A Little Humor

NCAA RENAMES MARCH MADNESS 'MARCH BIPOLAR DISORDER'

Under Pressure from National Institute of Mental Health, the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) stunned the sports world today by announcing that its annual college basketball tournament, known to its fans as March Madness, will henceforth be known as March Bipolar Disorder.

The name-change, which both surprised and outraged devotees of the annual ritual, came after the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) demanded that the NCAA drop the "Madness" tag.

While fans across the country argued that "March Bipolar Disorder" did not have the same ring to it, a spokesperson for the NIMH said today that the new name was "more clinically accurate."
"Each year, the tournament produces extreme mood swings in both its players and its fans," said spokesperson Carol Foyler. "In our view, those symptoms are consistent with bipolar disorder."

Even as tournament purists complained that the NCAA had caved in to the medical community, sports marketing expert Colby Teague said that the name-change could open the door to new sponsorship opportunities from the manufacturers of bipolar disorder medications, such as Eli Lilly.

"I could see a scenario where next year it's called the Prozac March Bipolar Disorder," he said.

Psychiatry Makes A Hannibal Lecter

In London this time, a person who has been for years under the care of "mental health" people flew off the handle. Within hours of his release from a mental health institution, he killed a man, butchered him, then fried the man's brains in butter and ate them. He had been in the institution for a long time as a result of a previous murder.

Soo-o-o, since he killed and ate his friend, they popped him back into the mental institution, where nine weeks later, he killed a fellow inmate in a "medium security" part of the institution.

The take on this by a London Newspaper is that this unbelievable incident was due to "lapses in mental health care". This couldn't be more true, but we think our viewpoint might be a bit different that that of the newspaper. They probably thought the unfortunate fellow needed "more" mental health care. It would be our position that the current medieval mental health practices on this planet make killers like this. It is true, for instance, that this man committed a murder before he was most recently committed to the mental health facility. It is possible, even likely, that he was a victim of mental health even before that. If he had previously been given psychiatric drugs like Prozac or Paxil then he joins a group that is statistically more likely to commit insane acts such as these. However, he was treated at the mental health facility and released at which point he killed his friend and ate him for lunch.

Nothing could be a bigger indictment of the mental health system. They don't help people, they make them worse. They don't have a clue what really constitutes insanity. They don't have any way to determine whether a man or a woman or a child is truly insane. They have no workable technology -- only drugs, and methods Torquemada and the Spanish Inquisition would have loved -- electroshock and brain surgery.

We will only restore sanity and safety on this planet when we end the sham called "mental health" and replace it with real care that recognizes that men are spiritual beings and that mental health is a spiritual matter, not a "chemical imbalance" or a "genetic flaw" or God forbid, a "life style choice". I for one have had enough of this.

Drug Ad Parody

Go to http://www.jibjab.com/cu.html and click "The Drugs I Need."

Making Book: Prozac? Paxil?

Okay we have another one, this time in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Saturday the man walked into a church service and opened fire, killing seven others before killing himself. His name hasn't been released yet in the accounts I've read this morning. And they haven't released yet which psych drug he was taking.

This tragedy plays over and over, and it accelerates as more and more people are put on the class of psych drugs that includes Prozac, Paxil, Luvox etc., known collectively as "SSRI" drugs. These drugs cause insanity, but they are being sold, at great profits, as a way to cure insanity. The result is you take a guy or gal that's a bit unstable, tell them you're going to "help" them, and drive them around the bend with a drug that makes them insane.

We don't yet have the hard evidence that this killer is a victim of psychiatry and psych drugs. But we will. Stay tuned.

FDA Determined To Protect Reputation As Most Slimeball Government Agency

Let's move away for a moment from considering Prozac, Paxil, Zoloft, Luvox and the other psychiatric drugs designated as SSRIs. These drugs are the main focus of this blog because of the mind-numbing fact that although they cause insanity, they are being used to treat insanity.

But the underlying issue is the question of what the FDA is thinking when they approve killer drugs.

Many years ago, when Prozac was rejected in Germany and England because of its suicide-related side effects, the FDA happily approved it, breaking the back of what should have been a universal rejection of the drug. Soon thereafter, a top exec at the FDA retired to a posh job at Eli Lilly, the drug company that makes Prozac. This was the beginning of the FDA's slide into the gutter. At first it looked like a few unethical mavericks had managed to line their pockets by sliming an agency that had always had the respect of Americans. But as the years have gone by it becomes more and more obvious that the FDA has completely dropped any pretense of respectability. It now moves by night under dim street lights wearing a short skirt and no underwear and way too much lipstick.

Sincere people are trying to prop up the reputation of the FDA but every best effort is undermined by repeated episodes of the FDA staggering home after midnight smelling like cheap whiskey. The latest such episode is incredible. It has to do with the Vioxx-type painkillers. When it came out that Vioxx sharply increases the risk of heart attack and stroke, the FDA quickly tugged her skirt hems down in an attempt to achieve some level of respectability, and rushed to the microphone with furrowed brow. "We'll investigate!" she said, to a grateful nation.

The investigation was shortly completed shortly thereafter. "Vioxx and it's blood brothers Celebrex and Bextra have been thoroughly investigated and they are innocent," piped the FDA, "Our blue-ribbon panel has spoken! No charges will be filed."

But this isn't our first picnic. We didn't just fall off the turnip truck. So we take a look at the FDA's blue ribbon panel. Of the 32 people on it, 10 had close financial ties to the drug companies that make these drugs. How did this affect the proceedings? An example was the vote that cleared Bextra. The big pharma 10 voted 9-1 in favor. If it wouldn't have been for this lopsided side show, the vote would have shut the drug down.

The interesting comments came from panel members whose strings aren't being pulled by big pharma. One MD said that as many as 50 people per day are dying from taking these drugs.

But let's wind down this little FDA indiscretion. The truth is the only people who die from these painkillers are the people who use them. They may ruin a few lives and leave behind some devastated relatives -- at the rate of 50/day. But that's kid stuff to the ruined lives created by the epidemic of SSRI use. It's one thing to have Daddy die of a heart attack, and another thing altogether to have Daddy hang himself or blow his brains out -- or storm into his place of work and kill his boss and co-workers before killing himself. It's one thing to have Mother suffer a stroke and wake up with one side of her face not working. It's another thing altogether to have Mother drown her four kids in a bathtub or chop her children up -- two deeds done by SSRI-soaked U.S. mothers did. Or blow away grandma and grandpa with a shotgun as a 12-year-old on Zoloft did recently. SSRIs are criminal and so are the people who covered up their side effects. And so are the people in the FDA who put their personal gain ahead of the sacred trust they have abandoned.

