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The gunman who opened fire on a "Madden NFL 19" tournament in Jacksonville, Florida, on Sunday was hospitalized previously for mental illness, according to court records. Divorce filings from the parents of 24-year-old David Katz of Baltimore showed that as a teenager he was hospitalized twice in psychiatric facilities and was prescribed anti-psychotic and anti-depressant medications, The Associated Press first reported Monday. Katz, a competitor at the gaming event, had two handguns and extra ammunition inside the restaurant where the competition was taking place, officials said at a news conference Monday afternoon.

In the wake of recent senseless acts of violence, especially in schools, the mental health watchdog Citizens Commission on Human Rights International (CCHR) urged state authorities and educators not to adopt “mental health screening” in schools in the false hope that it could prevent the violence... the newer antidepressants “boost serotonin levels in the brain” and “in rare cases, they can contribute to extreme violence, murder and suicide, particularly in the first few weeks they are taken.... Dr. Effrem stated, “There are so many problems with the foundation of these programs, it is difficult to know where to begin. Let’s...

Victoria Toline needed nine months to taper off Zoloft. “I had to drop out of school,” she said. “My life’s been on hold.” Victoria Toline would hunch over the kitchen table, steady her hands and draw a bead of liquid from a vial with a small dropper. It was a delicate operation that had become a daily routine — extracting ever tinier doses of the antidepressant she had taken for three years, on and off, and was desperately trying to quit. “Basically that’s all I have been doing — dealing with the dizziness, the confusion, the fatigue, all the symptoms...

"These data show that between 2007 and 2015, there's substantial increases in suicide rates for both young males and young females," said Tom Simon, an author of the report and associate director for science in the division of violence protection at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which published the new data Thursday. ... "If you look at suicide attempts by girls, it's typically that girls attempt suicide about four to one or three to one over boys, yet boys complete suicide in the reverse," Tishler said. "That tends, we think, to have to do with the modality...

Antidepressants in young people may do more harm than good, warn scientists. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2016/06/08/antidepressants-in-young-people-may-do-more-harm-than-good-warn/ *"researchers at Oxford University who carried out the review said effectiveness and safety of antidepressants taken by children and teenagers remained unclear because of the poor design and selective reporting of trials, which were mostly funded by drug companies."

A new study shows that more than two-thirds — some 69 percent – of patients using anti-depressants do not actually meet the criteria for depressive disorder. The study, which appears in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, finds that many individuals who are prescribed and take antidepressant medications may not actually have a depressive disorder, and that such drugs are often used by patients who do not meet the diagnostic criteria of depression. According to the research, among the users of antidepressant medications, 69 percent never met the diagnostic criteria for major depressive disorder (MDD), and 38 percent also never met...

Andreas Lubitz: Germanwings flight's last minutes revealed in chilling black box transcript 29 March 2015 By Alex Wellman Patrick Sondheimer is heard screaming to his co-pilot "Open the goddam door" as passengers scream in the background The dramatic last moments of the doomed Germanwings flight have been revealed in a chilling transcript of the black box recording that shows the captain screaming at Andreas Lubitz “Open the goddam door”. Patrick Sondheimer, pilot of the traffic plane, is heard frantically pleading with the killer to let him into the cockpit, just seconds before crashing into the Alps. BEA Germanwings CVR Evidence:...

In the American liberal compass, the needle is always pointing to places like Denmark. Everything they most fervently hope for here has already happened there. So: Why does no one seem particularly interested in visiting Denmark? (“Honey, on our European trip, I want to see Tuscany, Paris, Berlin and . . . Jutland!”) Visitors say Danes are joyless to be around. Denmark suffers from high rates of alcoholism. In its use of antidepressants it ranks fourth in the world. (Its fellow Nordics the Icelanders are in front by a wide margin.) Some 5% of Danish men have had sex with...

Part 4: A Walking Nightmare--Antidepressants and suicidality Just last August, a study was published in JAMA in which adolescents were screened for depression and then randomized either to a collaborative care intervention or usual care. An accompanying editorial called for integration of depression screening into primary pediatric care, noting that “depression is associated with serious mental health problems (e.g., suicide).” In fairness, it should be pointed out that in the above-mentioned study, the families of the children labeled depressed were offered a choice of medication or psychotherapy (54% chose medication in combination with psychotherapy, and 4% chose medication only). But...

Part 3: "A Walking Nightmare"-- Antidepressants and suicidality In the meantime the media and the FDA were flooded with tales of suicidal and homicidal violence committed by patients, including children, who had been taking Prozac. Faced with mounting pressure, the agency conducted a meta-analysis of 23 industry-sponsored RCT’s on pediatric patients for nine antidepressants: Prozac, Celexa, Zoloft, Remeron, Paxil, Effexor, Wellbutrin, Luvox, and Serzone. The analysis concluded that these drugs were associated with a more than two-fold increase in the risk of suicidal thoughts and actions in children. Accordingly, on 16 September 2004, an FDA advisory committee voted 15 to...

