Showing posts with label ssri drugs. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ssri drugs. Show all posts

Sunday

Jesus, South Carolina and Prescription Drugs

Tragic events in the news these days.

So sorry to hear of the loss of the planet of Reverend Pinckney.

 Rev. Clementa Pinckney was one of the nine people to die in Wednesday night’s shooting at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in downtown Charleston. In the 2012 documentary, “The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross with Henry Louis Gates, Jr.," Pinckney was asked why black political participation mattered. Here’s what he said: “We don’t have the privilege to say our vote doesn’t count, because history tells us differently.”Learn more: http://to.pbs.org/1JYmWII
Posted by PBS NewsHour on Thursday, June 18, 2015
So amazed to hear of the amount of grace, love and compassion that emanates from that church.

"We forgive you." Powerful sentiments indeed.

I heartily agree with the Detroit Free Press article that asks "Why aren't people burning the Conferate Flag more?"  But burning the flag is just burning who or what we are....

Which brings us to SSRI drugs. (Prozac, paxil, zoloft, seratonin inhibitors)

Every single mass shooting since Columbine (that's 70 since 1982, according to Bill Moyers) has had pretty dramatic events in common.

Let's examine them for a moment, shall we?

White, young men or boys, filled with rage. Check.

Easy access to guns.  
Check.

A history of psychotropic drugs use or prescription. 
Check.

Wait, what?

Every single mass shooting has had all three elements involved.

How can that be?

Well, here's some stats.

