School shooter took mood-altering drug

THE WASHINGTON TIMES ^ | March 25, 2005 | Joyce Howard Price

[neverdem]

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The Washington Timeswww.washingtontimes.com

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School shooter took mood-altering drug

By Joyce Howard Price
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Published March 25, 2005

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The teen who went on a deadly shooting rampage at a Minnesota high school Monday was on Prozac, adding to the list of youths involved in similar crimes who were taking antidepressants or other mood-altering medications.

    But medical experts say the role the drugs played in the school shootings is debatable.

    "When you look at the school shooters, some were on Luvox, Prozac, Ritalin, and Paxil. These are mood elevators, but they can push up the psyche and can cause agitation," said Robert Butterworth, a clinical psychologist in Los Angeles, who specializes in trauma.

    Dr. Robert Findling, chief of child and adolescent psychiatry for University Hospitals of Cleveland, said while some youths "may become more agitated or irritable" while on such drugs, their actions are the result of their illness, not the medication.

    "Association is not the same as causation," he said.

    Jeff Weise, 16, killed nine persons and himself in Red Lake, Minn., making it the second-deadliest school incident in the nation. A cultural coordinator at the school told The Washington Post that he was taking Prozac and had been previously hospitalized for suicidal tendencies.

    The deadliest school shooting occurred in Littleton, Colo. where Eric Harris, 18, who was on Luvox, and Dylan Klebold, 17, killed 13 persons and themselves at Columbine High School in 1999.

    Other school shooters who took prescription drugs include:

    •Kip Kinkel, an Oregon youth, who in 1998 when he was 15 years old, killed both his parents and then went to his school, where...

[bpjam]

If you take somebody who is unstable but hasn't already starting killing people and then you put them on a drug which you know you cannot predictably determine the reaction, you end up with school shootings a least a dozen times since 1992.

You have you just face the unbelievable array of evidence. What are the odds that every, single incident in this country in the past 25 years of a multiple homicide against strangers is committed by a person who is being treated by a psychiatrist with anti-depressant drugs? What are the odds? If you can think of a single mass killing not caused by somebody on Prozac or another clone, I'd be willing to consider some other option.

But there are millions and millions of people who are at least as messed up as this kind or Kip Kinkle or any of the others who aren't being drugged and who just happen to not be killing their fellow classmates, post office employees or co-workesr.

Face it, there isn't a single person in America who has any idea of how these drugs really work. All they know for sure if that it changes the chemical process in the brain by disrupting its current function. That is like slapping a TV to make the picture better. It make work every now and then but is it really 'treatment?' Remember that none of these kids are ever cured by these drugs. They just change the symptoms so they now are 'bi-polar' instead of manic depressive. Their lives still suck but now in a different way.

Go back to 1989 with Joseph Wesbecker in Kentucky. He was the first guy to take Prozac and shoot 21 employees at the plant he worked at. It has only gotten worse since then and this drug has only been prescribed more and more.

[Stellar Dendrite]

You are just focusing on the drug angle. There is more to it, the human mind is a sponge which soaks up the violence on TV, the violence in video games, it desensitizes the individual.

[Mount Athos]

Here is an actual conversation I had with a highly respected neurologist, frustrated at an inability to diagnose many months of midday dizzyness/wooziness. Perhaps the attitude was that if I didn't have something that showed up on the MRI I was a waste of time, making it up, a headcase or somesuch...

"When is the last time you had sex"?

"I don't know, many years"

"You're depressed." (writes prescription for anti-depressant, dismisses me)

I was in disbelief at the diagnosis, and moreso at how it was made. Out of desperation about my condition I took the pill anyway, had a racing heart that scared me, stopped taking it and gave up on the doctors.

[Khurkris]

"Association is not the same as causation," he said."

And how many people per year receive DUI charges who are NOT involved in an accident?

[agitator]

When I meet a psychologist that isn't a ____ing fruitcake themselves, I'll be sure to let you know.

[Paleo Conservative]

The witch doctors who prescribe these drugs to children should be held responsible for the results.

But what about the teachers and school administrators who pressure the parents to medicate their children. Shouldn't they also share the blame?

