental Health and provost of Harvard University, stated, “There’s an irony that psychiatrists ask patients to have insights into themselves, but we don’t connect the wires in our own lives about how money is affecting our profession and putting our patients at risk.”

Figures from a NYT analysis of drug company payments to psychiatrists in Minnesota (the only state which requires these records to be made public) reveal that drug company money guides psychiatric diagnoses as well as drug prescriptions, and that psychiatrists are the most financially compromised medical profession. This analysis found, for example, that between 2000 and 2005, payments to Minnesota psychiatrists by pharmaceutical companies increased more than six fold, to $1.6 million. Correspondingly, antipsychotic prescriptions for children increased more than nine fold.

Psychotropic drugs, including powerful antipsychotics, are prescribed to 10 million children, although the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) warns that the drugs cause mania, psychosis, suicidal thoughts and behaviors, homicidal ideation, heart attack, stroke and sudden death. A USA Today study of adverse events reported to the FDA between 2000-2004 found at least 45 child deaths in which antipsychotics were listed as the "primary suspect," in addition to 1,328 reports of serious, even life-threatening, side effects. More recently, in 2006, the FDA received reports of at least 29 child deaths linked to these drugs, and another 165 serious side effects.

CCHR warns that psychiatrists are prescribing these potentially deadly, mind-altering drugs based on diagnoses that cannot be confirmed with any objective physical tests. In other words, the “disorders” are just psychiatric “opinion” listed in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), and billions of dollars are being made off of this fraudulent “science” while patients are put at serious risk.

“No blood tests exist for the disorders in the DSM. It relies on judgments from practitioners who rely on the manual,” said Lisa Cosgrove of the University of Massachusetts Boston. Cosgrove was the co-researcher in a 2006 study published in the journal Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics, which found that a majority (56%) of the panel members responsible for revisions to psychiatry’s billing bible, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), had one or more financial ties to drug companies.

Due to the lack of physical evidence to prove the existence of any mental disorder, there have been increasing challenges to the psychiatric diagnoses themselves. Two studies have come out recently, one in the U.S. and one in the UK, which found that large numbers of people are erroneously being classified with a mental disorder—one study admits a 60% misdiagnosis rate, the other 25%. People suffering from normal emotions such as sadness, divorce, rejection and economic misfortune are diagnosed with “depression” after answering simplistic questions.

NY Times: Psychs Paid By Drug Companies To Prescribe Drugs

Fabrizio Costantini for The New York Times

Anya Bailey is among a growing number of children given antipsychotic drugs by doctors who are paid by the makers of those drugs.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/10/health/10psyche.html?pagewanted=1&ei=5089&en=027f7584ba3fc3c4&ex=1336449600&partner=rssyahoo&emc=rss

The New York Times

Psychiatrists, Children and Drug Industry’s Role

By GARDINER HARRIS, BENEDICT CAREY and JANET ROBERTS

May 10, 2007

When Anya Bailey developed an eating disorder after her 12th birthday, her mother took her to a psychiatrist at the University of Minnesota who prescribed a powerful antipsychotic drug called Risperdal.

Created for schizophrenia, Risperdal is not approved to treat eating disorders, but increased appetite is a common side effect and doctors may prescribe drugs as they see fit. Anya gained weight but within two years developed a crippling knot in her back. She now receives regular injections of Botox to unclench her back muscles. She often awakens crying in pain.

Isabella Bailey, Anya’s mother, said she had no idea that children might be especially susceptible to Risperdal’s side effects. Nor did she know that Risperdal and similar medicines were not approved at the time to treat children, or that medical trials often cited to justify the use of such drugs had as few as eight children taking the drug by the end.

Just as surprising, Ms. Bailey said, was learning that the university psychiatrist who supervised Anya’s care received more than $7,000 from 2003 to 2004 from Johnson & Johnson, Risperdal’s maker, in return for lectures about one of the company’s drugs.

Doctors, including Anya Bailey’s, maintain that payments from drug companies do not influence what they prescribe for patients.

