Role of Antidepressants in School Shootings

[Osobuco]

The fact that they're also criminal defendants does not prove causality, of course, but is only correlation. Still, it's astonishing.

i think what you mean to say is it is an "association" not a correlation.

 

[Osobuco]

i agree.

I have patients as young as three (!!!) on stimulants such as methylphenidate. The long term effects of these psychotropic drugs on the development of the brain is still unknown. These drugs (SSRIs, atypical anti-psychotics, stimulants) have a place in medicine.

But I wonder how often prescribers throw medication at the problem vs using counseling/therapy either alone or in conjunction with pharmacotherapy?

WOW - YOU have patients? Are you a prescriber??? three is way young.

 

[cobber]

i think what you mean to say is it is an "association" not a correlation.

Not being a statistician, but only an observer of the human condition, you may be right.

 

[2ADMNLOVER]

IMO , we as a nation over think these things .

I remember my school days before clinton and his ilk pu***fied this country with all the libtard PC BS .

Kids who acted like idiots got their "medication" at recess or after school , usually in the form of a bloody nose and fat lip .

It did wonders to correct the impulsive behaviors of the morons who's parents didn't teach them any social graces .

To me the solution is simple .

First , we ship all the libtards , other social deviants , illegal immigrants and habitual offenders of any sort out to commifornia and put an electrified fence , land mines and snipers around the whole lot of'em .

Those of us who've thus far shown we can play nice as law abiding citizens get to stay in the rest of the states .

Secondly , if you raise one of these idiots they get executed on the spot / when caught and you , the parent does the prison time for them .

Thirdly , go back to a form of "natural law" .

If you act like an ass in public , someone checks you and you get your nose broke for it , tough s**t , you apparently earned it .

Re instate school paddlings and stop all the "everyone gets a trophy" crap .

If your team sucks at something they should be told they suck at it .

No more pills because someone is depressed , life sucks sometimes for everybody . Put on your big boy/girl pants and deal with it .

If you really are mentally disturbed and give the slightest hint that you might be a mass murderer then you get a one way ticket to commiefornia .

Problem solved .

 

[88GT]

Yep, far too many mothers and fathers are parenting out of a bottle.

Nothing's changed. Parents have just changed what's in the bottle and who receives it.

I do not think you can scientifically prove that SSRI's "do a lot of good", which itself is an unscientific outcome. The only thing we know for certain is that they change serotonin levels, and we cannot even prove exactly how they do that. So does this make some people feel better? It must, or they are being prescribed for no reason. But, do we understand the consequences of taking SSRI's and altering serotonin levels in brains with all sorts of disorders? Hell no! What they do is prescribe SSRI's to almost every single patient who complains of stress or sleeplessness, social problems, anger, etc., and then ask if they are doing better in follow up appointments. It is 100% trial and error. And the worst part is, when people say the meds didn't make any difference, troubled individuals are KEPT on the prescription anyways, and told that it just takes months to start working (the biggest load of snake oil crap I ever heard, but great for big pharma).

There it is. The evil Big Pharma line.

SSRIs are pretty well understood in their effects, even if we don't know the intimate details of their mechanism. However, that in no way diminishes their effect OR the benefit derived from them. Think about this: prior to the advent of modern medical research, no one knew just how the remedies for various maladies actually worked. Chewing up that plant and making a poultice out of it seemed to keep the wound from becoming gangrenous. But it shouldn't have been done because they didn't know how it worked?

Most SSRIs start working within a few days, but full effects CAN be weeks to months. (Though I don't attribute all of the improvement to the SSRIs on a biological level; it's more like the improved functionality of the individual and the ability to use rational thought again helps get him/her back on track. ) Prozac is one that takes a few weeks to build up to levels sufficient to start seeing improvement. Depending on the severity of the mood disorder, desired functionality might be months away.

Will we ever understand what will happen to certain individuals on these meds, probably not. But what we do know for sure is that school mass shootings became an epidemic in America about the same time this class of drugs were approved for children under 18. What we don't know is how many mass murderers were on SSRI's because there have been cover ups, but there is evidence that most have been prescribed these drugs.

That's one way of looking at it, but not sufficient to draw conclusions. The number of individuals on SSRIs who do NOT exhibit murderous/suicidal tendencies and then go on to take action on them so vastly outnumbers the few who do that it is scientifically dishonest to point the finger at the SSRIs as the factor. They may be a factor, but it cannot be SSRIs alone or we would see far more of the tragic events than we do.

And I speak from experience. I suffered from PPD after both of my kids. Not just the baby blues depressive crybaby mode. But full on rage against the machine PPD. And I had the intrusive thoughts that so many on here would ignorantly believe meant I was a danger to my children. SSRIs took off the edge, lessened the rage, and almost eliminated the intrusive thoughts. I never went off the deep end. Never harmed myself, my kids or any innocent children in schools.

SSRIs are not the cause. And any failure to monitor the under-25 users is a violation of the usage protocol anyway. Not some symptom of their over-prescribed status. It may be true that docs who over-prescribe will also be negligent in their monitoring of their patients, but is that the fault of the doc or the SSRI?

So, IMO it is a valid concern, especially since many users report surreal dreams and the inability to determine reality from dreamscapes. What we should be doing at a minimum is something MORE SCIENTIFIC, like a baseline brain scan and ekg prior to the prescription of psychotropic drugs, and follow up scans afterwards. We really are throwing wrench in the most complex organ in the universe, the human brain, and not really even tracking the results in any meaningful way. What we need at a minimum is full tracking of the results as it relates to mass murderers.

What we need is for people to stop trying to control every last component of everybody else's lives. I understand your concern, but you cannot eliminate the bad just because you want to. And the law of diminishing returns means that much of the effort to ward off negative effects will be cost ineffective without any real improvement in outcomes.

At any rate, I think Lanza had some issues that went beyond simple SSRI treatment. To say that his use of SSRIs was a contributing factor without considering all of the other aspects of his history is irresponsible.

 

[24Carat]

Except in the case of extreme depression, SSRI's were shown, in clinical studies, to be marginally better than placebo in treating mild to moderate depression. At one time, back in the 80's to 90's you couldn't exercise the privileges of a Private or Commercial Pilots license if you took an antidepressant, now you can.

Thankfully, to a certain extent, society and the .gov's have softened the stigma associated with emotional disease. Mark my word though, it will be reversed and willfully used to muddy the waters by the anti's.

 

[Twangbanger]

I want to point out that we don't know, or at least I don't know, that Adam Lanza was taking Antidepressants. Aside from the doctor, only he and his mother likely know, and they aren't talking. And since I assume this kind of info is HIPAA protected private stuff, we probably won't know, unless and until a family member blabs or a lawsuit gets filed months or years down the line.

 

[netsecurity]

Let me explain how serotonin affects the brain a little. Do you think LSD, Mescaline, Psylocybin (magic mushrooms), or MDMA (Extacy) are safe? All these drugs are well known to alter reality in strange and unpredictable ways for some people. The term "bad trip" is thrown around for good reason, because even mentally stable people can go into spontaneous psychosis. The inability to tell dreamscapes from reality(aka hallucinations) is common even for good trips. All these drugs work on the serotonin receptors, and SSRI's also affect these same receptors!

I believe serotonin is dangerous, and not something we should be messing with, especially in brains that are still growing. This is a class of drug that should be limited to psychiatric wards IMO, or at least not prescribed to every Tom, Dick, and Harry for any reason whatsoever.

 

[ocsdor]

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