"A Walking Nightmare": Antidepressants and suicidality “It’s like being in a torture chamber all your life.” That’s how Brenda, a young woman from the southeast of England, describes her experience with prescription antidepressants. Two years ago, Brenda was a young professional with a career she enjoyed and an active social life. “I also started to write a novel,” she recalls. “I was really creative. I had a lot of friends.” All this changed in the summer of 2013 when Brenda experienced a minor medical problem and was prescribed Augmentin, an antibiotic. Immediately she began experiencing suicidal ideation, along with nausea,...

A new Johns Hopkins study discovers an association between prenatal exposure to antidepressant medications, autism spectrum disorder (ASD), and developmental delays (DD) in boys. Researchers from the Bloomberg School of Public Health found that early prenatal exposure to selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) — commonly prescribed for depression, anxiety, and other disorders — increased the risk for ASD three-fold. Common SSRIs include citalopram (Celexa), escitalopram (Lexapro), fluoxetine (Prozac), paroxetine (Paxil, Pexeva), and sertraline (Zoloft). The study of 1,000 mother-child pairs is published in the online edition of Pediatrics. In the study, investigators analyzed data from large samples of ASD and...

An alliance of drug companies and patient advocates, joined by Democrats and Republicans in Congress, is fiercely opposing an Obama administration proposal that would allow insurers to limit Medicare coverage for certain classes of drugs, including those used to treat depression and schizophrenia. The administration’s proposal would remove the protected status from three classes of drugs that has been in place since the program’s inception in 2006: immunosuppressant drugs used in transplant patients, antidepressants and antipsychotic medicines. They include many well-known drugs, such as Wellbutrin, Paxil and Prozac to treat depression, and Abilify and Seroquel to treat schizophrenia. Three other...

[drugawareness] TRAZADONE: 13 Dead in Washington DC Naval Yard Shooting FROM Dr. Ann Blake Tracy TO 1 recipient Show Details From Dr. Ann Blake Tracy To drugawareness@yahoogroups.com Aaron Alexis.jpg TRAZADONE: 13 Dead in Washington DC Naval Yard Shooting The New York Times released the fact that over the past month Aaron Alexis has been on the antidepressant, Trazadone, to treat insomnia. ( quotes below.) Of course I am not finished asking questions. I want to know what he was on before this that may have induced his serious problems with insomnia. Was that yet another antidepressant? Was he in withdrawal...

Bruce Springsteen’s decision to take antidepressants was colored by the fact that his father didn’t or wouldn’t. But it took a lot of psychotherapy for him to reach that point. … The fact that Springsteen has spoken openly about his chronic depression and other issues, and his use of medication to deal with those problems, has been welcomed by some in the fields of medicine and psychology as a breakthrough, given his popularity as a performer. It’s been quite a year for Springsteen as his mental health has been written about widely . Last July, the New Yorker magazine published...

MILWAUKEE (AP) — Is a gun like a virus, a car, tobacco or alcohol? Yes say public health experts, who in the wake of recent mass shootings are calling for a fresh look at gun violence as a social disease. SNIP The need for a new approach crystallized last Sunday for one of the nation's leading gun violence experts, Dr. Stephen Hargarten. He found himself treating victims of the Sikh temple shootings at the emergency department he heads in Milwaukee. Seven people were killed, including the gunman, and three were seriously injured. It happened two weeks after the shooting that...

Sladjana Vidovic's body lay in an open casket, dressed in the sparkly pink dress she had planned to wear to the prom. Days earlier, she had tied one end of a rope around her neck and the other around a bed post before jumping out her bedroom window. The 16-year-old's last words, scribbled in English and her native Croatian, told of her daily torment at Mentor High School, where students mocked her accent, taunted her with insults like "Slutty Jana" and threw food at her. It was the fourth time in little more than two years that a bullied high...

Note: Video included. "Bin Laden's Son Is Hospitalized After He Hears His Father's Voice Omar Bin Laden Is Treated for Schizophrenia, Wife Asks for Divorce" July 9, 2010 SNIPPET: ""It's true that he was put on medication but released himself early," said a spokesman for Zeina Al Sabah, Omar's wife. The spokesman confirmed that Omar had bipolar disorder and was on anti-depressants." SNIPPET: ""Omar loves and hates Osama at the same time," she said." SNIPPET: "Omar, 29, has denounced his father's terrorist tactics and ideology. But he still maintains an emotional bond..." SNIPPET: "Much of Osama Bin Laden's family, comprising...

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...

(edit) The truth is that until 1920, Britain’s gun laws were so relaxed they made Texas look effeminate, but we had virtually no gun crime. That only really began to increase here after we abolished hanging. But that truth doesn’t fit the Leftist dogma which has everyone, including the Tories, the media and the police, in its grip, so the facts will be ignored.(edit) But I’d also like to urge another line of investigation.  Was Bird taking the anti-depressant pills that are now prescribed so readily by NHS doctors to so many people whose lives – like Bird’s – have...