But the intersection of money and medicine, and its effect on the well-being of patients, has become one of the most contentious issues in health care. Nowhere is that more true than in psychiatry, where increasing payments to doctors have coincided with the growing use in children of a relatively new class of drugs known as atypical antipsychotics.

These best-selling drugs, including Risperdal, Seroquel, Zyprexa, Abilify and Geodon, are now being prescribed to more than half a million children in the United States to help parents deal with behavior problems despite profound risks and almost no approved uses for minors.

A New York Times analysis of records in Minnesota, the only state that requires public reports of all drug company marketing payments to doctors, provides rare documentation of how financial relationships between doctors and drug makers correspond to the growing use of atypicals in children.

From 2000 to 2005, drug maker payments to Minnesota psychiatrists rose more than sixfold, to $1.6 million. During those same years, prescriptions of antipsychotics for children in Minnesota’s Medicaid program rose more than ninefold.

Those who took the most money from makers of atypicals tended to prescribe the drugs to children the most often, the data suggest. On average, Minnesota psychiatrists who received at least $5,000 from atypical makers from 2000 to 2005 appear to have written three times as many atypical prescriptions for children as psychiatrists who received less or no money.

The Times analysis focused on prescriptions written for about one-third of Minnesota’s Medicaid population, almost all of whom are disabled. Some doctors were misidentified by pharmacists, but the information provides a rough guide to prescribing patterns in the state.

Drug makers underwrite decision makers at every level of care. They pay doctors who prescribe and recommend drugs, teach about the underlying diseases, perform studies and write guidelines that other doctors often feel bound to follow.

But studies present strong evidence that financial interests can affect decisions, often without people knowing it.

In Minnesota, psychiatrists collected more money from drug makers from 2000 to 2005 than doctors in any other specialty. Total payments to individual psychiatrists ranged from $51 to more than $689,000, with a median of $1,750. Since the records are incomplete, these figures probably underestimate doctors’ actual incomes.

Such payments could encourage psychiatrists to use drugs in ways that endanger patients’ physical health, said Dr. Steven E. Hyman, the provost of Harvard University and former director of the National Institute of Mental Health. The growing use of atypicals in children is the most troubling example of this, Dr. Hyman said.

“There’s an irony that psychiatrists ask patients to have insights into themselves, but we don’t connect the wires in our own lives about how money is affecting our profession and putting our patients at risk,” he said.

The Prescription

Anya Bailey is a 15-year-old high school freshman from East Grand Forks, Minn., with pictures of the actor Chad Michael Murray on her bedroom wall. She has constant discomfort in her neck that leads her to twist it in a birdlike fashion. Last year, a boy mimicked her in the lunch room.

“The first time, I laughed it off,” Anya said. “I said: ‘That’s so funny. I think I’ll laugh with you.’ Then it got annoying, and I decided to hide it. I don’t want to be made fun of.”

Now she slumps when seated at school to pressure her clenched muscles, she said.

It all began in 2003 when Anya became dangerously thin. “Nothing tasted good to her,” Ms. Bailey said.

Psychiatrists at the University of Minnesota, overseen by Dr. George M. Realmuto, settled on Risperdal, not for its calming effects but for its normally unwelcome side effect of increasing appetite and weight gain, Ms. Bailey said. Anya had other issues that may have recommended Risperdal to doctors, including occasional angry outbursts and having twice heard voices over the previous five years, Ms. Bailey said.

Fabrizio Costantini for The New York Times

Anya Bailey has a painful nerve condition called dystonia, in which the muscles in her back clench as a result of taking an antipsychotic drug.

Fabrizio Costantini for The New York Times

Anya Bailey with her younger sister, Melanie, and her mother, Isabella.

Dr. Realmuto said he did not remember Anya’s case, but speaking generally he defended his unapproved use of Risperdal to counter an eating disorder despite the drug’s risks. “When things are dangerous, you use extraordinary measures,” he said.