[Quick1]

My girlfriend just started taking prozac because it helps with fibromialsia. Should I hide the guns?

[GovernmentShrinker]

Such a prescription is little more than a wild guess as to what the results might be.

Declining to medicate a psychologically disturbed adolescent is also a dangerous gamble as to what the results might be. No one has ever asserted that these psychoactive drugs are guaranteed miracle producers. However, they help a significant percentage of people who take them, and there is no evidence that not taking any medication would yield better results overall, much less in the small subset of the severely troubled group who go on to commit suicide or violent acts on others.

If there is any actual danger associated with the use of these drugs, it is that they may cause excessive optimism on the part of those in charge of making decisions about seriously disturbed youth. This boy is an example of a case where in hindsight, he clearly should have been confined to a secure institution (where he had already spent some time due to suicidal tendencies). The fact that he was released was likely due to doctors' and authorities' optimism that the drugs would have sufficient positive effect on his mental condition, that he did not need to be kept confined.

[neverdem]

"Finally! Someone calls it properly. The kids are on these drugs because they are already screwed up in one way or another, not the other way around."

Why would they be treated with drugs unless there was a diagnosis? Let's leave ADD and ADHD out of this discussion as far as the question of those diagnoses being legitimate.

FDA Public Health Advisory October 15, 2004

Pediatric patients being treated with antidepressants for any indication should be closely observed for clinical worsening, as well as agitation, irritability, suicidality, and unusual changes in behavior, especially during the initial few months of a course of drug therapy, or at times of dose changes, either increases or decreases.

But with depressed patients you're usually worried about suicide. With these drugs you're also seeing bizarre homicidal rampages. Do you remember that kid in South Carolina who killed his grandparents that was recently found guilty? He also had a recent increase in the dose of Prozac or Zoloft like this kid in the Minnesota school killing and suicide.

[dennisw]

Another fine endorsement for Prozac

[neverdem]

See comment# 29. I only became aware of all the school shootings and this class of antidepressants about six months ago.

[Smokin' Joe]

Well, no sh!t! I am SO surprised...../SARCASM

[neverdem]

Should I hide the guns?

See comment# 29. I would make sure all firearms are secured, but I don't know what you're going to do about cutlery.

[Smokin' Joe]

All those wifebeaters out there who wait to get drunk to whip the ol' lady would sure indicate that you are not entirely correct.

The effects of the drug (in this case, alcohol) reduce judgement and emotional control and the underlying tendencies become manifest in a violent act.

Although there are numerous other complicating factors which may be involved, and the natural tendency may be present, the drug acts as either catalyst or excuse.

Imho, being in a drugged state probably increases the lack of connection with reality, and renders acts which would not have been considered by someone otherwise acceptable in their minds, at least until they see the mayhem they have committed and realize the implications. Then reality slaps them in the face, and unable to deal with that, they commit suicide.

Not a shrink, just my $0.02

[poetknowit]

Was Jeff a Churchill ward?

[durasell]

That's part of the problem. A psychologist helps you get over a bad relationship. A psychiatrist actually knows how the drugs work or are supposed to work.

[thoughtomator]

There seems to be an almost religious belief that the effects of these drugs on the brain are known. They are not. We know extremely little about brain chemistry and how it relates to disorders. All the science of these drugs amounts to is the measurement of some symptoms to the exclusion of others and a guess that certain things may or may not work. Furthermore the fact that adolescents' brains are still developing adds additional complications to the matter, there is no telling what the long term effects of drugging them might be.

Somehow we managed to get through a lot of history without either drugging kids or experiencing regular mass murders at their hands. What is going on today is an attempt to mask the natural symptoms of abandonment and other increasing dysfunctional cultural practices. It should be no surprise that with kids' brains being chemistry experiments that such things are happening more frequently.

[thoughtomator]

No psychiatrist knows the complete effects of these drugs, and any that claims to is a liar.

[durasell]

No, they don't -- but they can monitor a patient and change dosages or switch prescriptions if there is something bad going on. They can see things that a GP can't see. The trouble, of course, is tha qualified people are more expensive.

[thoughtomator]

And of course, that there's really very little monitoring of patients going on. They prescribe the drugs and forget about the patient.