Understanding Drug Suicide Rates - Lucire

HeidiMarie,

    One thing that became very clear at the FDA hearings on SSRIs was that these drugs kill without warning.

   IN MANY, MANY CASES, IT IS NOT A PERSON BECOMING MORE AND MORE DEPRESSED RESULTING IN SUICIDE BUT RATHER AN ALMOST INSTANTANEOUS THOUGHT OF "I SHOULD KILL MYSELF NOW".

   Those who survive these thoughts describe them as " a dream that you know what is going to happen, but you can't stop it.

   After Brynn Hartman (on Zoloft) killed her husband Phil Hartman, she phoned the neighbor to come over and tell her what was real and what was a dream.

   I'll post you a Prozac story....

Here you go...

Paula's Story,
 I am thirty-six years old this DEC. ninth. I had a complete 
hysterectomy at 
the age of twenty-six. My doctor put me on hormone replacement. I had 
problems sleeping. I would go through nights without any sleep, 
fighting 
insomnia. Through lack of sleep I was exhausted. A friend of mine 
suggested 
for me to go to her physician. She felt he could help me. She made the 
appointment, drove me to the doctors office. After seeing the doctor he 
prescribed a sleeping aid, which was the root of the problem and 
prozac. I 
found out my friend was on it too. She expressed to me it made her feel 
like 
a brand new person. No one took the time to explain the danger of this 
drug 
or monitored me on the drug. 
At the time, I really was not sure of how I felt, there was a lot of 
changes. 
The only different was that I was sleeping a little better than before. 
My 
emotions were numd, nothing brother me, even daily chores, I let them 
go. I 
did not care. Soon my insomnia came back even worse than before. In 
March of 
2000, being on prozac three months, I started her way to hell. I did 
not know 
mentally what is going on or happening within. My whole mental 
capability is 
blurred. I started crying hysterically. It crossed my mind this is 
ridiculous 
crying all the time and spending the amount of money monthly for 
prozac. I 
threw the bottle of pills in the trash. Each day that went by I 
steadily was 
hitting bottom. Everything that crossed my mind had to do with 
religion. The 
people that I seen at this time all knew that something was wrong with 
me. 
This went on for about nine to ten days. Each day getting worse and 
worse. 
Toward the eighth day my emotion/thoughts flipped speedily from one 
thought 
to another. Aurbrey, my eleven year old daughter and myself went to 
MacDonalds for lunch. I became extremely paranoid of everyone in the 
building. I thought someone was going to come in start shooting. I was 
so 
frightened all I could think of was protecting Aubrey. I thought my 
yard was 
the Garden of Eden. Everything was meant to be free. So I let our big 
dog 
loose and freed our two ducks that were in a cage. Our big dog caught 
one of 
the duck in his month, immediately it crossed my mind that he was a 
monster 
and he was monster and he was going to kill the ducks. I became scared 
of 
him. In the process of trying to catch him to get the duck out of his 
mouth, 
he finally let the duck go, he then jumped on Aubrey and knocked her 
down. 
She was screaming, he was on top of her and she could not get up. 
That's when 
I hysterically went to pieces. I had to save her. I went to get the gun 
that 
was in the closet on the top shelf. I shot the dog to save Aubrey. The 
next 
thing I remember is I am in my bathroom to put the gun up and all of a 
sudden 
my thinking pattern shifts again. Crying, I put the gun to my head to 
pull 
the trigger when Aubrey walks into the bathroom to witnesses what is 
fixing 
to happen. She screams "No Moma," and jumps on me and grabs my hand 
with the 
gun, the gun goes off. The bullet that was meant for me hit her.
The next thing I remember is waking up in ICU being told I had been 
shot. I 
lost one lung and part of my liver. I lost Aubrey. I went through hell 
for 
days, no one had enough of time to reach a caring hand out to save me. 
My 
daughter was the bravest of all. She reached out her hand and saved my 
life. 
What once was a normal family now grieving torn apart family that has 
lost so 
much. I had to under go hypnosis to remember all of this for my memory 
WA 
blank. I was charged with murder and also death penalty. Today, I have 
been 
on a long journey. It has been almost two years my world came crashing 
down. 
Everyday I see my scars on my body to remind me of this horrible 
tragedy that 
I lived through and Aubrey did not.  When I was in the hospital I had 
guards 
24hrs a day. After I was discharged, I was sent to the psychiatric ward 
which 
I remained there for a couple of weeks, then sent to the parish jail 
for 
three months. I was sent to a mental hospital for therapy/hypnosis to 
regain 
my memory. I stayed there six months. The judge found me Not Quilty by 
Reason 
of Insanity to the charge of First Degree Murder committed me to the 
custody 
of the State Department of Health and Hospital,Forensic Division. Due 
to a 
long waiting list for this particular hospital, I was sent to jail for 
nine 
months. I have made it to the hospital, but don't see a psychiatrist 
once a 
month. These people in here are all on drugs. I have made it this far 
and not 
taking even hormones. Yes, they have tried to put me on them, I refuse 
to 
take them. They tell me I am hopeless.
This is in Paula's own writing,
Thanks and please share this with others show them how dangerous these 
drugs 
can be.
Sandra Cindrich