Eric Harris age 17 (first on Zoloft then Luvox) and Dylan Klebold aged 18 (Columbine school shooting in Littleton, Colorado), killed 12 students and 1 teacher, and wounded 23 others, before killing themselves. Klebold’s medical records have never been made available to the public.
• Jeff Weise, age 16, had been prescribed 60 mg/day of Prozac (three times the average starting dose for adults!) when he shot his grandfather, his grandfather’s girlfriend and many fellow students at Red Lake, Minnesota. He then shot himself. 10 dead, 12 wounded.
• Cory Baadsgaard, age 16, Wahluke (Washington state) High School, was on Paxil (which caused him to have hallucinations) when he took a rifle to his high school and held 23 classmates hostage. He has no memory of the event.
• Chris Fetters, age 13, killed his favorite aunt while taking Prozac.
• Christopher Pittman, age 12, murdered both his grandparents while taking Zoloft.
• Mathew Miller, age 13, hung himself in his bedroom closet after taking Zoloft for 6 days.
• Kip Kinkel, age 15, (on Prozac and Ritalin) shot his parents while they slept then went to school and opened fire killing 2 classmates and injuring 22 shortly after beginning Prozac treatment.
• Luke Woodham, age 16 (Prozac) killed his mother and then killed two students, wounding six others.
• A boy in Pocatello, ID (Zoloft) in 1998 had a Zoloft-induced seizure that caused an armed stand off at his school.
• Michael Carneal (Ritalin), age 14, opened fire on students at a high school prayer meeting in West Paducah, Kentucky. Three teenagers were killed, five others were wounded..
• A young man in Huntsville, Alabama (Ritalin) went psychotic chopping up his parents with an ax and also killing one sibling and almost murdering another.
• Andrew Golden, age 11, (Ritalin) and Mitchell Johnson, aged 14, (Ritalin) shot 15 people, killing four students, one teacher, and wounding 10 others.
• TJ Solomon, age 15, (Ritalin) high school student in Conyers, Georgia opened fire on and wounded six of his class mates.
• Rod Mathews, age 14, (Ritalin) beat a classmate to death with a bat.
• James Wilson, age 19, (various psychiatric drugs) from Breenwood, South Carolina, took a .22 caliber revolver into an elementary school killing two young girls, and wounding seven other children and two teachers.
• Elizabeth Bush, age 13, (Paxil) was responsible for a school shooting in Pennsylvania
• Jason Hoffman (Effexor and Celexa) – school shooting in El Cajon, California
• Jarred Viktor, age 15, (Paxil), after five days on Paxil he stabbed his grandmother 61 times.
• Chris Shanahan, age 15 (Paxil) in Rigby, ID who out of the blue killed a woman.
• Jeff Franklin (Prozac and Ritalin), Huntsville, AL, killed his parents as they came home from work using a sledge hammer, hatchet, butcher knife and mechanic’s file, then attacked his younger brothers and sister.
• Neal Furrow (Prozac) in LA Jewish school shooting reported to have been court-ordered to be on Prozac along with several other medications.
• Kevin Rider, age 14, was withdrawing from Prozac when he died from a gunshot wound to his head. Initially it was ruled a suicide, but two years later, the investigation into his death was opened as a possible homicide. The prime suspect, also age 14, had been taking Zoloft and other SSRI antidepressants.
• Alex Kim, age 13, hung himself shortly after his Lexapro prescription had been doubled.
• Diane Routhier was prescribed Welbutrin for gallstone problems. Six days later, after suffering many adverse effects of the drug, she shot herself.
• Billy Willkomm, an accomplished wrestler and a University of Florida student, was prescribed Prozac at the age of 17. His family found him dead of suicide – hanging from a tall ladder at the family’s Gulf Shore Boulevard home in July 2002.
• Kara Jaye Anne Fuller-Otter, age 12, was on Paxil when she hung herself from a hook in her closet. Kara’s parents said “…. the damn doctor wouldn’t take her off it and I asked him to when we went in on the second visit. I told him I thought she was having some sort of reaction to Paxil…”)
• Gareth Christian, Vancouver, age 18, was on Paxil when he committed suicide in 2002,
• (Gareth’s father could not accept his son’s death and killed himself.)
• Julie Woodward, age 17, was on Zoloft when she hung herself in her family’s detached garage.
• Matthew Miller was 13 when he saw a psychiatrist because he was having difficulty at school. The psychiatrist gave him samples of Zoloft. Seven days later his mother found him dead, hanging by a belt from a laundry hook in his closet.
• Kurt Danysh, age 18, and on Prozac, killed his father with a shotgun. He is now behind prison bars, and writes letters, trying to warn the world that SSRI drugs can kill.
• Woody ____, age 37, committed suicide while in his 5th week of taking Zoloft. Shortly before his death his physician suggested doubling the dose of the drug. He had seen his physician only for insomnia. He had never been depressed, nor did he have any history of any mental illness symptoms.
• A boy from Houston, age 10, shot and killed his father after his Prozac dosage was increased.
• Hammad Memon, age 15, shot and killed a fellow middle school student. He had been diagnosed with ADHD and depression and was taking Zoloft and “other drugs for the conditions.”
• Matti Saari, a 22-year-old culinary student, shot and killed 9 students and a teacher, and wounded another student, before killing himself. Saari was taking an SSRI and a benzodiazapine.
• Steven Kazmierczak, age 27, shot and killed five people and wounded 21 others before killing himself in a Northern Illinois University auditorium. According to his girlfriend, he had recently been taking Prozac, Xanax and Ambien. Toxicology results showed that he still had trace amounts of Xanax in his system.
• Finnish gunman Pekka-Eric Auvinen, age 18, had been taking antidepressants before he killed eight people and wounded a dozen more at Jokela High School – then he committed suicide.
• Asa Coon from Cleveland, age 14, shot and wounded four before taking his own life. Court records show Coon was on Trazodone.
• Jon Romano, age 16, on medication for depression, fired a shotgun at a teacher in his
• New York high school.
Missing from list… 3 of 4 known to have taken these same meds….
• What drugs was Jared Lee Loughner on, age 21…… killed 6 people and injuring 14 others in Tuscon, Az
• What drugs was James Eagan Holmes on, age 24….. killed 12 people and injuring 59 others in Aurora Colorado
• What drugs was Jacob Tyler Roberts on, age 22, killed 2 injured 1, Clackamas Or
• What drugs was Adam Peter Lanza on, age 20, Killed 26 and wounded 2 in Newtown Ct


What to do? The NIMH (Nat Inst of Mental Health) posted A WARNING on its website that psychiatrists were prescribing psychotropic drugs to children, and the drugs had not been cleared by the FDA (or any studies) to prove them to be safe.

That post has been taken down, but it was cached, and I included it in "It's a Wonderful Afterlife." 

Psychiatrists, under pressure from their clients, are prescribing drugs that are supposed to be safe to adults to children, and they're doing so illegally, immorally. 

So, how can we stop this if the NRA won't allow us to discuss easy access to guns, if the drug companies won't allow us to discuss how these drugs may be affecting children's brains?  We discuss the roots of rage until we're blue in the face, but until we address the elephant in the room, it will continue on.



Now, what has this all got to do with Jesus?