Ten years ago, Dr. Realmuto helped conduct a study of Concerta, an attention deficit hyperactivity disorder drug marketed by Johnson & Johnson, which also makes Risperdal. When Concerta was approved, the company hired him to lecture about it.

He said he gives marketing lectures for several reasons.

“To the extent that a drug is useful, I want to be seen as a leader in my specialty and that I was involved in a scientific study,” he said.

The money is nice, too, he said. Dr. Realmuto’s university salary is $196,310.

“Academics don’t get paid very much,” he said. “If I was an entertainer, I think I would certainly do a lot better.”

In 2003, the year Anya came to his clinic, Dr. Realmuto earned $5,000 from Johnson & Johnson for giving three talks about Concerta. Dr. Realmuto said he could understand someone’s worrying that his Concerta lecture fees would influence him to prescribe Concerta but not a different drug from the same company, like Risperdal.

In general, he conceded, his relationship with a drug company might prompt him to try a drug. Whether he continued to use it, though, would depend entirely on the results.

As the interview continued, Dr. Realmuto said that upon reflection his payments from drug companies had probably opened his door to useless visits from a drug salesman, and he said he would stop giving sponsored lectures in the future.

Kara Russell, a Johnson & Johnson spokeswoman, said that the company selects speakers who have used the drug in patients and have either undertaken research or are aware of the studies. “Dr. Realmuto met these criteria,” Ms. Russell said.

When asked whether these payments may influence doctors’ prescribing habits, Ms. Russell said that the talks “provide an educational opportunity for physicians.”

No one has proved that psychiatrists prescribe atypicals to children because of drug company payments. Indeed, some who frequently prescribe the drugs to children earn no drug industry money. And nearly all psychiatrists who accept payments say they remain independent. Some say they prescribed and extolled the benefits of such drugs before ever receiving payments to speak to other doctors about them.

“If someone takes the point of view that your doctor can be bought, why would you go to an E. R. with your injured child and say, ‘Can you help me?’ ” said Dr. Suzanne A. Albrecht, a psychiatrist from Edina, Minn., who earned more than $188,000 from 2002 to 2005 giving drug marketing talks.

The Industry Campaign

It is illegal for drug makers to pay doctors directly to prescribe specific products. Federal rules also bar manufacturers from promoting unapproved, or off-label, uses for drugs.

But doctors are free to prescribe as they see fit, and drug companies can sidestep marketing prohibitions by paying doctors to give lectures in which, if asked, they may discuss unapproved uses.

The drug industry and many doctors say that these promotional lectures provide the field with invaluable education. Critics say the payments and lectures, often at expensive restaurants, are disguised kickbacks that encourage potentially dangerous drug uses. The issue is particularly important in psychiatry, because mental problems are not well understood, treatment often involves trial and error, and off-label prescribing is common.

The analysis of Minnesota records shows that from 1997 through 2005, more than a third of Minnesota’s licensed psychiatrists took money from drug makers, including the last eight presidents of the Minnesota Psychiatric Society.

The psychiatrist receiving the most from drug companies was Dr. Annette M. Smick, who lives outside Rochester, Minn., and was paid more than $689,000 by drug makers from 1998 to 2004. At one point Dr. Smick was doing so many sponsored talks that “it was hard for me to find time to see patients in my clinical practice,” she said.

“I was providing an educational benefit, and I like teaching,” Dr. Smick said.

Dr. Steven S. Sharfstein, immediate past president of the American Psychiatric Association, said psychiatrists have become too cozy with drug makers. One example of this, he said, involves Lexapro, made by Forest Laboratories, which is now the most widely used antidepressant in the country even though there are cheaper alternatives, including generic versions of Prozac.

“Prozac is just as good if not better, and yet we are migrating to the expensive drug instead of the generics,” Dr. Sharfstein said. “I think it’s the marketing.”

Atypicals have become popular because they can settle almost any extreme behavior, often in minutes, and doctors have few other answers for desperate families.

