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The Sin of SuicideFR. WILLIAM SAUNDERSWhat is the Church's teaching regarding suicide? I always thought that suicide was a mortal sin, so how is it that a person can be buried in the Church? Before addressing the act of suicide, we must first remember that God is the giver of all life. Each of us has been made in God's image and likeness (Genesis 1:27) with both a body and a soul. Therefore, life is sacred from the moment of conception until natural death, and no one can justify the intentional taking of an innocent human life. For Christians, this teaching...

The woman who authorities say killed her teenage daughter and son because she was fed up with them talking back and being mouthy will not appear in court Saturday because she's being treated at a hospital for an unknown condition. Authorities say Julie Powers Schenecker was taken to Tampa General Hospital shortly after midnight Saturday to be treated for a medical condition that existed before she was taken to jail. Hillsborough Sheriff's deputies — who oversee jail inmates — said they could not reveal Schenecker's medical condition, citing health care privacy laws. An arrest affidavit said Schenecker shot her son...

TAMPA, Fla. -- Deputies in Florida say a man accused of stabbing his 6-year-old son more than 20 times has been charged with attempted murder. The Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office says in a press release that 23-year-old Xavier Thomas had been watching New Year's Eve fireworks with relatives late Friday. Deputies say Thomas took his son to a play area in the apartment complex once the fireworks were over.

Irving Kirsh aims to "explode the myth" of Prozac and its ilk, arguing that there's little evidence that they actually work for most patients. Depression is a chemical imbalance, most people think. Researchers, drug manufacturers, and even the Food and Drug Administration assert that antidepressants work by “normalizing” levels of brain neurotransmitters—chemical messengers such as serotonin. And yet hard science supporting this idea is quite poor, says Irving Kirsch, professor of psychology at the University of Hull in the U.K. An expert on the placebo effect, Kirsch has unearthed evidence that antidepressants do not correct brain chemistry gone awry. More...

EL CAJON, Calif., May 19 /PRNewswire/ -- Fred A. Baughman Jr., MD today announced the results of his research into the "series" of veterans' deaths acknowledged by the Surgeon General of the Army. Upon reading the May 24, 2008, Charleston (WV) Gazette article "Vets taking Post Traumatic Stress Disorder drugs die in sleep," Baughman began to investigate why these reported deaths were "different." And, why they were likely, the "tip of an iceberg." Andrew White, Eric Layne, Nicholas Endicott and Derek Johnson were four West Virginia veterans who died in their sleep in early 2008. Baughman's research suggests that they...

7-year-old boy prescribed powerful drug before suicide Troubled boy was being treated by a Broward psychiatrist who is on a list of Florida doctors red-flagged as having ''problematic'' prescribing practices MARGATE - Weeks before his death, Gabriel Myers, the 7-year-old Broward boy who hanged himself in the shower of his foster home, had been prescribed a powerful mind-altering drug linked by federal regulators to an increased risk of suicide in children. In all, Gabriel had been prescribed four psychiatric drugs, two or three of which he was taking at the time of his death, said Jack Moss, Broward chief of...

(Binghamton, N.Y. / ABC News) -- As many as 13 people have been shot dead and wounded dozens in a shooting rampage inside an upstate New York civic association building that caters to immigrants, according to federal and state authorities. The gunman, Jiverly Voong, allegedly held dozens of people hostage for several hours before shooting himself to death, police said. According to multiple state law enforcement officials, the gunman entered the one-story American Civic Association in downtown Binghamton about 10 a.m. today and began his shooting spree. A senior law enforcement official told ABC News that 13 people were shot...

This is a great resource full of DOCUMENTED, PEER-REVIEWED data, some of straight from the US Department of Justice, with an annotated bibliography. Be prepared to shove facts down their throats, when they only have "feelings." Here are few excerpts: Myth: Private ownership of guns is not effective in preventing crimeFact: Every year, people in the United States use a gun to defend themselves against criminals an estimated 2,500,000 times – more than 6,500 people a day, or once every 13 seconds.112 Of these instances, 15.6% of the people using a firearm defensively stated that they "almost certainly" saved their...

Anti-psychotics are not effective long-term, shrink the brain and almost triple the risk of dying early, a London NHS psychiatrist and academic has written in a new book. Isn't it about time for a deep examination of the validity of such drugs asks Adam James? ..... Christian was slouched in a chair in Bradford psychiatric unit. He was, seemingly, only half-conscious, half alive. He could hardly speak, let alone raise his head. Christian had been diagnosed with schizophrenia. Two days before, in a haze of paranoia, he had punched a colleague of mine at a day centre. So Christian was...