Psychiatric Commitment Used To Shut Up Whistleblower

An Army sergeant in Iraq was tucked away in a psychiatric ward for complaining about crude treatment of detainees under interrogation, in spite of the fact that he was labeled as normal in his initial evaluation. Regardless of this, he was shipped off to a psychiatric ward in Germany for "evaluation" for an indeterminate time.

This was reported today in a Washington Post article.

This is of course the way dissent was suppressed in Russia during the dark years of the U.S.S.R. Dissenters were famously sent to "Siberia". The usual excuse was insanity. The government would declare them insane and pick them up. Their family might see them again years later or never, depending on the circumstances. The same tactic was used in Nazi Germany, and in most earlier cultures in one way or another. There was always an Inquisitioner or High Priest or Witch Doctor willing to fulfill the need of those in power to shut up the opposition.

The US is increasingly subject to this kind of thing. The move to initiate involuntary psychiatric testing for citizens is the subject of more than one failed bill in Congress over the last few years, and is on the table again this year in the form of the "Universal Mental Health Screening" initiative. This would create a file on every citizen. Given the penchant of psychiatrists to define everything from drinking coffee to picking your nose as a mental illness, it would be only a short step to define someone as "insane" and haul them off. This might seem ridiculous, but is not. It has already happened in isolated cases. During the reign of Janet Reno, there was the incident where the relatives of an old lady living alone got a judge to rule that she should be committed to a local hospital for a 90-day mental competency evaluation. This woman had no criminal record and according to friends and neighbors had never hurt anyone. She refused to go along with the game, though (which would have almost undoubtedly resulted in at least forced drugging if not worse) and the FBI wound up having to shoot it out with her as she defended her house with her husband's old shotgun.

The bottom line in the US today is you can be imprisoned without due process -- without committing any crime -- if the judge declares you mentally incompetent. Or even if the judge declares you should be taken away and evaluated for competency. This is not constitutional, and it's not safe for thee and me. It's time to tell our legislators that spiriting away people in the middle of the night without due process in the name of "mental health" is not to be used to coerce the populace.

FDA Raids Paxil

The FDA seized existing US supplies of Paxil and Avandamet, drugs manufactured by UK drug giant GlaxoSmithKline. Glaxo said they have temporarily halted distribution of the drug pending settlement of the matter, in which they are accused of "continued violations" of quality tests.

According to CNN, FDA and the Department of Justice will not allow drug manufacturers to ignore our high public health standards for drug manufacturing," said John Taylor, FDA Associate Commissioner for Regulatory Affairs.

We applaud the FDA for taking even a small amount of the killer drug Paxil off the market. However, we now we want to know the answer to the next question: is this really a tough, new and more perceptive FDA, or is it the same old whoring FDA, attacking a British competitor to their darling American manufacturer Eli Lilly, maker of the Paxil competitor Prozac?

Paxil vs. Natural Remedies

Jenny Thompson at HSI came up with this one. You might like to subscribe to her great newsletter.

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The medical mainstream HATES this kind of thing.

In a recent trial that tested St. John's wort against the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) paroxetine (better known by its U.S. brand name Paxil), St. John's wort produced better results and fewer adverse side effects.

Over a six-week study period, 122 patients with moderate to severe depression took a 900 mg St. John's wort extract daily, and 122 similar patients took 20 mg daily dose of Paxil. Results showed that about half the subjects in the St. John's wort group experienced relief from depression, while only about one-third of the Paxil subjects experienced relief.

As reported in the British Medical Journal (BMJ), about 170 adverse side effects occurred in the St. John's wort group, and nearly 270 side effects in the Paxil group. In both groups, stomach disorders were the most common complaint.

These results aren't a complete surprise. We've seen St. John's wort perform better with fewer side effects when pitted against pharmaceutical SSRIs in previous studies (although usually in subjects with light to moderate depression). Yet, what I found most interesting in this case were two comments about the study posted on the BMJ web site.

The first comment comes from Tim Watkins, the director of the Depression Alliance in the UK. He says he detects a hidden agenda in the study because the researchers (funded by a manufacturer of herbal remedies) chose Paxil instead of another SSRI. Paxil, he points out, has the worst reputation for side effects in this class of drugs. He says the researchers "must have known" that St. John's wort would produce fewer side effects than other SSRIs.

I can't agree that the researchers "must have known" how the side effects would stack up. These studies have a way of often producing surprise results. Just look at all those HRT studies that blew up in the researchers' faces.

And don't feel too sorry for poor beleaguered Paxil. GlaxoSmithKline, the maker of Paxil, reports that the drug brought in more than $2 billion in sales last year. In other words, there are a LOT of Paxil users out there. So in spite of the unfairness perceived by Mr. Watkins, the trial actually provides a service to any Paxil user who may be suffering from some of the more severe long-term side effects that have been associated with the drug.

The second BMJ comment comes from Jane Robertson, a reader in Australia. Jane is not a health professional, but she is a St. John's wort user. She writes that after spending 20 years in counseling to address chronic mild depression, she began using St. John's wort three years ago, and is now "leading a mentally healthy life without the agonized thinking I spent so long trying to sort out." She adds that her life has "been changed" by St. John's wort and is grateful that extracts of the herb are available over the counter.

'Nuff said. I will add, however, that St. John's wort should be taken with caution, especially by those who are also taking prescription drugs. St. John's wort has been shown to interfere with the effectiveness of some drugs. It is also critical that you not take yourself off of an SSRI without working with your doctor, especially if you are planning to substitute with St. John's wort or any other herbal or dietary supplement.

Another Zoloft Crime

Ann Tracy writes:

At the September FDA hearings I met Raul Laguerre. This very kind soft spoken man from upstate NY had come to learn what he could, to share his family's tragedy, and to meet other parents in the same position. He sobbed as he told me he had brought his family to America to give them a better life and instead he felt this action destroyed his son's life.

Just 15 at the time, young Raul, Jr's experience rings a far too familiar bell - as he began to rapidly have adverse reactions Zoloft, the doctor increased his dose and added more medications. In the end Raul was taking THREE powerful serotonin reuptake inhibitors: Zoloft, Risperdal and Strattera. The problems the doctor was attempting to address with these drugs were depression, nightmares and symptoms of attention deficit disorder - as if a serotonin reuptake inhibitor would actually help any of those conditions! When we know from medical research that impairment or reuptake of serotonin metabolism produces: horrifying nightmares, depression, mental retardation and Alzheimer's, a serotonin reuptake inhibitor would clearly only worsen any of those conditions.