SSRIS...

...SAFE... NON ADDICTIVE, NON HABIT FORMING, FDA APPROVED DRUGS.

Relative Risks (RR) on Suicide Rates

Article by an Australian Forensic Psychiatrist.  As a google html version its a little more difficult to read - if you have power point then it's better to use the first link.

http://www.lucire.com.au/documents/pps/Do-SSRIs-cause-Suicid e.pps

Google html version

"Antidepressants form two major groupings: New SSRIs and older TCAs, which I’ll call TricyclicsSSRIs act on Serotonin and have profound effects. They are capable of changing people profoundly and not always for the best. Contrary to popular opinion, there is no scientific evidence that serotonin is abnormal in depression.Having more of it floating around makes for a lot of change.

SSRIs (the Accused) TCAs (the Comparator) Prozac Tryptanol Zoloft Tofranil Aropax Prothiaden Efexor Sinequan Cipramil Lexapro Luvox


Caution:Do not stop taking an antidepressant without medical supervision.Complications occur on starting, stopping and with irregular dosing. Withdrawal can start up to four weeks after stopping the drug and can go on for three months Complications include agitation, mania, psychosis and self harm and suicide and violence and homicide.


The possibility that a drug was causing the effects it was supposed to cure was unthinkable, especially by clinicians.But it is accepted: SSRI-induced akathisia is in the latest Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, the ever expanding list of mental disorders. DSM

How common is it? A 2001: Yale: 8% of patients admitted ‘may suffer’ from SSRI-induced mania or psychosis. Higher levels of prescribing in OZ and including agitation, suicidal thoughts and attempts, its more like 20%.

I will give you Daubert competent science. Science that has passes 6 Daubert Hearings. Scientific (as opposed to opinion) evidence is the only kind of expert evidence admissible in American and Australian courts Scientific evidence that SSRIs cause: Suicidal thinking Suicidal acts Completed suicide.

The 1993 US Supreme Court Decision in Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals altered the criteria by which scientific testimony is admitted as evidence in court. The unanimous ruling states that the criterion of the scientific status of a theory is that it can be tested, refuted and falsified.  Scientific method is based on generating a null hypothesis, a conjecture that something does not exist, and testing it to see if it you can prove the contrary.The unicorn does not exist. The prisoner is not guilty. These are respectively good science and good law Disproving the negative differentiates science from other forms of inquiry William Daubert, et ux., etc., et al., Petitioners v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc.Supreme Court of the USA, June 28, 1993.

We need to watch two numbers RELATIVE RISK RR SUICIDE RATE /100,000

A Relative Risk, RR, is how many more times SUICIDE and its precursors THINKING OF SUICIDE AND SUICIDAL ATTEMPTS occur in SSRI-TREATED PATIENTS over and above those treated with a Tricyclicor not treated at all.

If a medicine saves some depressed patients from committing suicide, the RR between that medicine and no treatment should be less than 1.Tricyclics generally had an RR of 0.5 against no treatment, in "hospital" depressions, in which suicides were a known risk. Tricyclics halved the number of suicides in a seriously depressed population.

Tricyclics were known to cause suicide by energising the depressed, but RR was still favourable.If the relative risk equals 1.0, the risk in treated individuals is the same as the risk in untreated ones. If the relative risk is more than 1.0, the risk in treated is greater than in untreated. As we are trying to prevent suicide, an RR of 1 would be ominous.