We have had LOTS of wonderful information come out since we held a fast as a group and I will begin sharing that with you over the next few days. One is important enough, it all is, but this is very critical information so I will get it right out tonight. I did not want to overwhelm you with it all at once. Now . . . those of you who know me well know that I do not get political . . . UNTIL it comes to hurting people with these deadly drugs or killing innocent people.... Party means...

When Claire, a pixie-faced 6-year-old in a school uniform, heard her older brother, James, enter the family’s Manhattan apartment, she shut her bedroom door and began barricading it so swiftly and methodically that at first I didn’t understand what she was doing. She slid a basket of toys in front of the closed door, then added a wagon and a stroller laden with dolls. She hugged a small stuffed Pegasus to her chest. “Pega always protects me,” she said softly. “Pega, guard the door.” James, then 10, had been given a diagnosis of bipolar disorder two years earlier. He was...

LONDON -- May 6, 2008 -- The selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) fluoxetine (Prozac) may help to curb disease activity in patients with the relapsing-remitting form of multiple sclerosis (MS). That's the finding of preliminary research published ahead of print in the journal of Neurology Neurosurgery and Psychiatry. The research team randomly allocated 40 patients with the relapsing-remitting form of MS to treatment with either 20 mg daily of fluoxetine (Prozac) or placebo for 24 weeks. All patients underwent magnetic resonance imaging every 4 weeks to check for new areas of neurological inflammation, a hallmark of active disease. In total,...

“I’ve grown up on medication,” my patient Julie told me recently. “I don’t have a sense of who I really am without it.” At 31, she had been on one antidepressant or another nearly continuously since she was 14. There was little question that she had very serious depression and had survived several suicide attempts. In fact, she credited the medication with saving her life. But now she was raising an equally fundamental question: how the drugs might have affected her psychological development and core identity. It was not an issue I had seriously considered before. Most of my patients,...

The Medicated Americans: Antidepressant Prescriptions on the Rise Close to 10 percent of men and women in America are now taking drugs to combat depression. How did a once rare condition become so common? I am thinking of the Medicated Americans, those 11 percent of women and 5 percent of men who are taking antidepressants. It is Sunday night. The Medicated American—let’s call her Julie, and let’s place her in Winterset, Iowa—is getting ready for bed. Monday morning and its attendant pressures—the rush to get out of the house, the long commute, the bustle of the office—loom. She opens the...

Gunman's Contradictions Confound Police By ASHLEY M. HEHER and CARYN ROUSSEAU – DEKALB, Ill. (AP) — Steven Kazmierczak had the look of a boyish graduate student — except for the disturbing tattoos that covered his arms. Professors and students knew him as a bright, helpful scholar, but his past included a stint in a mental health center. Many saw him as happy and stable, but he had developed a recent interest in guns and was involved in a troubled — possibly abusive — on-again, off-again relationship. What people initially told police about the Northern Illinois University shooter didn't add up,...

Steven Kazmierczak had been taking three drugs prescribed for him by his psychiatrist, the Northern Illinois University gunman's girlfriend told CNN. Jessica Baty said Steven Kazmierczak was irritable but not erratic before his shooting rampage. Jessica Baty said Tuesday that her boyfriend of two years had been taking Xanax, used to treat anxiety, and Ambien, a sleep agent, as well as the antidepressant Prozac. Baty said the psychiatrist prescribed the medications, a fact that made her so "nervous" that she tried to persuade Kazmierczak to stop taking one of the drugs.

Steven P. Kazmierczak stopped taking Prozac before he shot to death five Northern Illinois University students and himself, his girlfriend said Sunday in a remark likely to fuel the debate over the risks and benefits of drug treatment for emotional problems. A funeral on Monday in Cicero, Ill., for Catalina Garcia, 20, who was one of five students killed in a shooting Thursday in a lecture hall at Northern Illinois University. Over the years, the antidepressant Prozac and its cousins, including Paxil and Zoloft, have been linked to suicide and violence in hundreds of patients. Tens of millions of people...