Raul and his family were shocked beyond belief when he was arrested for the sodomy of a neighbor in 2003.

This is a boy who was a model son, who had never been in any trouble at all before this. And he had no memory of committing this crime. The only recall he had of the incident was a nightmare or what he thought was a nightmare of something like this happening. As you will note in the article below Raul's lawyers contend that he wasn't responsible for his actions that night because he was acting out a dream while living in a state of hypersexual arousal caused by an adverse reaction to such an unbelievable combination of medication.

The truth is this boy is lucky to be alive since using just two of these drugs together would have been enough to produce a reaction called Serotonin Syndrome which could have killed him within a 24 hour period. In his case his brain suffered the most toxic effects before his body did causing such out of character, bizarre behavior instead of the multiple organ failure that takes your life with this much too high a level of serotonin known as Serotonin Syndrome.

To the amazement and delight of the defense, the prosecutor's own expert witness in this case agreed with the defense that the drugs had caused young Raul to do this. It is almost unheard of that an expert called by the other side would agree so completely with a defense expert. But even more amazing than that is the fact that the jury then found him guilty!

Of course there is already talk of an appeal. In the meantime we need as many letters as possible going into Judge De Rosa before the sentencing of young Raul Laguerre, Jr. Judges have got to understand what it is they are dealing with so often in cases like this! The more judges that begin to get an understanding of this the sooner this insanity will be stopped. Clearly this judge needs to see that more than anything this boy needs counceling, not more medication!

Letters should be sent to:

Judge De Rosa
c/o Raul Laguerre, Sr.
35 Bauer LN
Newburgh, NY
12550

Zoloft and Prozac Murders - Whose Crimes Are They?

It's a new kind of crime. A human being goes insane and kills those he or she loves the most, and then in many cases kills him or herself. This is not an age-old human condition. It is new.

As little as 20-30 years ago it was very rare; even unheard-of. Now it happens so often the headlines are beginning to chase only the most bizarre examples.

A 12-year-old boy in South Carolina lives with his Grandfather and Grandmother. He sneaks into their bedroom and blows them away with a shotgun, then sets fire to the house.

A mother in Connecticut attacks her family with a knife, then sets her house on fire, killing everyone including herself -- except for an eight-year-old daughter who escapes and runs to the neighbors for help.

A mother in Texas drowns each of her four children in the bathtub -- one at a time.

The wife of popular comedian Phil Hartman kills her husband, then takes her own life.

The list goes on and on and on and on.

The common denominator? These people were all on "anti-depressants". The word "anti-depressant" has to be put in quotes, because it is a tragic misnomer. No one could be more depressed than the people who do such things as these. Prozac and Zoloft and Paxil and the other related "anti-depressants", known as SSRIs are the new element -- the new factor in the computation of murder and suicide.

Read Ann Tracy's new article about the Christopher Pittman case in South Carolina. The greatest culture in the history of the world is being brought to its knees by legal drug-lords who become wealthy, chemically teaching people to kill.

Psychiatrists In Drag As Soldiers

Psychiatrists in Iraq are pretending to be good American soldiers. This is a disguise. They are posing as experts in the mind, and are up their old tricks, offering destructive drugs as supposed solutions to mental problems. The drugs they're suggesting are discredited drugs originally created by and for psychiatrists, but long since degraded to the level of street drugs, including LSD and Ecstasy. Preying on the brave soldiers in Iraq with this quackery is unconscionable criminality.

Here's an article from the Guardian paper in England:

American soldiers traumatised by fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan are to be offered the drug ecstasy to help free them of flashbacks and recurring nightmares.

The US food and drug administration has given the go-ahead for the soldiers to be included in an experiment to see if MDMA, the active ingredient in ecstasy, can treat post-traumatic stress disorder.

Scientists behind the trial in South Carolina think the feelings of emotional closeness reported by those taking the drug could help the soldiers talk about their experiences to therapists. Several victims of rape and sexual abuse with post-traumatic stress disorder, for whom existing treatments are ineffective, have been given MDMA since the research began last year.

Michael Mithoefer, the psychiatrist leading the trial, said: "It's looking very promising. It's too early to draw any conclusions but in these treatment-resistant people so far the results are encouraging.

"People are able to connect more deeply on an emotional level with the fact they are safe now."

He is about to advertise for war veterans who fought in the last five years to join the study.

According to the US national centre for post-traumatic stress disorder, up to 30% of combat veterans suffer from the condition at some point in their lives.

Known as shell shock during the first world war and combat fatigue in the second, the condition is characterised by intrusive memories, panic attacks and the avoidance of situations which might force sufferers to relive their wartime experiences.

Dr Mithoefer said the MDMA helped people discuss traumatic situations without triggering anxiety.

"It appears to act as a catalyst to help people move through whatever's been blocking their success in therapy."

The existing drug-assisted therapy sessions last up to eight hours, during music is played. The patients swallow a capsule containing a placebo or 125mg of MDMA - about the same or a little more than a typical ecstasy tablet.

Psychologists assess the patients before and after the trial to judge whether the drug has helped.

The study has provoked controversy, because significant doubts remain about the long-term risks of ecstasy.

Animal studies suggest that it lowers levels of the brain chemical serotonin, and some politicians and anti-drug campaigners have argued that research into possible medical benefits of illegal drugs presents a falsely reassuring message.

The South Carolina study marks a resurgence of interest in the use of controlled psychedelic and hallucinogenic drugs. Several studies in the US are planned or are under way to investigate whether MDMA, LSD and psilocybin, the active ingredient in magic mushrooms, can treat conditions ranging from obsessive compulsive disorder to anxiety in terminal cancer patients.

They See It But They Don't

Here is the opening from an article about mothers in Texas who have recently murdered their babies; four similar cases:

DALLAS — When a mother admitted killing her baby daughter by severing the child's arms this week, she joined a high-profile list of Texas women with histories of mental illness who have killed their children in gruesome fashion.

They go on to describe each of these mothers. One of them, hopped up on two different anti-depressant drugs at once, drowned her four small children in a bathtub.

The news people see that the four women have a history of mental illness. But what is it they don't see?

Being "treated" for mental illness in America means these women were all at least given antidepressant drugs like Prozac, Paxil, Luvox or Zoloft that turn people into killers! These drugs, chemically related and grouped as SSRIs (Selective Seratonin Reuptake Inhibitors -- don't ask -- even the psychs don't really know what that means) are the killer on the loose in the U.S. today.