Eli Lilly (Prozac) Pfizer (Zoloft) and GSK (Aropax) proposed in 1999, the cut off point of SIGNIFICANCE, Relative Risk, RR, be 2.0. Ridiculously HIGH by any standard. Corporate chutzpah.

Exposure to asbestos is deemed contributory to cancer if the RR is only 1.2 which is 20% higher. Asbestos was never expected to PREVENT cancer. AN RR OF 2 IS FIVE TIMES THAT.

The evidence for suicide induction can be found in many areas of research1. CLINICAL PSYCHIATRY Observations and mechanisms Challenge-Dechallenge-Rechallenge experiments Studies of NEW suicidal ideation, (Fava)2. SUICIDE EPIDEMIOLOGY SUICIDES BY PRESCRIBED DRUG JICK, UK DSRU DONOVAN POPULATION STUDIES , PRIMARY CARE HEALY AND BOARDMAN3. HEALTHY VOLUNTEER STUDIES 4. RANDOM CONTROL TRIALS (RCTs)

The evidence from all these sources is overwhelmingly supports a relative risk of suicide by SSRI users of greater than 2, and sometimes as high as 8 or 10.

CLINICAL PSYCHIATRY 1990 American Journal of Psychiatry. 147(2):207-10, 1990 Feb.Abstract Teicher Glod and Cole. Six developed intense, violent suicidal preoccupation after 2-7 weeks of Prozac which persisted 3 days to 3 months after Prozac was stopped. None had ever experienced a similar state .Drug companies called this ‘anecdotal’ and said "It’s the disease not the drug, doctor" Now scores of such reports, patients treated for anxiety, eating disorders,OCD and menstrual problems and children

CLINICAL PSYCHIATRYTeicher and Cole (1993) delineate 9 "clinical mechanisms" by which SSRIs can induce or exacerbate suicidal tendencies by: (1) energizing depressed patients, (2) paradoxically worsening their depression , (3) inducing akathisia, (4) inducing panic attacks, (5) switching patients to mania or hypomania, (6) causing insomnia or interfering with sleep architecture (esp. with REM sleep), (7) inducing an organic obsessional state, (8) promoting personality disorder with borderline traits, (9) producing EEG or other neurological disturbances.

Those at risk of suicide are agitated,in turmoil, nervous, sleepless, pacing, energized, almost manic, and they reject their obsessive suicidal thoughts as ‘strange’, ‘weird,’‘not me’.This can go on for weeks or can turn into suicide unpredictably in a matter of minutes.Teicher and Cole, 1993 Healy, Langmaak, and Savage, 1999;’

The traditional suicidogenic triumvirate of psychotropic drug reactions are 1) akathisia, (2) emotional blunting, also called psychic numbing "I cannot feel anything, do not care" and/or (3) psychotic decompensation Akathisia is turmoil, feeling numb as if nothing matters, and feeling one is going mad. It can happen over weeks or days, or very very quickly, in a matter of minutes. Teicher and Cole, 1993 Healy, Langmaak, and Savage, 1999;

CLINICAL PSYCHIATRY1991: Suicidal thinking (out of the blue)Fava and Rosenbaum found suicidal thinking developed in patients who had never been suicidal before, more on Prozac than on other drugs. Prozac v TCAs = RR = 2.7Scores of reportsFava, M. & Rosenbaum, J. 1991. Suicide and 3 fluoxetine. Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, 52-5.

CLINICAL PSYCHIATRYSUICIDAL ACTS 2 of 26 depressed patients overdosed in the first 2 weeks when Prozac was increased quickly. 7.6% is an extremely high rate. M. Muijen, et al., A Comparative Clinical Trial of Fluoxetine, Mianserin, and Placebo in Depressed Outpatients, Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica, Vol. 78 (1988), pgs. 384-390).

CLINICAL PSYCHIATRYChallenge-Dechallenge-Rechallenge CDRThere are many Challenge-Dechallenge-Rechallenge studies. Suicidality starts on drug, clears up when it is stoppedand Reappears on re-exposure, even to another SSRI.