Despite recent bad publicity over withheld studies showing marginal results, the resume of America's arsenal of antidepressants is enviable: consort to celebrities, subject of best-selling books and tabloid headlines. They may be the most celebrated pills since Valium. Prozac, Zoloft, Paxil, Celexa and Lexapro, among others, have become both household words and medicine-cabinet staples. Known collectively as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, or SSRIs, these antidepressants are prescribed for anxiety, social phobia, obsessive-compulsive disorder and numerous conditions besides depression. SSRIs are now the most commonly prescribed of all medications in this country. The rate at which physicians prescribed SSRIs more than...

The quandary: Preventing deadly campus shootings while respecting rights A week ago, Steven Kazmierczak walked into Tony's Guns & Ammo, a yellow shop in a back yard near the University of Illinois, and bought a Remington shotgun and a 9 mm Glock pistol. Around the same time, family members noticed that Kazmierczak was acting "erratically," after he had stopped taking prescription medicines for anxiety. Kazmierczak used his two new guns, and two more he had also purchased legally, to kill five students and himself Thursday in a shooting rampage at Northern Illinois University that leaves policymakers again scrambling to figure...

"When I was lying in my bed that night, I couldn’t sleep because my voice in my head kept echoing through my mind telling me to kill them." You're reading the words of 12-year-old Christopher Pittman, struggling to explain why he murdered his grandparents, who had provided the only love and stability in his turbulent life. He was angry with his grandfather, who had disciplined him earlier that day for hurting another student during a fight on the school bus. So later that night, he shot both of his grandparents in the head with a .410 shotgun as they...

DEKALB, Ill. — Steven Kazmierczak checked into a hotel near Northern Illinois University three days before his deadly shooting spree at the campus, paying cash and signing in under only his first name, the hotel manager said Saturday. Kazmierczak was last seen at the Travelodge on Tuesday, hotel manager Jay Patel said. Cigarette butts, empty energy drink and cold medicine containers littered the room Friday. Authorities found a duffel bag, with the zippers glued shut, that Kazmierczak had left in the room, DeKalb police Lt. Gary Spangler said. A bomb squad safely opened the bag Friday, he said. The Chicago...

One gun, one person trained how to use it and willing to do so could have stopped most of this: DEKALB, Ill. - Another person shot when a gunman opened fire at a lecture hall at Northern Illinois University has died, bringing the toll to seven, including the gunman, a coroner said Friday. Investigators and school officials did not immediately know why the man indiscriminately fired into the crowd with a shotgun and two handguns Thursday, wounding 15 people and sending panicked students fleeing for the exits before killing himself. “We have no motive and I have no way of...

BLACKSBURG, Va., April 18 — Cho Seung-Hui rarely spoke to his own dormitory roommate. His teachers were so disturbed by some of his writing that they referred him to counseling. And when Mr. Cho finally and horrifyingly came to the world’s attention on Monday, he did so after writing a note that bitterly lashed out at his fellow students for what he deemed their moral decay. Mr. Cho’s eruption of violence, in which 32 victims and himself were killed on the Virginia Tech campus here in a rampage of gunfire, was never directly signaled by his actions or words, several...

Health and Science Correspondent WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Suicide rates among the youngest and oldest Americans have steadily declined since the late 1980s, U.S. researchers reported on Thursday in a finding that contradicts popular conceptions that rates were rising. The study suggests that new antidepressant drugs may not raise the risk of suicide after all, the researchers said, but they acknowledge they are mystified by what might be causing the decline, because it is not affecting people aged 25 to 64. "For 40 years adolescent suicide rates rose," said Dr. Robert McKeown, a professor at the University of South Carolina's school...

By the time he reached his early thirties, James was a promising scientist who had all the makings of an academic star. He had earned a stream of fellowships and was on the path to tenure at one of Boston’s preeminent universities. But James had a problem: he dreaded speaking in public. Academic conferences terrified him, so he avoided them whenever possible. He rarely interacted with colleagues. As a result, his ideas didn’t circulate and his career stalled.In frustration, James sought help from a psychiatrist, who diagnosed him with a mental disorder known as “social phobia” and prescribed a well-known...

ASSOCIATED PRESS NEW YORK -- New research has linked the use of Prozac and other similar antidepressants during pregnancy to yet another complication in newborns: an uncommon but life-threatening lung problem. Infants whose mothers took the antidepressants in the second half of pregnancy had six times the expected risk of developing the lung disorder, the researchers reported in Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine. The antidepressants implicated are called selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, or SSRIs, a class of drugs that includes Prozac, Paxil and Zoloft. "This is the latest in a series of troubling reports of possible adverse effects of...