Their growing use in children is closely tied to the increasingly common and controversial diagnosis of pediatric bipolar disorder, a mood problem marked by aggravation, euphoria, depression and, in some cases, violent outbursts. The drugs, sometimes called major tranquilizers, act by numbing brain cells to surges of dopamine, a chemical that has been linked to euphoria and psychotic delusions.

Suzette Scheele of Burnsville, Minn., said her 17-year-old son, Matt, was given a diagnosis of bipolar disorder four years ago because of intense mood swings, and now takes Seroquel and Abilify, which have caused substantial weight gain.

“But I don’t have to worry about his rages; he’s appropriate; he’s pleasant to be around,” Ms. Scheele said.

The sudden popularity of pediatric bipolar diagnosis has coincided with a shift from antidepressants like Prozac to far more expensive atypicals. In 2000, Minnesota spent more than $521,000 buying antipsychotic drugs, most of it on atypicals, for children on Medicaid. In 2005, the cost was more than $7.1 million, a 14-fold increase.

The drugs, which can cost $1,000 to $8,000 for a year’s supply, are huge sellers worldwide. In 2006, Zyprexa, made by Eli Lilly, had $4.36 billion in sales, Risperdal $4.18 billion and Seroquel, made by AstraZeneca, $3.42 billion.

Many Minnesota doctors, including the president of the Minnesota Psychiatric Society, said drug makers and their intermediaries are now paying them almost exclusively to talk about bipolar disorder.

The Diagnoses

Yet childhood bipolar disorder is an increasingly controversial diagnosis. Even doctors who believe it is common disagree about its telltale symptoms. Others suspect it is a fad. And the scientific evidence that atypicals improve these children’s lives is scarce.

One of the first and perhaps most influential studies was financed by AstraZeneca and performed by Dr. Melissa DelBello, a child and adult psychiatrist at the University of Cincinnati.

Dr. DelBello led a research team that tracked for six weeks the moods of 30 adolescents who had received diagnoses of bipolar disorder. Half of the teenagers took Depakote, an antiseizure drug used to treat epilepsy and bipolar disorder in adults. The other half took Seroquel and Depakote.

The two groups did about equally well until the last few days of the study, when those in the Seroquel group scored lower on a standard measure of mania. By then, almost half of the teenagers getting Seroquel had dropped out because they missed appointments or the drugs did not work. Just eight of them completed the trial.

In an interview, Dr. DelBello acknowledged that the study was not conclusive. In the 2002 published paper, however, she and her co-authors reported that Seroquel in combination with Depakote “is more effective for the treatment of adolescent bipolar mania” than Depakote alone.

In 2005, a committee of prominent experts from across the country examined all of the studies of treatment for pediatric bipolar disorder and decided that Dr. DelBello’s was the only study involving atypicals in bipolar children that deserved its highest rating for scientific rigor. The panel concluded that doctors should consider atypicals as a first-line treatment for some children. The guidelines were published in The Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.

Three of the four doctors on the panel served as speakers or consultants to makers of atypicals, according to disclosures in the guidelines. In an interview, Dr. Robert A. Kowatch, a psychiatrist at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital and the lead author of the guidelines, said the drug makers’ support had no influence on the conclusions.

AstraZeneca hired Dr. DelBello and Dr. Kowatch to give sponsored talks. They later undertook another study comparing Seroquel and Depakote in bipolar children and found no difference. Dr. DelBello, who earns $183,500 annually from the University of Cincinnati, would not discuss how much she is paid by AstraZeneca.

“Trust me, I don’t make much,” she said. Drug company payments did not affect her study or her talks, she said. In a recent disclosure, Dr. DelBello said that she received marketing or consulting income from eight drug companies, including all five makers of atypicals.

Dr. Realmuto has heard Dr. DelBello speak several times, and her talks persuaded him to use combinations of Depakote and atypicals in bipolar children, he said. “She’s the leader in terms of doing studies on bipolar,” Dr. Realmuto said.