There have always been killings. There have always been the insane. But when I was a kid, and for thousands of years before that, murders had motives. People had reasons for what they did. They sought out and killed someone they hated or lusted after or envied or despised. There was usually some warning -- like a lifetime of conflict with the victim, or threats -- or even that the victim belonged to a rival gang.

Now there's a new class of criminal that has crawled out of the woodwork -- in volume. These are the people that randomly kill. They kill whoever it strikes their fancy to kill. Whoever is near. They show up in their post offices or schools with automatic weapons and simply cut loose. They drown or stab their children. They shoot their grandmother and grandfather in the mouth when they're asleep. They can be any age -- a remarkable number of them are children. And they're just as likely as not to commit suicide as well.

The new class was born when we started feeding people with "mental problems" SSRI drugs -- Prozac, Paxil, Luvox, Zoloft and others.

When will the news people see the story behind the story?

Zoloft Trial To Jurry

Jurors began deliberating Monday in the murder trial of a 15-year-old boy who claims the antidepressant Zoloft drove him to kill his grandparents three years ago.
The trial has been billed as the first case involving a youngster who says an antidepressant caused him to kill. The trial also comes at a time of heightened scrutiny over the use of antidepressants among children.

Defense attorneys urged the jury Monday to send a message to the nation by blaming Zoloft for the killings by 15-year-old Christopher Pittman. They said the negative effects of Zoloft are more pronounced in youngsters, and the drug affected Pittman so he did not know right from wrong.

"We do not convict children for murder when they have been ambushed by chemicals that destroy their ability to reason," attorney Paul Waldner said.

...

Pittman has not denied carrying out the slayings. He is charged as an adult in the November 2001 murders of Joe Pittman, 66, and his wife Joy, 62. If convicted, he could get 30 years to life in prison.

Zoloft is the most widely prescribed antidepressant in the United States with 32.7 million prescriptions written in 2003. Last October, the Food and Drug Administration ordered Zoloft and other antidepressants to carry "black box" warnings — the government's strongest warning short of a ban — about an increased risk of suicidal behavior in children.

Pittman threatened to kill himself about a month before the slayings. He also ran away from home.

FDA Is Soft On Killer Drugs - Likes Drug Companies More Than They Like Children

U.S. drug safety reports linking an attention deficit drug to 20 deaths aren't enough for the Food and Drug Administration to follow Canada in taking the product off the market, the agency's director of medical policy said today.

Health Canada ordered the withdrawal yesterday of Adderall XR, made by Shire Pharmaceuticals Group Plc, based on its review of adverse-event reports previously given to the U.S. agency by the Basingstoke, England-based company. The drug is prescribed for children and adults with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.

``The cases are not convincing evidence the drug is clearly responsible for these deaths,'' said Robert Temple, director of the FDA's office of medical policy, in an interview.

The drug, Shire's biggest product, will remain available in the U.S., its largest market, Temple said. House and Senate committees have been probing the FDA's monitoring of drug safety since antidepressants were linked to increased risk of suicide in children and Merck & Co. withdrew its Vioxx painkiller after a company study tied it to heart risks.

FDA Discouraged Withdrawal?

``Information conveyed to my staff suggests that during a recent Adderall meeting, one or more FDA employees requested that the Canadian government refrain from suspending the use of Adderall XR because there was concern that FDA could not handle another `drug safety crisis,''' Senate Finance Committee Chairman Charles Grassley, an Iowa Republican, said today in a letter to acting FDA Commissioner Lester Crawford.

Grassley requested details of meetings with Canadian officials concerning Adderall and related records and documents. A phone message left after normal business hours for FDA spokesman Brad Stone for comment on Grassley's letter wasn't immediately returned.

(Doesn't it make you sick?) -This info is from a Bloomberg article.

More On Pittman Prozac Case From Ann Tracy and CNN

I hope you appreciate that statement as much as I do! This is an article on the Pittman case from CNN News. Note the following quote:
__________________________________
The boy's attorneys contend that Zoloft, a prescription drug manufactured by Pfizer, made him hallucinate and drove him to kill.

"He had these command hallucinations inside his head," Vickery said before the trial. "They didn't come externally. They came from inside his head: 'Kill, kill, kill.' "

The lawyers won a court fight to subpoena previously confidential drug test files from Pfizer and plan to use them in the trial.

If he is acquitted, some of the nation's largest drug makers could be exposed to future lawsuits linked to their antidepressants, possibly hurting sales.
________________________________
All I can say is that it could not happen to a more deserving group of folks!

Who gave them the right to harm so many with such deadly drugs?! Not even one of these tragedies is worth millions feeling "happy" for a while before they too crash into their own drug-induced nightmare. How can someone feeling good for a while compare to the pain and suffering of just this one little boy and his family?

As I have said over and over again, the research was there BEFORE these drugs were ever designed to demonstrate that they would become the nightmare they have become. For those of you who have read all of that documentation in my book, Prozac: Panacea or Pandora? - Our Serotonin Nightmare, you know that as well. There was no scientific reason whatsoever to ever develop and market these drugs.

Unfortunately lawsuits are our only recourse in this situation. Any of the rest of us would be charged with premeditated murder for what these companies have done in releasing and promoting these drugs.

Dr. Tracy
_________________
Ann Blake Tracy, Ph.D.,
Executive Director, International Coalition For Drug Awareness
Website: www.drugawareness.org
Author: Prozac: Panacea or Pandora? - Our Serotonin Nightmare & CD or audio tape on safe withdrawal: "Help! I Can't Get Off My Antidepressant!"
Order Number: 800-280-0730
________________________


http://www.cnn.com/2005/LAW/01/31/zoloft.killings/
Defense blames Zoloft as trial opens


Boy faces murder charges in deaths of grandparents
Monday, January 31, 2005 Posted: 10:48 PM EST (0348 GMT)
Christopher Pittman, 15, is charged as an adult with the murder of his grandparents.

CHARLESTON, South Carolina (CNN) -- Fifteen-year-old defendant Christopher
Pittman sighed and wiped his eyes as the prosecution argued Monday that the
shotgun deaths of his grandparents were crimes of "a dark heart, an evil heart."
But the minor's defense lawyer blamed the killings on the antidepressant drug
Zoloft, which Pittman was taking at the time, and called his client "a shy,
decent boy who was acting under the influence of a powerful, mind-altering
drug."

Pittman, who police say has confessed to the killings, is being tried as an
adult and could face 30 years to life in prison if convicted. "This is not a trial about Zoloft. ... Chris Pittman is on trial," prosecutor Barney Giese said in opening arguments. He said the boy, who was 12 at the time of the slayings, "knew what he was
doing was wrong, legally and morally."