Pregnant women who take selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) antidepressants such as Celexa, Paxil, Prozac and Zoloft could boost the risk of withdrawal symptoms for their newborns, a new study suggests. However, the Israeli researchers add that these symptoms are usually gone within 48 hours and appear to pose no long-term threat to the infant's health. Another expert noted that stopping antidepressant therapy during pregnancy poses its own risk to the health of a mother and her child. "At present, probably the effect of not treating the women's clinical depression is a much bigger issue for mothers and their infants,"...

Last week, a federal advisory panel urged regulators to warn parents that antidepressant drugs not only increase the risk of suicide in some children, but that most have a poor track record in curing their disease. The recommendation came after a yearlong debate over whether the drugs are as safe and effective as advertised. It was based on evidence that a small minority of children show increased signs of suicidal behavior when taking the drugs. Through it all, one of the drugs seemed somehow above the fray: Prozac. Although the warning is recommended for Prozac as well as other drugs,...

"In the United States, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) antidepressants are advertised directly to consumers [1]. These highly successful direct-to-consumer advertising (DTCA) campaigns have largely revolved around the claim that SSRIs correct a chemical imbalance caused by a lack of serotonin."

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) mandated a new warning label be added to antidepressants more than a year ago, cautioning physicians to pay close attention to patients taking the drugs for signs of suicidal behavior. Now the agency issued its second (much stronger) warning, urging the monitoring of adults who use antidepressants for signs of suicidal thoughts and deepening depression.FDA's New AdvisoryThe new warning, which is applicable to children and adults, was in the wake of recent studies that linked suicidal behavior in adults to their use of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), the most commonly prescribed class of...

Efficacy of antidepressants in adults BMJ  2005;331:155-157 (16 July), doi:10.1136/bmj.331.7509.155Joanna Moncrieff, senior lecturer in social and community psychiatry1, Irving Kirsch, professor of psychology2  1 Department of Mental Health Sciences, University College London, London W1N 8AA, 2 School of Health and Social work, University of Plymouth, PlymouthCorrespondence to: J Moncrieff j.moncrieff@ucl.ac.uk Most people with depression are initially treated with antidepressants. But how well do the data support their use, and should we reconsider our strategy?     Introduction TopIntroductionEfficacySeverity of depressionMethodological issues in...Effect of antidepressantsConclusionsReferences   The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) recently recommended that antidepressants, in particular selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors,...

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Media Alert Friends of Christopher Candle Light Vigil What: Candle Light Vigil in support of Christopher Pittman and all of South Carolina’s children. Who: Christopher’s young friends who live in Chester, SC and other supporters from around the southeast who are concerned about the persecution of children as adults will gather in Chester for a candle light vigil in support of justice for South Carolina’s children and in support of Christopher Pittman. When: Saturday, March 19, 2005 at 6:30 pm Where: New Hope United Methodist Church 2149 West Chester School Rd. Chester, SC 29706 Background: Concerned citizens...

  An anonymous source sent confidential drug company documents that had been missing for more than 10 years to the British Medical Journal. The documents, which suggest a link between Prozac (fluoxetine, made by Eli Lilly) and suicide attempts and violence, will be reviewed by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The documents went missing during a 1994 product liability suit. They include reviews and memos indicating that as far back as the 1980s, Eli Lilly officials were not only aware that Prozac had side effects, but also they attempted to minimize those negative effects.The liability suit surrounded...

Warning Dropping “cold turkey” off any medication, most especially mind altering medications, can often be MORE DANGEROUS than staying on the drugs. Tapering off very, very, very slowly- over months, not just weeks, has proven the safest and most effective method of withdrawal from this type of medication, thereby giving the body time to readjust its own chemical levels.

Federal regulators said for the first time yesterday that clinical trials of popular antidepressants such as Prozac, Paxil and Zoloft show a greater risk of suicide among children taking the drugs compared with those taking dummy pills. Although only one of these drugs has been approved for the treatment of children with depression, doctors are prescribing them to hundreds of thousands of American children every year. The new Food and Drug Administration analysis of the trials is starkly at odds with repeated assurances by the U.S. psychiatric establishment that the drugs are very safe. Regulators said the result of their...