Some psychiatrists who advocate use of atypicals in children acknowledge that the evidence supporting this use is thin. But they say children should not go untreated simply because scientists have failed to confirm what clinicians already know.

“We don’t have time to wait for them to prove us right,” said Dr. Kent G. Brockmann, a psychiatrist from the Twin Cities who made more than $16,000 from 2003 to 2005 doing drug talks and one-on-one sales meetings, and last year was a leading prescriber of atypicals to Medicaid children.

The Reaction

For Anya Bailey, treatment with an atypical helped her regain her appetite and put on weight, but also heavily sedated her, her mother said. She developed the disabling knot in her back, the result of a nerve condition called dystonia, in 2005.

The reaction was rare but not unknown. Atypicals have side effects that are not easy to predict in any one patient. These include rapid weight gain and blood sugar problems, both risk factors for diabetes; disfiguring tics, dystonia and in rare cases heart attacks and sudden death in the elderly.

In 2006, the Food and Drug Administration received reports of at least 29 children dying and at least 165 more suffering serious side effects in which an antipsychotic was listed as the “primary suspect.” That was a substantial jump from 2000, when there were at least 10 deaths and 85 serious side effects among children linked to the drugs. Since reporting of bad drug effects is mostly voluntary, these numbers likely represent a fraction of the toll.

Jim Minnick, a spokesman for AstraZeneca, said that the company carefully monitors reported problems with Seroquel. “AstraZeneca believes that Seroquel is safe,” Mr. Minnick said.

Other psychiatrists renewed Anya’s prescriptions for Risperdal until Ms. Bailey took Anya last year to the Mayo Clinic, where a doctor insisted that Ms. Bailey stop the drug. Unlike most universities and hospitals, the Mayo Clinic restricts doctors from giving drug marketing lectures.

Ms. Bailey said she wished she had waited to see whether counseling would help Anya before trying drugs. Anya’s weight is now normal without the help of drugs, and her counseling ended in March. An experimental drug, her mother said, has recently helped the pain in her back.

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Convicted Psychiatrist Remained on Federal Payroll for Months: LA Times

Convicted Psychiatrist Remained on Federal Payroll for Months: LA Times

According to the Los Angeles Times Wenesday, psychiatrist Trey Sunderland, a senior researcher at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and “a lasting symbol of the agency’s entanglements with drug companies,” remained on the federal payroll several months after he pleaded guilty to a federal conflict-of-interest charge relating to hundreds of thousands of dollars in payments from pharmaceutical companies. Last December, a U.S. District Judge fined Sunderland $300,000 and sentenced him to two years of supervised probation and 400 hours of community service. Representative Joe L. Barton called the NIH "an ethical Potemkin village [something that appears effective but isn't], where a hollow system appears to provide the illusion of integrity, but transgressors never leave."

The Citizens Commission on Human Rights says that criminality is rife within the mental health system, so much so that it has tracked more than 1,000 convictions of psychiatrists, psychologists and mental health workers and created a database as a public warning. Found at www.psychcrime.org, it was established as a public service to law enforcement agencies, health care fraud investigators, medical and psychological licensing boards and the general public.

The LA Times story follows Massachusetts psychiatrist Daniel J. Carlat’s admission to the Boston Globe this week, stating: “Our [psychiatric] field as a whole is progressively being purchased lock, stock, and barrel by the drug companies: this includes the diagnoses, the treatment guidelines, and the national meetings.”

To read more about conflicts of interest in the mental health field, read CCHR’s publication, Psychiatric Diagnostic Manual Link to Drug Manufacturers.

You can contact CCHR at (800) 869-2247 or email humanrights@cchr.org.

Drug Company Verdict Costs Them More Than Half A Billion

This from the Wall Street Journal. The idea of holding drug company execs and employees responsible for misleading the public just brought a 600 million dollar verdict. Soon we'll see the day when the drug company people responsible for pushing so-called "anti-depressants" that actually cause depression will be indicted for manslaughter.