Recently, I've been gathering reports of what people say under deep hypnosis about Jesus.  I've written about them in the book "Flipside" and "It's a Wonderful Afterlife."  And there's a clip of one of those stories in the DVD "Flipside."

But I've expanded the research into a new area.  Since every incident that I've filmed or found includes an event where a person's body suddenly reacts as if a person is in the room, I began to question that part of it.

Let me explain.

In every incident, whether it was a person having a "past life memory" where they claim "they knew Jesus" - or if it's a medium accessing what can only be described as "the energy of Jesus" or someone who bears a resemblance to him (they're not wearing name tags to be sure, but they describe the same kind of persona) these people have a visceral reaction to this "presence."


Their cheeks turn red, tears fall from their eyes and they claim they "can't breathe."

So, thinking that this event can't be random, since it happens to everyone who claims to be in his presence - and mind you, psychosomatic illnesses include people breaking into hives or a rash, all apparently done with the power of the brain - these people describe the same symptoms.

So I asked Jesus, "what's up with that?"

I mean, I was interviewing a medium on camera, and during our three hour free wheeling discussion I asked if it was possible for "jesus" to appear in the session.  She described him in detail, and then I asked for "him to come closer" suddenly her face turned red, tears fell from her eyes and she "couldn't breathe."

I asked "Jesus" or whoever this entity was (How do they know its him?  I mean really? Is it the toga? Sometimes he shows up in a tee shirt, actually.  But he ain't wearing a name tag "I'm Him.") why he had that affect on people who were close in proximity to him.

And his reply (yes, I know, it's the medium replying on his behalf, whatever that construct means) was that "i'm energetically closer to the source than many people, most avatars in history are like that, it's just that when you get closer to us, you feel that energy."  Meaning the closer you stand to this person or their energy, the more intense the feeling, like standing near a light bulb.

Which brings me back to South Carolina.  Reverend Pinckney oversaw a church where they spoke of the love of Jesus on a daily basis.  I know that to be a fact because of the reaction these people had in the arraignment - "I forgive you" are three of the most powerful words we own, and they said them.

This kid has his own path and journey, he was taking drugs, but he's got a long history of rage.  But then so do every other mass killing shooter.  So the question is, what are we doing about it?  I suggest that the events are not separate - we should have compassion for everyone, including ourselves, by examining this research closly and figuring out a way to help our society, our planet, to benefit from its knowledge.

My two cents.

Wednesday

Prozac for Kids - A Warning for Parents everywhere

In the book "Flipside" I talk about how there is an alternative to SSRI drugs as described in the research of Richard Davidson at the University of Wisconsin. He's proven scientificially that meditation can "alleviate or cure symptoms of depression." 

I'm writing about the topic in my next book "It's A Wonderful Afterlife" about SSRI drug use in children in light of the recent shootings across the nation.  (I'm not a Doctor, nor do I dispense medicine. I'm a journalist and filmmaker who is reporting what is out there.)

Every mass shooting we've had in the country since Columbine has included SSRI drugs. 

Meaning the shooter had a history of mental illness, and either a history of being given seratonin release inhibitors or some other drug that affects the ability to know right from wrong.  It's not my opinion, it's part of the record and autopsy reports.

Combine 14 hours of playing "Warcraft" (as in the case of the recent shooting in Santa Barbara) along with easy access to guns and we have a perfect recipe for continuing mayhem.

While researching this information for my next book, in a section about why the "veil" appears to be thinning between the afterlife and our world - there's a discussion of how prescribed drugs appear to be affecting our life path.  I searched the National Institute of Mental Health's website for some details and found this article - no longer online but cached.  

It details how Doctors (may be or) are over prescribing these SSRI drugs to children.  It's in the document.  It's being done.  And it's not part of the national discussion on gun control AT ALL.

I post this article here because it needs to be read to any parent who is considering a Doctor's recommendation to use SSRI drugs with their children.

(On a personal note, I was approached by a teen in Santa Monica, who begged me to help him stop his parents from forcing him to take prescription drugs.  It was out of the blue, I happened to be driving by and saw a distraught mom crying with her son. He came to my car window and said "Please help me. My parents want me to take these drugs for what they claim is a mental illness. I don't want to take them."  I asked the mom if they were SSRI drugs. She said "I'm not comfortable discussing this with you."  On her cellphone I could hear her husband saying "Who the hell are you talking to?"  The father was in the pharmacy, buying the drugs. I wrote down Davidson's name and handed the mom the note to do the research.)