Pittman's lawyer, Andy Vickery, said he plans to call a series of psychiatric
experts. "The defense, in this case, will focus on the fact Zoloft causes violence,"
Vickery said.

The first two prosecution witnesses were firemen who recounted how the bodies
of the grandparents, Joe Frank and Joy Pittman, were found in the ashes of their house after the murders on the night of November 28, 2001. The opening statements came shortly after nine women and three men were selected to serve on the jury in the double-murder trial. Wearing a tie but no coat, Pittman bowed his head during the jury selection, occasionally sighing, his fists clenched and held together.

Drug test files subpoenaed

Police have said Pittman gave them a written statement admitting he shotgunned his grandparents to death as they slept in bed, then used lighter fluid and candles to burn down their house before fleeing in a family vehicle.

If he is acquitted, some of the nation's largest drug makers could be exposed to future lawsuits linked to their antidepressants, possibly hurting sales. At the time of the killings, Christopher Pittman was living with his grandparents outside Chester, South Carolina. They had taken him in after he had run away from his parents' home in Florida and had spent about a week in a psychiatric treatment center. His father, Joe Pittman, said that shortly before the killings a South Carolina doctor gave Christopher a sample pack of Zoloft and doubled his dosage a
week later. Two days before the killings, according to court files, Christopher Pittman
got into a school bus fight with a younger boy. His grandparents then discussed
returning him to Florida.

The boy's attorneys contend that Zoloft, a prescription drug manufactured by Pfizer, made him hallucinate and drove him to kill. "He had these command hallucinations inside his head," Vickery said before the trial. "They didn't come externally. They came from inside his head: 'Kill, kill, kill.' "

The lawyers won a court fight to subpoena previously confidential drug test files from Pfizer and plan to use them in the trial. In testimony at a federal Food and Drug Administration hearing a year ago, Joe Pittman read a letter he said was written by his son. "Everything just kept getting worse, then I snapped and took everything out on my grandparents who I loved so much," said the letter. "When I was laying in my bed that night, I couldn't sleep, my voice kept echoing through my mind telling me to kill them until I got up, got the gun, went upstairs and pulled the trigger."

Pfizer officials declined to be interviewed but denied any connection between the drug and the deaths. The company said in a written statement: "There is no scientific evidence to suggest that Zoloft contributes to violent behavior in either adults or children." Zoloft is not recommended for use by children with depression. Yet it and other antidepressants are widely prescribed for younger patients and adults.

In October, the FDA announced there was a link between antidepressants such as Zoloft, Prozac and Paxil and suicidal actions or thoughts among some younger patients. The FDA asked the manufacturers to adopt a warning to alert doctors and parents to watch carefully for signs of anxiety, agitation and aggression, particularly when children and teenagers start taking these drugs.

But the FDA has never suggested there is any connection between the antidepressants and violent behavior toward others. Zoloft is in a class of anti-depressants known as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, or SSRIs, that increase the level of a brain chemical, serotonin.
In 2002, almost 11 million prescriptions were dispensed to patients under 18 for SSRIs and other newer antidepressants to treat depression and a host of other conditions, according to the FDA.

Trial moved to Charleston

Pittman's trial was moved to Charleston after both the judge and the prosecutor withdrew from the case for personal reasons. Judge Daniel Pieper has said he expects the trial to last about two weeks. The boy has been held in the state's juvenile facility for more than three years. In addition to the murder charges, Pittman also faces family court charges of arson. Under South Carolina law, a juvenile found guilty in family court can be held until he is 21. Prosecutors pressed successfully to try Pittman in adult court to seek a longer sentence. Speaking at a 2003 hearing, John Justice, the case's original prosecutor, said the killings were among the worst of his career. "This kid waited until his grandparents went to bed, went to sleep, came in, shot them in the face -- in the mouth -- with a shotgun," Justice said. "It's as cold and brutal an act as I've witnessed in 25 years of prosecuting."

CNN's Jim Polk contributed to this report

A Poem - Or Is It Prose? Or is it Prozac?

A great poem by Dean Blehert:

Kids shoot up their schools,
mothers drown their kids;
pretty new tablets (green, purple)
replace the shattered tablets of the law,
abetting Premedicated murder.