SUICIDE EPIDEMIOLOGY: JICK Against concerns that Britain’s most popular TCA antidepressant, Prothiaden, dangerously toxic in overdose and being labeled as a ‘dirty drug by SSRI mfrs.Jick examined 172,598 persons and 1.2 million scripts for 10 antidepressants, old and new, general practice patients 143 had committed suicide.Jick S, Dean AD, Jick H (1995). Antidepressants and suicide. British Medical Journal 310: 215-218

SUICIDE EPIDEMIOLOGY : JICK Prothiaden turned out to be the safest as only 14% of suicides involved antidepressant overdose.

RR of SUICIDE Prozac v all TCAs RR = 6.6

Prozac v Tofranil RR = 1.9

Prozac v Amitriptyline RR = 4.0

Prozac v Prothiaden RR = 2.1

Prozac v Lofepramine RR = 4.04

SSRI overdoses are not fatal. SSRI suicides tend to be violent: hanging, drowning, shooting, jumping, stabbing or cutting, dying on a railway, burning, electrocution, or deliberate road accidents.


SUICIDE EPIDEMIOLOGY: JICK Jick was embarrassed and suggested that ‘selected’ patients may have been given Prozac, which had a high suicide rate attached.

SUICIDE EPIDEMIOLOGY : DRUG SAFETY RESEARCH UNIT UK (50,000 pop.)The DSRU follows up drugs in the community it looked at completed suicides and what medicines they had been prescribed.Suicide rate on SSRIs = 219/100,000.Prozac 244/100,000 Aropax [PAXIL/SEROXAT] 269/100,000 Luvox [FAVERIN] 183/100,000


Boardman and Healy investigated 475,000 over 5 years counting all the mood disorders in all the private practices and suicide rates for these disorders


SUICIDE EPIDEMIOLOGY: Boardman & Healy PRIMARY CARE SUICIDE RATES All mental disorders < 27-67/100,000. Fits in with other primary care mood disorders suicide statistics Holland 30/100,000 Sweden 0/100,000Antedating SSRIs Simon, von Korff 30/100,000 Highest UK rate 68/100,000Boardman AP, Healy D. Madeley suicide risk in primary care primary affective disorders. European Psychiatry. 2001; 16: 400-405.

SUICIDE EPIDEMIOLOGY: DONOVAN again sought to establish the safety of SSRIs against TCAs which were toxic in overdose. Examined 222 COMPLETED SUICIDES, and the medicines they had been taking, and found   SSRIs v TCA RR= 2    Donovan S, Kelleher MJ, Lambourn J, Foster R.     The occurrence of suicide following the prescription of antidepressant drugs. Arch Suic Res. 1999; 5: 181-192.

SUICIDAL ACTS: DONOVAN At the same time, DONOVAN looked at 2776 acts of DELIBERATE SELF HARM in 1954 persons presenting to emergency and what they were taking Aropax [PAXIL] v Tryptanol (TCA) RR = 4.0     Prozac v Tryptanol (TCA) RR = 6.6     Zoloft v Tryptanol (TCA) RR = 4.9    Aropax v Tofranil (TCA) RR = 1.9    All SSRI v Tofranil (TCA) RR = 5.5

 Donovan S, Clayton A, Beeharry M, Jones S, Kirk C, Waters K, Gardner D, Faulding J, Madely R. Deliberate self-harm and antidepressant drugs. Investigation of a possible link. Brit J Psychiatry. 2000; 177: 551-556

HEALTHY VOLUNTEERS Healy: 2 of 20 healthy volunteers suicidal on Zoloft.

2 healthy volunteers have suicided: 19 year old Traci Johnston, a healthy volunteer, suicided February 7th 2004 in a trial of Eli Lilly's new Serotonin drug - duloxetine [CYMBALTA/YENTREVE], for incontinence aborting the trial Reported in Sydney Morning Herald Lilly had been doing clinical trials in Australia

Result:You cannot set up a trial to see how many people kill themselves as a consequence of the drug you are testing It would be impossible to get insuranceor ethics approval. Or informed consent? Have to make do with information we have.Emergence of antidepressant suicidality, published in 2000 in Primary Care Psychiatry (Vol. 6, No. 1).