I am not arguing that SSRI drugs like Prozac can't help people.  There are many adults that claim that they do.  But we are talking about giving these drugs to humans under 25 years of age. And the NIMH's own document shows that there is a danger in doing so.  Not my opinion - their own words:

<<<<<"Antidepressant Medications for Children and Adolescents: Information for Parents and Caregivers"

"Depression is a serious disorder that can cause significant problems in mood, thinking, and behavior at home, in school, and with peers. It is estimated that major depressive disorder (MDD) affects about 5 percent of adolescents.

Research has shown that, as in adults, depression in children and adolescents is treatable. Certain antidepressant medications, called selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), can be beneficial to children and adolescents with MDD. Certain types of psychological therapies also have been shown to be effective. However, our knowledge of antidepressant treatments in youth, though growing substantially, is limited compared to what we know about treating depression in adults."

(So they admit that there's little research on the topic, but it doesn't stop them from giving these drugs to children) 

"Recently, there has been some concern that the use of antidepressant medications themselves may induce suicidal behavior in youths. Following a thorough and comprehensive review of all the available published and unpublished controlled clinical trials of antidepressants in children and adolescents, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued a public warning  in October 2004 about an increased risk of suicidal thoughts or behavior (suicidality) in children and adolescents treated with SSRI antidepressant medications. In 2006, an advisory committee to the FDA recommended that the agency extend the warning to include young adults up to age 25."

(In fact, they issued "BLACK BOX" warnings on the drugs because kids might kill themselves (or others))

"More recently, results of a comprehensive review of pediatric trials conducted between 1988 and 2006 suggested that the benefits of antidepressant medications likely outweigh their risks to children and adolescents with major depression and anxiety disorders. The study, partially funded by NIMH, was published in the April 18, 2007, issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.1

What Did the FDA Review Find?

In the FDA review, no completed suicides occurred among nearly 2,200 children treated with SSRI medications. However, about 4 percent of those taking SSRI medications experienced suicidal thinking or behavior, including actual suicide attempts—twice the rate of those taking placebo, or sugar pills."

(I gather that's not enough to stop them from prescribing them.)

"In response, the FDA adopted a "black box" label warning  indicating that antidepressants may increase the risk of suicidal thinking and behavior in some children and adolescents with MDD. A black-box warning is the most serious type of warning in prescription drug labeling.

The warning also notes that children and adolescents taking SSRI medications should be closely monitored for any worsening in depression, emergence of suicidal thinking or behavior, or unusual changes in behavior, such as sleeplessness, agitation, or withdrawal from normal social situations. Close monitoring is especially important during the first four weeks of treatment. SSRI medications usually have few side effects in children and adolescents, but for unknown reasons, they may trigger agitation and abnormal behavior in certain individuals.

What Do We Know About Antidepressant Medications?

The SSRIs include:

fluoxetine (Prozac)
sertraline (Zoloft)
paroxetine (Paxil)
citalopram (Celexa)
escitalopram (Lexapro)
fluvoxamine (Luvox)
Another antidepressant medication, venlafaxine (Effexor), is not an SSRI but is closely related.

SSRI medications are considered an improvement over older antidepressant medications because they have fewer side effects and are less likely to be harmful if taken in an overdose, which is an issue for patients with depression already at risk for suicide. They have been shown to be safe and effective for adults.

However, use of SSRI medications among children and adolescents ages 10 to 19 has risen dramatically in the past several years. Fluoxetine (Prozac) is the only medication approved by the FDA for use in treating depression in children ages 8 and older. The other SSRI medications and the SSRI-related antidepressant venlafaxine have not been approved for treatment of depression in children or adolescents, but doctors still sometimes prescribe them to children on an "off-label" basis. In June 2003, however, the FDA recommended that paroxetine not be used in children and adolescents for treating MDD.

Fluoxetine can be helpful in treating childhood depression, and can lead to significant improvement of depression overall. However, it may increase the risk for suicidal behaviors in a small subset of adolescents. As with all medical decisions, doctors and families should weigh the risks and benefits of treatment for each individual patient.

What Should You Do for a Child With Depression?

A child or adolescent with MDD should be carefully and thoroughly evaluated by a doctor to determine if medication is appropriate. Psychotherapy often is tried as an initial treatment for mild depression. Psychotherapy may help to determine the severity and persistence of the depression and whether antidepressant medications may be warranted. Types of psychotherapies include "cognitive behavioral therapy," which helps people learn new ways of thinking and behaving, and "interpersonal therapy," which helps people understand and work through troubled personal relationships.