Zoloft on trial as teen faces murder charges

Outcome could impact drug's use with youths
NICHOLE MONROE BELL
Staff Writer
The boy stood over the bed, lifted the shotgun and squeezed. Once. Twice.
With two blasts, Joe Pittman, 66, and Joy Pittman, 62, were dead. They were killed as they slept, police say, by their 12-year-old grandson.
What leads a child to kill two of the people he loves the most -- an antidepressant drug or a malicious mind?
That is the question at the core of the Christopher Pittman murder trial, which begins Monday in Charleston. Pittman, now 15, is charged as an adult in the November 2001 Chester County, S.C., slayings and could face a maximum sentence of life in prison if convicted.
Pittman's lawyers and family will argue that the boy was depressed and had a reaction to the antidepressant Zoloft. But prosecutors describe the boy as a troubled child with a violent past.
The trial, which will be covered by CNN, Court TV and other news outlets, comes at the height of an international debate about the safety of antidepressant use in children and adolescents.
Experts say the case is one of the first times the antidepressant defense has been used for a child defendant. The defense has rarely succeeded when used for adults.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration ordered in October that Zoloft and similar antidepressants carry boldface warnings saying the drugs increase the risk of suicidal thinking and behavior in some children.
Critics of the drugs, and Pittman's lawyers, say the drugs can also turn a child into a killer.
James Cohen, a professor at New York's Fordham Law School who teaches about psychology in criminal law, said a not-guilty verdict in the Pittman case would likely have major implications for drugmakers who could take a blow to sales and become the target of more civil liability lawsuits. Two of Pittman's lawyers are civil attorneys who have sued New York-based Pfizer, the maker of Zoloft.
"I think this is a perfect parallel to what's going on with the public debate on whether these drugs are safe," Cohen said. "If you get a jury saying the kid wasn't responsible because of the drug, that's going to have a devastating effect. ... It's going to be a magnet for legal work."
Zoloft is the No. 1 prescribed antidepressant in the U.S. market, and the drug's worldwide revenues in the fourth quarter of 2004 were $959 million, according to Pfizer. Physicians have written about 250 million Zoloft prescriptions since the drug hit the market in 1992 for a variety of psychiatric disorders, according to Pfizer.
Pfizer officials say they are watching the Pittman case closely.
"We're concerned it may get people who've really benefited to become hesitant to take the drug," Pfizer spokesman Bryant Haskins said. "Our biggest concern is our patients. ... We're certain (Zoloft) didn't cause this kid to kill his grandparents."
Pittman was prescribed Zoloft to manage mild depression after he moved from Florida in 2001 to stay with his grandparents. The boy's mother had abandoned him, and he was having trouble getting along with his father, doctors have testified. A week before the killings, a doctor doubled the boy's dosage to 200 milligrams a day. The day of the killings, he got into a fight with a younger child on the school bus and his grandparents disciplined him, according to testimony at pretrial hearings.
The maximum recommended dosage for Zoloft in depressed adults is 200 mg. The drug has not been been FDA approved to treat depression in children, but many doctors prescribe it for that purpose.
The defense team is arguing that Pittman suffered from "involuntary intoxication" of Zoloft, meaning the drug put him in a mental state in which he was unable to distinguish between right and wrong.
After the shootings, Pittman wrote a letter to the FDA, saying a voice in his head drove him to kill.
"I snapped. I took everything out on my grandparents who I loved so much," the boy wrote in the letter, which his father read at a February 2004 hearing in Washington. "Through the whole thing, it was like watching your favorite TV show. You know what is going to happen, but you can't do anything to stop it. All you can do is just watch it in fright."
Such defenses have rarely succeeded in the past because the research was unavailable and there weren't enough experts willing to testify for the defense, said Richard Southard, a former New York prosecutor who works in private practice as a defense lawyer. He thinks the failure rate will change, however.
"I think it's a viable defense," said Southard, who has appeared as a guest analyst on Fox News Live and Court TV for the Scott Peterson murder trial. "It's going to be used more and more frequently because of the media attention and the increased number of people being put on the drugs."
In April, a Santa Cruz, Calif., jury acquitted a 28-year-old man of attempted murder and assault after his lawyers argued that an adverse reaction to Zoloft caused him to hit a longtime friend in the head with a weapon in 2002, according to an article in the Santa Cruz Sentinel. Prosecutors argued that the drug wasn't in the man's system when he was arrested, the newspaper reported.
The prosecutors in the Pittman trial will make a similar argument. They say Pittman knew what he was doing and tried to conceal the crime by setting the house on fire, then fled in the family car with his dog. When deputies found him, he told them a man had killed his grandparents and kidnapped him.
Experts say the jury's willingness to accept Pittman's defense will hang, in part, on his behavior before and after the slayings.
Prosecutors say that before the slayings, Pittman was a runaway who once stabbed a bull with a dart and fired a BB gun into a house. Defense lawyers say the boy was nonviolent despite his difficult family life and bouts with mild depression.
To succeed, Pittman's lawyers will also need to bridge the gap between the clinical studies on Zoloft and Pittman's actions, experts said. Although a growing body of research questions whether the drugs can increase the risk of suicide in adolescents, experts say there is no research showing the drug puts children at risk of committing a homicide.
"Before when you first started hearing this (defense), juries dismissed this without a thought," Southard said. "Now, they're more open to the defense. They've heard some of the negative publicity about these drugs."
Nichole Monroe Bell: (803) 327-8511; nbell@charlotteobserver.com.
Therapists' Sexual Misconduct CloakedFRONT PAGE TAMPA TRIBUNE By LENNY SAVINO Published: Jan 28, 2005 She was depressed and needed help, so she went to a psychiatrist. The psychiatrist, Jose Anibal Cruz, flirted with her from the woman's first visit, a state Department of Health report states. She returned for another appointment and began seeing Cruz regularly. Soon Cruz was hugging her. Next he asked for pictures of her in a bathing suit or nude, the report states. She complied. Before long, they began having an affair. Both were adults. The woman was 31; Cruz was 52. State law presumes that patients being treated for mental or emotional difficulties are vulnerable and specifically forbids psychotherapists such as Cruz from having affairs with them. Doing so is a felony, with a first offense punishable by up to five years in prison, and a second by up to 15 years. Cruz has not been charged with violating this law, however, and neither have more than 100 other therapists suspected of having similar relationships with patients, Health Department records show. The reason: A Health Department office responsible for policing the therapists has been failing to notify prosecutors of such cases even though another state law, passed in 1992, requires it to, according to a newly released report from the department's inspector general. That notification law extends far beyond therapists and applies to every health care provider in Florida requiring a state license: chiropractors, physical therapists - even nursing home administrators, hearing aid specialists and masseuses. Each of these professions is state regulated. In some cases, the overseer is a board; in others, it is an office within the Health Department. The law requires each of these bodies to do two things when an impropriety is alleged. First, an administrative investigation must be initiated. If this leads to a finding that the allegation is true, the regulating authority then metes out a punishment. This can range from a fine or a period of occupational supervision to license revocation. Second, the law says any allegation that might be criminal - sex-related or not - must be reported to prosecutors. The question now is how many of these regulatory bodies have been complying - and, if any others have not been, how many more criminal referrals have been missed. To find out, Health Secretary John O. Agwunobi has ordered a sweeping paper chase. Department investigators are combing through the files on every disciplinary case the agency or one of its satellite regulatory bodies has investigated since 1992. There are 24,000 of these, the department says. The files on them are in a state warehouse. The department won't say how many files have been examined so far or how many remain. Nor will it say how many investigators are involved in the review. The files can be thick. Each typically contains legal documents describing the complaint and containing statements from witnesses, an administrative judge's finding of facts in the case and a final order. Depending on how many investigators the department uses, the review could take several months. Statute Of Limitations As the investigators work, other embarrassments have emerged. For example, not only is the criminal referral requirement spelled out in Florida law, it is detailed in a written Health Department policy adopted in 2002. In addition, another statute requires that a criminal case be prosecuted within a certain time frame - three years in the case of most felonies - a period often called the statute of limitations. If the deadline is missed, the accused is relieved of criminal responsibility and no longer can be tried. In the vast majority of cases found so far involving sexual activity by psychotherapists, this deadline has passed, meaning the therapists involved are exempt from being criminally charged and tried. Cruz's case was one of these. Health Department investigators launched an administrative inquiry that ultimately led to the revocation of his medical license, but they failed to refer the matter for criminal prosecution. The breakdown was discovered last summer when a private citizen sent a public records request to the department. Nobody knows yet how many such therapists - psychiatrists, psychologists, licensed social workers and family counselors such as ministers - have escaped prosecution. In the report released last week, the department's inspector general suggested there are scores of them. The Health Department office that is supposed to have been making the criminal referrals in the cases involving the therapists is the Medical Quality Assurance Consumer Services Unit, the report says. The report does not find fault with any individual in this office. Supporting documents suggest the referral failures were a consequence of poor management and supervision, perhaps combined with the fact that the unit has been attached to three Cabinet-level departments since the late 1990s. Agwunobi is so appalled by what the inspector general found that last week he demoted the unit's chief and transferred her to a nonsupervisory job, Health Department spokeswoman Lindsay Hodges said. Remaining unit staff will be ``revising policies and procedures, retraining staff and taking disciplinary action where appropriate,'' Hodges said. Prosecutor Errs The Cruz case occurred in Miami and was remarkable on several counts. For one thing, Cruz's relationship with the patient went undetected for eight years, the Health Department file on the case shows. Cruz went to some lengths to avoid being found out. For example, after office visits, he often took the woman to a motel for sex and registered using a fictitious name, the file states. Not even hospital stays interrupted the trysts, the file alleges. Cruz hospitalized the woman five times. Before seeing her on rounds, he would call ahead and ask her to be in the shower when he arrived. More sexual activity would follow, the file states. The relationship ended only when the woman told a friend about it. The friend urged her to contact authorities and a lawyer. The