ROANOKE, Va. -- The maker of the powerful painkiller OxyContin and three of its current and former executives pleaded guilty Thursday to misleading the public about the drug's risk of addiction, a federal prosecutor and the company said.

Purdue Pharma LP and the executives will pay $634.5 million in fines, U.S. Attorney John Brownlee said in the news release.

Earlier this week, Purdue Pharma agreed to pay $19.5 million to 26 states and the District of Columbia to settle complaints over its promotion of the powerful painkiller OxyContin, especially to doctors, the company said.

The states complained the Stamford, Conn., drug maker had been encouraging physicians to prescribe the drug for use every eight hours, instead of the 12-hour dose approved by the Food and Drug Administration. OxyContin is a time-release painkiller that can be highly addictive. Designed to be swallowed whole and digested over 12 hours, the pills can produce a heroin-like high if crushed and then swallowed, snorted or injected.

Time For An Investigation

National FOX TV VIDEO - Click here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GAeABmVOS0s

The psycho/pharmaceutical industry and their minions are shamelessly using the recent Virginia Tech shootings to push for more forced drugging, more involuntary commitment, and more mental health "intervention" . Any rational person must ask why there has not been a federal investigation into psychiatric drugs as they relate to the carnage.

These drugs have been documented by the FDA to cause mania, suicide, psychosis, worsening depression and even homicidal ideation .

If more than 1/2 the shooters were taking PCP or smoking Crack -- there would be an investigation, but those are illegal drugs and do not rake in billions in profit for vested interests.

Why aren't these mental health "experts" asking what drugs Cho Seung-Hui was taking after investigators found "depression medication" in his belongings?

Role of Antidepressants in Killings Needs Review

http://www.modbee.com/local/story/13533556p-14137410c.html

The Modesto Bee

Role of antidepressants in killings needs review

By TY PHILLIPS
April 29, 2007

The murderous rampage that left 33 people dead at Virginia Tech has stirred countless emotions: sadness and anger, fear and hatred, grief and disgust.

When Dr. Ann Blake Tracy heard the details, she felt many of those same emotions. Yet there is one sentiment Tracy does not share with much of the rest of the world: surprise. As terrible as it sounds, after nearly 20 years researching links between violent crime, suicide and antidepressants, Tracy is surprised only that it doesn't happen more often.

Details continue to emerge about the lonely life of killer Seung-Hui Cho, who had a history of mental illness. Among Cho's effects, officials found prescription medications related to the treatment of psychological problems.

Though it's still premature to draw conclusions without toxicology results, these are the details Tracy, an author and the executive director of the International Coalition for Drug Awareness, expected from the moment she heard about the Virginia Tech shootings. In her experience, when it comes to investigating high-profile shootings, antidepressants are as common as the presence of loneliness, despondence and rage.

"I'm just so tired of seeing people die, I could scream," Tracy said during a phone interview. "It's happening daily in this country. It's so massive, it's just unreal. We've got so many school shootings now, I can't even begin to keep up with them all. And the reason is so incredibly obvious. You don't have to look at much to figure it out."

2006, Bailey, Colo. — Duane Morrison shot and killed a girl and sexually assaulted six others. Antidepressants were found in his vehicle.

2005, Red Lake Indian Reservation, Minn. — Jeff Weise shot and killed nine people and wounded five before committing suicide. Prozac.

1998, Springfield, Ore. — Kip Kinkel killed his parents, then went to school and opened fire in the cafeteria, killing two and wounding 22. Prozac.

1989, Stockton — Patrick Purdy used an assault rifle to spray bullets through a playground at Cleveland Elementary School, killing five children and wounding 29 people before he killed himself. Elavil.

'It's all so intertwined'

There are dozens of other examples of violence at schools and the presence of antidepressants, but the carnage hardly is limited to our campuses. Countless families have been destroyed around the world through homicides and suicides committed by adults on antidepressants.

In June 2001, Texan Andrea Yates drowned her five children under the influence of four psychiatric medicines, including Effexor.