Those who are prescribed an SSRI medication should receive ongoing medical monitoring. Children already taking an SSRI medication should remain on the medication if it has been helpful, but should be carefully monitored by a doctor for side effects. Parents should promptly seek medical advice and evaluation if their child or adolescent experiences suicidal thinking or behavior, nervousness, agitation, irritability, mood instability, or sleeplessness that either emerges or worsens during treatment with SSRI medications.

Once started, treatment with these medications should not be abruptly stopped. Although they are not habit-forming or addictive, abruptly ending an antidepressant can cause withdrawal symptoms or lead to a relapse. Families should not discontinue treatment without consulting their doctor.

All treatments can be associated with side effects. Families and doctors should carefully weigh the risks and benefits, and maintain appropriate follow-up and monitoring to help control for the risks.

What Does Research Tell Us?

An individual's response to a medication cannot be predicted with certainty. It is extremely difficult to determine whether SSRI medications increase the risk for completed suicide, especially because depression itself increases the risk for suicide and because completed suicides, especially among children and adolescents, are rare. Most controlled trials are too small to detect for rare events such as suicide (thousands of participants are needed). In addition, controlled trials typically exclude patients considered at high risk for suicide.

One major clinical trial, the NIMH-funded Treatment for Adolescents with Depression Study (TADS)2, has indicated that a combination of medication and psychotherapy is the most effective treatment for adolescents with depression. The clinical trial of 439 adolescents ages 12 to 17 with MDD compared four treatment groups—one that received a combination of fluoxetine and CBT, one that received fluoxetine only, one that received CBT only, and one that received a placebo only. After the first 12 weeks, 71 percent responded to the combination treatment of fluoxetine and CBT, 61 percent responded to the fluoxetine only treatment, 43 percent responded to the CBT only treatment, and 35 percent responded to the placebo treatment.

At the beginning of the study, 29 percent of the TADS participants were having clinically significant suicidal thoughts. Although the rate of suicidal thinking decreased among all the treatment groups, those in the fluoxetine/CBT combination treatment group showed the greatest reduction in suicidal thinking.

Researchers are working to better understand the relationship between antidepressant medications and suicide. So far, results are mixed. One study, using national Medicaid files, found that among adults, the use of antidepressants does not seem to be related to suicide attempts or deaths. However, the analysis found that the use of antidepressant medications may be related to suicide attempts and deaths among children and adolescents.3"

(Congress held hearings in 1991 about the rash of suicides which resulted in these drug makers being forced to put "Black Box" warnings on them.  In 2010 Congress held more hearings into why so many soldiers were doing the same while using the drugs.)

"Another study analyzed health plan records for 65,103 patients treated for depression.4 It found no significant increase among adults and young people in the risk for suicide after starting treatment with newer antidepressant medications.

A third study analyzed suicide data from the National Vital Statistics and commercial prescription data. It found that among children ages five to 14, suicide rates from 1996 to 1998 were actually lower in areas of the country with higher rates of SSRI antidepressant prescriptions. The relationship between the suicide rates and the SSRI use rates, however, is unclear.5


New NIMH-funded research will help clarify the complex interplay between suicide and antidepressant medications. In addition, the NIMH-funded Treatment of Resistant Depression in Adolescents (TORDIA ) study, will investigate how best to treat adolescents whose depression is resistant to the first SSRI medication they have tried. Finally, NIMH also is supporting the Treatment of Adolescent Suicide Attempters (TASA ) study, which is investigating the treatment of adolescents who have attempted suicide. Treatments include antidepressant medications, CBT or both.">>>>>>> (end of article)


So there you have it.  They know they're being over prescribed. They know that doctors are prescribing SSRI drugs to children that haven't been tested.  And I'll be damned - they're not warning the parents. 

 WELL I'M WARNING THE PARENTS.

If your kid is precribed SSRI drugs GRAB THE DOCTOR BY THE shoulder and shake them. SHOUT "ARE YOU CRAZY???? WHAT ABOUT MEDITATION? HAVE YOU LOOKED INTO THE RESULTS THAT SHOW THAT MEDITATION CAN ALLEVIATE OR CURE THE EFFECTS OF DEPRESSION????"

Then hand them an article you've downloaded from the internet about the work of Richard Davidson at the University of Wisconsin which proves his results in a scientific setting.

I don't know how else to put it. 

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