lawyer had Cruz videotaped as he escorted the woman to the motel. The lawyer, Kevin T. Smith, notified the Health Department, triggering the administrative investigation. This led, three years later, to the revocation of Cruz's license. Not once in all this time did the department alert local prosecutors to the case. Smith told the Miami-Dade County State Attorney's Office about it, however, and another failure occurred. An assistant prosecutor compared the facts of the case with the wrong statute and told Smith to forget it - that under the law, Cruz had not done anything criminal. Cruz maintains his innocence, says Jon Pellett, a Tampa lawyer who represented him during the Health Department's administrative inquiry. "We found evidence that the complainant was not credible or believable,'' Pellett said. ``The administrative judge disagreed.'' For instance, Pellett said, attendants at the hospital checked patients every 15 minutes, making it unlikely Cruz would have observed his client showering. Nevertheless, Cruz agreed to an out-of-court settlement in a civil lawsuit the woman brought, Smith said. He will not discuss details. The Price Patients Pay A patient's attraction to a psychotherapist is not uncommon, experts say, but resulting sexual relationships can be severely damaging. ``The offer by a psychotherapist of an intimate sexual relationship is initially perceived by many ... as the opportunity for an ideal, special relationship,'' wrote psychologist Philip Boswell, of Coral Gables. ``When later, as generally happens, the relationship is lost, the client's reaction is frequently catastrophic and often qualifies ... as a post-traumatic stress disorder.'' Guilt and shame caused by therapist manipulation, Boswell added, frequently can lead to depression and self- disdain for being so gullible. Anger also can result, along with ``massive ... confusion, and enormous distrust of therapy, therapists or even intimate relationships in general.'' The unreferred cases of this type that have come to light so far include several in the Tampa area. Records show that among the accused are: * Mental health counselor Marvin Kassed, of New Port Richey, accused administratively in 2000 of hiring a former patient, having a sexual relationship with her and disclosing confidential information to her about other patients. Kassed took a plea deal under which he did not admit or deny the allegations but agreed to two years' probation, $4,900 in fines and investigative fees, and a weekly review by a Health Department psychotherapist of his cases involving female patients. Kassed was accused in a similar case six years earlier, fined $1,000 and ordered to attend an ethics course. * Family counselor Richard Bernstein, of Tampa, accused administratively in 1998 of using so-called family therapy sessions to draw the mother of a patient into a one-year sexual relationship. Bernstein admitted the allegation and accepted a $1,000 fine, a one- year ban on female patients and five years' probation. * Mental health counselor Richard Fedora, of Dunedin, accused of sharing a hotel room with a female patient at a weekend symposium on hypnosis in Daytona Beach. Although the patient had just been discharged from treatment for alcohol and drug abuse, she got drunk at the hotel's pool bar and was returned to the room by other guests. After telling Health Department investigators that he tried to ``counsel her all weekend,'' Fedora accepted a plea deal under which he did not admit or deny wrongdoing but got three years' probation and a $3,000 fine. Kassed and Bernstein did not return telephone calls seeking comment. Fedora said he agreed to a plea deal just to end the torment of dealing with the investigative process. "After this complaint dragged on for almost 3 1/2 years,'' he said, ``I told my attorney to do whatever it would take to negotiate an end to the nightmare of this complaint. The plea I agreed to is on record, even though it is not true.'' 'A Public Hazard' If Health Secretary Agwunobi is appalled by the scope of the breakdown, so is state Rep. Dan Gelber, D-Miami Beach. "I think it raises very significant issues,'' Gelber said. "The idea that they're not ... referring what appear to be bona fide allegations for prosecution is deeply troubling. It's a public hazard.''
Gelber, a federal prosecutor for 10 years, has asked the Miami-Dade County State Attorney's Office to look into the Cruz case. A supervising prosecutor with the office, Josh Weintraub, said he had briefed his staff on the right statute to consult if any similar cases surface, but whether anything else can be done is problematic. The statute of limitations likely expired in the Cruz case Aug. 17, 2004, the same day the Consumer Services Unit issued an administrative ruling finding him guilty and revoking his medical license and exactly three years from the day he was videotaped registering for a room at the motel. As they continue sifting through files, Health Department investigators are telling local prosecutors about every case they find, even those that no longer can be prosecuted, Hodges said. Not only does the law still require notification, she said, the information ``may still be of great value in future investigations and prosecutions.'' About a dozen referrals have been received so far by Pinellas-Pasco State Attorney Bernie McCabe. One involved a therapist who had been prosecuted without a Health Department referral and acquitted. The rest involve cases in which the statute of limitations has expired. ``If the statute ... has expired,'' McCabe said, ``there's nothing we can do.'' Six cases have been referred to the Hillsborough County State Attorney's Office, spokeswoman Pam Bondi said. The statute has expired on most of these, too. Crusader Pressed State For List of Possible ViolationsPhoto of Ken Kramer, captioned: Ken Kramer, of the Citizens Commission on Human Rights, says there likely are more violations then the state has revealed. Save for the persistence of one person, Ken Kramer, of Clearwater, the Florida Department of Health might not be telling prosecutors about alleged sexual improprieties involving psychotherapists. Kramer is chief researcher for the Citizens Committee on Human Rights, an organizations found by the Clearwater based Church of Scientology in 1969. Kramer says the church no longer finances it. Scientology opposes many of the holdings of modern psychiatry and psychology. The Committee’s primary mission is to monitor misconduct by psychotherapists, Kramer says. It maintains a Web site – http://www.psychsearch.net/public_records.html - with a list of more than 1,100 therapists who have been the subject of disciplinary proceedings in Florida. Kramer, 48, works without pay at the committee’s one-story storefront office in Downtown Clearwater. The organization s has two paid staff members, about 200 volunteers and 500 members statewide, he says. Kramer began wondering last year whether the health department was complying with a 1992 state law requiring it to notify local prosecutors of cases involving alleged sexual contact between therapists and patients and sent the department public records requests on the subject in July. “They couldn’t find anything” at first, Kramer says. He kept at it. Finally, the department sent him evidence of about 100 cases that should have been referred but hadn’t been, Kramer says. He thinks there are more. “The Department of Health is up to their eyeballs in crimes committed by psychotherapists,” Kramer says. He has found evidence in one document suggesting department officials “are fearful that if they report all crimes they would overwhelm state attorneys offices” across Florida, he says. Department spokeswoman Lindsay Hodges says the agency is “grateful to Mr. Kramer for bringing this matter to our attention.”
http://tampatrib.com/News/MGBW7X4SO4E.html State Remiss To Not Report Misbehaving Health Workers
Published: Feb 2, 2005I n 1992 the Legislature passed a law requiring the Florida Department of Health to notify prosecutors of accusations made against health care professionals that could be criminal in nature.Yet it seems that department investigators and supervisors either didn't know about the law or ignored it altogether.
An investigation launched last July revealed that no one had notified prosecutors of more than 100 instances when patients had accused psychiatrists, psychologists, doctors, nurses, massage therapists and others of sexual improprieties. The question now is how many criminal violations were missed in the 24,000 other disciplinary cases investigated in the last 13 years.
The department is guilty of blatant neglect, if not worse, because most of the cases discovered during the initial investigation can no longer be prosecuted. The statute of limitations - the deadline under which criminal charges could have been brought - has run out.
State law makes it a felony punishable by up to five years in prison for psychotherapists to have sex with their patients, yet most of the 100 complained about will escape prosecution because the department dropped the ball.
It's not that health department employees failed to investigate the complaints. But they appear to have focused solely on discipline, even in some cases where criminality seemed obvious. It is inexcusable that they would not turn over the information they obtained to the proper charging authorities.
Last week Florida Department of Health Secretary John O. Agwunobi demoted the woman who led the division that was supposed to notify prosectors, and he ordered a review of all disciplinary cases since 1992.
``As a department charged with regulatory authority and empowered by public trust, we must quickly find ways to assure that these lapses in compliance never happen again,'' he wrote to acting deputy secretary Linda Keen.
That's a start. But Agwunobi should personally take charge of making sure this decade of departmental neglect comes to an end.
http://www.sptimes.com/2005/02/02/State/Health_agency_gives_p.shtml By Associated Press Published February 2, 2005
TALLAHASSEE - State Health Secretary John O. Agwunobi said Tuesday that 24,000 disciplinary cases investigated by the department since 1992 are being sent to prosecutors to determine whether investigation of any crimes should be pursued.
The move follows a report released last week by the Department of Health's inspector general that found the department apparently failed to formally refer to prosecutors cases in which doctors, nurses, pharmacists and other health practitioners may have committed criminal acts.
Agwunobi said police and prosecutors likely were already aware of many of the cases, because the allegations were reported first to them.
Under state law, when the agency is notified about questionable behavior by a health care professional it licenses, it is supposed to determine whether there is probable cause to proceed with discipline. Then, if there is reason to believe a crime may have been committed, it is supposed to notify prosecutors.
The department couldn't show it did that in many cases, the inspector general found. The law has required reporting of potential criminal violations by health care practitioners since 1992, but the responsibility was in other agencies until 2002, when it was given to the Health Department.
Agwunobi said in an interview that his agency had a "clear obligation" to do it and didn't. He said he was "embarrassed, not a little angry, and very disappointed" about the failure to do so.
Agwunobi said department officials decided to refer to prosecutors all 24,000 cases in which officials had found probable cause of some sort of misconduct since 1992. He said prosecutors are best able to determine whether a crime may have been committed and if so, whether the statute of limitations has run out.
From now on, any case where there's probable misconduct will be referred to prosecutors, Agwunobi said.
The inspector general's investigation was prompted by a member of the public who requested information about psychologists accused of sexual misconduct and asked for documentation about referrals to prosecutors. That documentation couldn't be produced by the Health Department in many cases.
The Tampa Tribune last week identified the person who sought the records as Ken Kramer, a researcher for the Citizens Committee on Human Rights, an organization founded by the Church of Scientology in Clearwater, which opposes many tenets of modern psychiatry and psychology.
Kramer told the Tribune the committee's primary mission is to monitor misconduct by psychotherapists.