In February 2004 in Polk Township, Pa., Samantha Hirt, hours after taking a pill for manic depression, set fire in a bedroom where her two toddlers were playing, closed the door and sat on a sofa watching television while the fire spread, killing both children. Effexor.

Other famous cases include the 1998 deaths of actor Phil Hartman and his wife, a murder/suicide committed by her (Zoloft); the 1999 home and office killing spree by Atlanta day trader Mark Barton (Prozac); the 1998 shooting deaths of four co-workers by Connecticut lottery accountant Matthew Beck, who then killed himself (Luvox); and the 1994 New York City subway bombing by Edward Leary, which injured 48 (Prozac).

The list (which can be found at www.drugawareness.org) encompasses hundreds and hundreds of cases.

"You start linking them together and looking at all the similarities and you say, 'Good grief, it's all so intertwined,'" said Tracy, who has appeared on programs including "20/20," "Dateline" and "60 Minutes" and served as a consultant on high-profile cases including Columbine and Andrea Yates. "I keep asking, 'When is somebody going to see this?' But we've been so brainwashed about drugs, we think legal means safe.

"Most people don't know LSD once was prescribed as a wonder drug. Most people don't know that PCP was considered to have a large margin of safety in humans. Most people don't know ecstasy was prescribed and sold for five years to treat depression. Few know that history of drugs, and I think that's our biggest problem. We're just not educated enough to have concerns."

Prozac nation, indeed

The Northern San Joaquin Valley certainly is not immune. Stanislaus County Coroner Kristi Herr, who has investigated hundreds of the county's 4,000 annual deaths, including many accidental overdoses of prescription medicines, said she regularly goes into homes of deceased people and finds medicine cabinets loaded with prescription medicines. Sometimes there are so many pill bottles that large garbage bags are needed to transport them all.

"It seems to me a large portion of our society is on antidepressants," Herr said. "That isn't based on statistics. That is just based on my experience of going into homes and evaluating the cases that come through here."

In 2003, then-Newman resident Lorraine Slater's 14-year-old daughter, Dominique, killed herself after being treated for depression with several antidepressants, including Celexa and Wellbutrin. As her depression and erratic behavior worsened, her doctor prescribed her a double dose of Effexor. Fifteen days later, she was dead. Her body later was found in the Delta Mendota Canal in Patterson, not far from the family's home.

"On the drug, she became more agitated, combative and restless," Slater said. "And she had never been like that before. It's like our daughter was on LSD. It was a real Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde experience."

Shortly after Dominique's death, the FDA released a warning that one in 50 patients, or 2 percent, will experience an adverse reaction to Effexor, which can include suicidal thoughts.

Slater has become a consumer advocate working to raise awareness of possible dangers of antidepressants. On May 9, she will testify at a hearing at the state Capitol concerning a bill that would require drug companies to disclose results of all clinical trials.

"We're not against medication," Slater said. "We just want disclosure about results from their trials. In their internal memos, marketers are told to downplay the side effects, and a lot of doctors aren't aware of the real dangers.

"We're just saying these companies need to give the citizens they're supposedly trying to help the information about possible symptoms so people can make informed decisions. If their medicine is so good, what is there they have to hide?"

Arguments against link

Of course, the logical argument against tying violent crimes to antidepressants is that there are countless factors that motivate a person to commit a violent act.

And those who carry out these deeds often are people with mental illness, so the presence of antidepressants can be expected. These are solid points; correlation does not in itself mean causation. And there is no doubting that countless people have benefited from these drugs.

Still, as one looks at the details of violent crimes around the country, too often there is an array of antidepressants. At the very least, this is a topic that deserves greater scrutiny.

In early 2005, the FDA issued a warning that antidepressants can cause both suicide and violence. The agency also mandated a black-box warning — the most serious available — that states these drugs can produce side effects that include anxiety, agitation, panic attacks, irritability, hostility, aggressiveness, impulsivity and mania.