RANDOM CONTROLLED TRIALS (RCTs)SUICIDES AND SUICIDAL ACTS2003, Khan et al. looked at BLIND CLINICAL TRIALS from 1986-90 Presented to the US Federal Drug Administration, to get SSRIs licensed. FOR9 Serotonin ANTIDEPRESSANTS against comparators and placebos.

Kahn found NO DIFFERENCE in suicides and suicidal acts between those on SSRIs or on COMPARATOR DRUGS or PLACEBOS48,277 depressed patients participated in the trials,and 77 committed suicide. That’s a lot. Am J Psychiatry. 2003 Apr;160(4):790-2.

RANDOM CONTROLLED TRIALS SSRIs had failed to demonstrate usefulness in hospital depressions. (We still give as much ECT as we ever did) so ‘hospital patients’ carrying suicide risk were not recruited into these trials. SSRIs were aimed at general practice. ‘Samples of convenience’ patients under stress, with minor disorders, The Valium using population of the 1970s With suicidal patients filtered out.

In September of 2003, Healy and Whittaker re-evaluated the same, original FDA studies. They published a watershed paper in September 2003. Antidepressants and suicide:risk–benefit conundrums David Healy, MD; Chris Whitaker, MScHealy — Department of Psychological Medicine, University of Wales College of Medicine, Hergest Unit; Whitaker — Department of Informatics, University of Wales Bangor, Bangor, United Kingdom. J Psychiatry Neurosci 2003;28(5):331-7

Whereas Kahn had coded as ‘placebo suicides’ those within 2 weeks of stopping an SSRI Healy and Whittaker recognised these 5 SUICIDES and MANY SUICIDAL ACTS AS ‘SSRI WITHDRAWAL SUICIDES’.

Khan had counted suicides per number of patient years exposed to the drug, PEYs .Healy counted suicides per number of patients treated

Healy argued that the risks of SSRIs resembled the risks of space travel which, mile for mile, was the safest form of transport available. But going up and coming down are the danger periods for both.


But landing and re-entry occurs each time a dose is forgotten, not absorbed, taken with alcohol or if a co-prescribed medicine is added or removed.




Summary: Incidence of Suicides and Suicide Attempts (combined) in Antidepressant Trials From FDA Medical Reviews

FDA TRIALS SUMMARY 26,000 subjects SUICIDE RATES ALL DRUGS SUICIDE = 232/100,000SSRI SUICIDE = 186/100,000 PLACEBO SUICIDE = 64/100,000RELATIVE RISK FDA TRIALSSUICIDE ON SSRI RR = 2.4 (CI 0.6-10.2)SUICIDAL ACT ON SSRIS RR = 2.2 (CI 1.4-3.5)S/ ACTS ON NEW ANTIDEPRESSANTS RR = 4.3 (CI 1.1-17.8)

SUICIDE RATESDRUG SAFETY RESEARCH UNIT SSRI SUICIDE = 212/100,000JICK PROZAC in first 30 days of treatment 274/100,000 PEYsPROZAC 93/100,000

SUICIDE EPIDEMIOLOGY: Boardman & Healy and many othersAntedating SSRIsPRIMARY CARE SUICIDE RATES < 27-68/100,000 MAXIMUM ANY POPULATION STUDY 68/100,000Boardman AP, Healy D. Madeley suicide risk in primary care primary affective disorders. European Psychiatry. 2001; 16: 400-405.

Healy and Whittaker’s conclusion was modest: It is no longer possible to support the null hypothesis that SSRIs do not cause suicide The null hypothesis has been falsified.

Any way you look at available information, clinical settings,emergency rooms, morgues, clinical trials,SSRIs as a general cause of suicide would pass the scientific standard of proof.The BMJ issued warnings on February 5 2004.FDA on March 23Most manufacturers put on Websites on May 3, 2004. Only in USA.


WARNING MAY 3 2004… patients being treated with antidepressants should be observed closely for clinical worsening and suicidality, especially at the beginning of a course of drug therapy, or at the time of dose changes, either increases or decreases.

WARNING MAY 3 2004 Families and caregivers of patients being treated with antidepressants for major depressive disorder or other indications, both psychiatric and non-psychiatric, should be alerted about the need to monitor patients for the emergence of agitation, irritability, as well as the emergence of suicidality, and to report such symptoms immediately to health care providers

Unlike smallpox, depression has not  disappeared since a cure became available  Potentially fatal complications of any treatment might be acceptable if the treated population were small, dangerously ill, at high risk the availability of a remedy has increased the diagnosis of depression a thousandfold.and lethal side effects have increased by the same multiplier.