Murderer on Zoloft

Here's a decent CBS video on the South Carolina murder case in progress where a 12-year-old boy, who was given Zoloft (a Prozac wannabe drug by a different manufacturer) lost control, murdering his grandparents and burning down their house.

Zoloft is the drug that was being taken by one of the two schoolboys who shot their friends and teachers with machine guns in the Columbine High School in Colorado.

Ritalin Causes Depression -- Wall Street Journal

"New research is raising questions about the long-term effects of Ritalin and other drugs widely used to treat attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder." says the Wall Street Journal (subscription required).

The article goes on to say, "Now, new studies in rats suggest that methylphenidate, the generic name for Ritalin , may permanently alter the brain and may lead to depression in adulthood."

The article then begins to question how psychiatrists diagnose ADHD -- the so-called "mental illness" for which Ritalin is sold. "...the criteria for the disorder -- such as whether a child is easily distracted, doesn't seem to listen or can't sit still -- are highly subjective and could easily describe many healthy children. Some psychiatrists believe that as many as 15% of kids diagnosed with ADHD actually suffer from some other problem that wouldn't be helped by drugs -- such as a learning disability, a sleep disorder or even a difficult relationship with a teacher."

Elsewhere in the Wall Street Journal, Eli Lilly reports a 4th quarter loss.

The handwriting is on the wall.

Zyprexa = Prozac = Bad News

"NEW YORK (Reuters) - Eli Lilly and Co. on Wednesday reported a fourth-quarter net loss on charges for restructuring and taxes related to the return of overseas profits, as sales of prescription drugs rose only slightly.

Global sales of schizophrenia treatment Zyprexa, Lilly's biggest product that has been hurt in the United States by concerns over side effects, fell further in the quarter..."

In case you were wondering, Zyprexa is repackaged Prozac. The patent ran out on Prozac, so they decided the same poison should be promoted differently as a solution for different "illnesses" and off they went with a newly patented drug, which was really a makeover of the old drug. But it's not working!