The FDA also has warned that abrupt withdrawal of antidepressants can produce suicide, psychosis or hostility.

Eli Lilly, which makes Prozac, repeatedly has denied claims that Prozac causes violence, even though the company's own documents acknowledge "nervousness, anxiety, self-mutilation and manic behavior" are among the "usual adverse effects" of the medicine.

It's the same Eli Lilly that has paid more than $1.2 billion to 28,000 people who claimed they were injured by the drug Zyprexa during the past decade, according to a Jan. 5 article in the New York Times.

Paying $1.2 billion over 10 years may sound like a lot of money until compared with the $4.2 billion the company made last year alone selling Zyprexa, which has been taken by 20 million people worldwide since its introduction in 1996.

Most antidepressant drugs, including Prozac, Zoloft, Paxil, Luvox, Celexa, Lexapro and Effexor, are known as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, which alter brain chemistry in an attempt to manage depression.

Serotonin, a neurotransmitter, is a chemical that facilitates communication within the brain, allowing one to experience happy feelings upon its release. Essentially, the antidepressant drugs prevent reabsorption of serotonin in an attempt to make the happiness experience last longer.

Mother of a monster

One of the former lead chemists at the National Institute of Health, whose work eventually led to the development of many antidepressant drugs, first spoke out against the drugs nearly 10 years ago.

"I am alarmed at the monster that Johns Hopkins neuroscientist Solomon Snyder and I created when we discovered the simple binding assay for drug receptors 25 years ago," said Dr. Candace Pert in the Oct. 20, 1997, issue of Time magazine.

She said Prozac and other SSRI (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor) antidepressants may cause heart problems and affect the entire body, where the vast majority of serotonin is produced.

The medical profession "ignores the body as if it exists merely to carry the head around," said Pert, who's now scientific director of RAPID Pharmaceuticals in Potomac, Md. "These molecules of emotion regulate every aspect of our physiology."

A recent study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that half of all Americans take at least one prescription drug, and that antidepressant use has nearly tripled in the past decade. According to some estimates, 30 million Americans take antidepressants. FDA statistics show U.S. physicians issue more than 10 million antidepressant prescriptions each year to patients younger than 18. FDA-approved prescription drugs injure 2.2 million and kill at least 100,000 Americans each year, according to numerous published studies.

Some survive and forgive

Problem is, when antidepressants don't work as intended, the harmful fallout isn't limited to the user. The victims often are those within striking distance. They are people like Mark Taylor, who was sitting outside and reading a Bible when he was shot numerous times by Eric Harris at Columbine High School.

"The first one hit me in the back of the leg. That was the shotgun blast," Taylor said in a recent phone interview. "That was the most painful. And then I got hit several more times in the chest; the bullets went right through me. They tried to make sure I was dead. I laid down and pretended I was dead.

"I think Eric Harris, from the medication, didn't really know what he was doing. I don't really hold him responsible for it. Eric and Dylan were both taking medicines. They just didn't seem to have any reaction to what they were doing. They were having fun with it, laughing and enjoying it and having a good time. I feel that antidepressants were the cause of the Columbine shooting."

Taylor, now 24, travels the country and speaks about the importance of forgiveness. Since the Virginia Tech shootings, he has been besieged with interview requests. His interviews included an appearance on "The Morning Show with Mike and Juliet," a national Fox News Network program. The hosts invited Taylor because they wanted to hear from someone who had survived a school shooting, someone who presumably could offer insight to help other children survive such an incident.

"Forgiveness," Taylor told them, "that's how I survived it."

But Taylor said the show's commentators weren't much interested in his message of forgiveness. Instead, the show focused on interviews with FBI agents and police tacticians, who offered survival tips that we are supposed to use to arm our children as we send them off to school.

Is this what it's come to? Do we now simply accept that frequent school shootings are a part of today's society and prepare ourselves for when tragedy strikes? Too often, instead of working to find the cause of problems, we react to symptoms. That same kind of thinking is what has so many Americans taking antidepressants in the first place.

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