The drug manufacturers promote the medicalization of stress, subsidize psychiatrists, journals, conferences. Encourage moral entrepreneurs of health who talk about cases undiagnosed, and so untreated John Merson calls this phenomenon ‘epistemic capture’: the control of knowledge by vested interests.

200/100,000 represents 1 death in 500 people treated with SSRIs in primary care.68/100,000 v 200/100,000A least 100 suicides per 100,000 over treatment with other drugs or non treatment.By 2003, over 28 million people had started Prozac since its launch in 1988.

6,664,960 prescriptions for SSRI written 2003 by Australian doctors.Twelve times the annual number studied by Donovan 40% of first prescriptions remain unfinished, because of side effects. PBS spends $160 million a year on SSRIs.Cui Bono?

I in 500 too rare for clinicians to see.They need advice from suicide epidemiologists and statisticians.Opinion evidence is not admissible. ‘We are not convinced’ and ad hominem arguments do not get admitted as evidence.

1 in 500 is well above Rogers and Whittaker’s 1 in 14,000 and demands a duty to warn of a catastrophic side effect.

Someone has that duty.Who will tell the prescribing doctor? The manufacturers have not done so in Austrlalia. The Therapeutic Goods Administration has not issued warnings. The Federal Drug Administration in USA argues that its role is licensing drugs, not protecting the public.  Psychiatrists, all clinicians, are ‘not convinced’.

Some more alarming informataion has emerged from David Healy's re evaluation of the clinical trials of antipsychotic drugs presented to the FDA.It concerns commonly prescribed antipsychotic drugs The regulator, the FDA, just did not notice in the late 1980s that one in 208 or 12 in 2,500 clinical trial subjects committed suicide while Zyprexa was being trialled and only one on placebo and one on a comparator, most likely haloperidol did that.


The subject numbers are so small that relative risk cannot be calculated, but Zyprexa (Olanzepine) trials had the highest rate of suicide in clinical trial history. Suicidal Acts have not been reported Risperdal was not far behind Zyprexa. The mechanism is thought to be similar,through causing akathisia and doing these drugs synergistically with SSRIs. Doctors have not been warned.

All Truth passes through Three Stages: First, it is Ridiculed... Second, it is Violently Opposed... Third, it is Accepted as being Self-Evident.Arthur Schopenhauer (1778-1860 )

In Friedson’s account, moral entrepreneurs in medicine are commonly part-time practitioners who crusade in health matters. The thrust of their activity is towards political power as they seek to implement measures designed to improve what they see as public health. They give press interviews and try to give testimony in court.

They are often responsible for legislation. They want to place jurisdiction for their concerns in the hands of health professionals rather than leave them with society. Freidson identified lay interest groups, sometimes led by, and always including, prominent physicians, whom he described as ‘the most flamboyant moral entrepreneurs of health, untrammelled by professional dignity, crusading against the menace of a specially chosen disease, impairment or disease-producing agent’

Such moral entrepreneurs, essential players in any moral panic, are ubiquitous. Professional entrepreneurs are creating panics about the consequences of child sexual abuse, others about failing to have professionals attend immediately on persons involved in traumatic events and about depression which had become the greatest scourge of modern society.

They advert to cases of undiagnosed and untreated post-traumatic stress disorder and depression, which medication would surely cure. They attribute to these evils a status of being important causes of personal failure and society’s epidemic ills.

Physician moral entrepreneurs are likely to see the environment as more dangerous to health than does the layman, and to emphasise the seriousness of the health problem preoccupying them by estimating the cases probably undiagnosed and therefore untreated.

They are disposed to see mental illness where the layman sees nervousness, to see illness where the layman sees variations within the broad range of normality, to see a serious problem where the layman sees only a minor one. They are biased towards the creation of sick roles and press their licence as physicians to manage the newly defined sick within their relevant speciality frameworks.

In brief, the medical profession is more prone to see illness and the need for treatment than it is to see health and normality. This selective perception is both self-confirming and self-sustaining."

Heidi, your husband is very fortunate that the drugs made him almost homicidal but not totally and so things didn't end tragically. Good luck also with your weaning off adderall.

It never is the medicine's fault when a patient is given drugs, its always put down to the patient. Even when those patients were initially mentally healthy but were given a drug like Zoloft for pain, or hormonal problems, or dietary reasons rather than for a mental disorder.

But its far harder to explain away how a proportion of healthy 100% normal volunteers (including professionals, nursing staff and administration) in clinical studies can also become severely agitated and suicidal.

http://www.academyanalyticarts.org/healyepi.htm

"...The study was one that was designed to explore whether antidepressants selective to different neurotransmitter systems have different functional effects.  With colleagues, I recruited twenty senior medical, nursing and administrative staff from the psychiatric unit in which the North Wales University Department of Psychiatry was also based.  The volunteers were randomized to a clinical dose of sertraline, a Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitor (trade name Zoloft) or reboxetine, an agent selective to the norepinephrine system (not available in North America) for two weeks, followed by a two-week discontinuation arm and then randomization to the other agent for two weeks.   

Could they specify functional differences between the two agents?  We had a series of other questions such as whether personality type predicted who would prefer which agent.  The study found that drugs selective to the norepinephrine system increased drive and energy whereas a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor appeared to produce a mellowing of affect.  Personality measures did predict who would prefer these differential effects and we found that 1/3^rd of our subjects preferred the effects of sertraline while 1/3^rd preferred those of reboxetine.  Roughly half of our subjects felt better than well on one or other of the two agents.   Those who strongly preferred sertraline did rather poorly on reboxetine and vice versa (Tranter et al 2002).  In the case of two of our volunteers the effects of sertraline [ZOLOFT] were disastrous.  They became acutely and seriously suicidal (Healy 2000a)..."

(Thats 2 out of 20 volunteers or 10% in the above study)

Everyone on the planet needs food to survive. 

I wonder how many really hungry people would choose to eat in a restaurant where they knew that two out of every twenty customers (or one at every table for ten)  fell to the floor with severe food poisoning.  

Or how many people would be happy for that restaurant to stay open because 9 people at every table for 10 didn't get seriously ill or die from food poisoning. 

Or, to protect the restuarant industry, how many of the owners and handsomely paid-off chefs and restaurant staff would be willing to deny that it was the food, and assert till blue in the face that it was due to a predisposition to a weak stomach or an allergy to their recipes (imagine that the restaurant in question was an industry of a size similar to the pharma-psychiatric industry with almost limitless amounts of money earned from sales, with massive legal and political power).

   BUT THAT STILL DOESN'T EXPLAIN THE GREATLY INCREASED RATE OF SUICIDE  ON "ANTIDEPRESSANTS"

   AND WHY HAS THE FDA SEEN FIT TO ADD A WARNING TO ALL THE ANTIDEPRESSANTS THAT THEY MAY CAUSE SUICIDE IN CHILDREN !!!

   THAT'S NOT "PREVENT SUICIDE" BUT ACTUALLY ... CAUSE SUICIDE IN CHILDREN !!!!!!!!

   ANTIDEPRESSANTS KILL... not only as antidepressants, but also when they're prescribed for "General Anxiety Disorder", Seasonal Affected Disorder", PMS, PMDD and even to "quit smoking" !!!!

   Eli Lilly's "incontinence" drug YENTREVE, also sold as the " antidepressant "CYMBALTA has a suicide rate of  1 per 603 users ..... 14 TIMES THE "NORMAL" RATE !!!! 

   "All Truth passes through Three Stages: First, it is Ridiculed... Second, it is Violently Opposed... Third, it is Accepted as being Self-Evident.

Dear curus,

    A few weeks ago, a 10 yr old boy here committed suicide. There was no apparent reason for this.

   When I called the TV news desk to suggest that they find out if he had been on an SSRI, the reporter told me...

    " All of our information indicates that he WASN'T taking an antidepressant. IF HE HAD BEEN TAKING ONE OF THOSE "MEDICATIONS" THEN WE WOULD HAVE KNOWN WHAT CAUSED THE SUICIDE."

   ...looks like the media here is beginning to think of SSRIs = SUICIDE as "self evident".