If you are landing on my blog for the first time you'll probably have arrived here via a search engine, chances are you typed in "Paxil withdrawal" or "Seroxat side effects". In fact many visitors arrive here using the search terms Paxil or Seroxat combined with words such as "aggression", "mood swings", "suicidal thoughts", etc.
The recent Connecticut school shootings highlighted, for me at least, just how dangerous psychiatric drugs can be. It also highlighted how the public in general perceive 'mental illness'.
Adam Lanza, it is believed, shot and killed 27 people, 20 of whom were children, this before turning the gun on himself in an act of suicide.
This, obviously, outraged the public and comments on websites, forums and social networking sites were littered with opinion about Lanza's state of mind. "Nutter", "Crazy", "Madman", "Evil" all being examples of words used to describe Lanza.
Sure, I'd agree with most of the above descriptions but I wouldn't/couldn't just leave it there.
What made Lanza crazy?
Well, the anti-gun brigade seem to be missing this point. Lanza was allegedly surrounded by an arsenal of weapons. Anti-gun lobbyists claim that had he not been then he probably wouldn't have gone on to become a killer. Yup, that's quite possible and when applying logic it makes complete sense.
The 'right to bear arms' brigade have spewed out the norm citing amendments and rights of freedom. Quite often pro-gun supporters have used "it was the person not the gun" on popular networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook.
Again, if one applies logic, they are probably right.
Logic, it seems, can be applied to both arguments but throw another possible cause into the pot and see it dismissed on a whim.
Shortly after the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting a petition was filed on the Whitehouse website. The petition was, it appeared, gaining momentum with 6,635 signatures of the 25,000 already in place.
Now, it would seem, the petition, which urged a formal and public investigation into the relationship between the FDA, the Pharmaceutical industry, psychiatric drugs and treatments, and the violent actions of the shooters for the last 20 years, has been answered by the Obama administration and blocked from any further signatures.
The response is generic and is aimed at all the various petitions that were filed and, it appears, not just the petition calling for an investigation into the link between psychiatric drugs and school shootings.
It really doesn't address the issue at all but if one looks carefully at the wording one can see that the issue of mental health is blamed along with guns.
Obama has gone as far as making a video for all those who created and signed petitions, chillingly he adds, "We're going to need to work on making access to mental health care at least as easy as access to a gun."
So, in essence here, Obama is pretty much ignoring the calls for an investigation into the psychiatric drug and school shooting link, in fact, it seems to be so irrelevant to him and his advisers that he actually wants to increase the prescription of mind altering drugs.
This is just adding fuel to a fire that just has not been given the chance to settle. Any time the issue of psychiatric drugs and acts of homicide/suicide appear there are always industry backed opinion leaders who fan the flames with industry backed clinical trials that apparently prove there is no link to these drugs and aggressive behaviour. Once again, the 'illness' is blamed as being the cause of the aggression.
Obama's response, which can be viewed here, is skirting over the issue which will no doubt please the industry and those that prostitute themselves by promoting the safety of these drugs whilst ignoring the dangers.
Making access to mental health care more easier may seem to be the correct route, applying logic here without knowledge to dangers of psychiatric medication and one could begin to applaud Obama's efforts. Yet when we add the dangers of these drugs all logic seems to fly out of the window - the dangers are, in a nod of the head, noted and dismissed because, well, one small pill couldn't turn someone into a psychotic crazy, right?
Obama, whom I'm sure has a good heart, is being led away from the truth and blinded by the apparent good that the pharmaceutical industry do. Third world countries benefit with the vaccines, hey, pharma save millions of lives globally. US tax dollars are important and big pharma plow billions into the pot every year. It would be an economic disaster if the industry moved its business elsewhere. The US needs the pharmaceutical industry and the pharmaceutical industry know this.
If truth be known Obama may have already looked at the link to psychiatric medication and hostility, advisers may have informed him that the link is so minute that it's irrelevant or they may have told him all of the above, namely, "Mr President, we piss this industry off and our economy will go belly-up".
Sounds like some huge conspiracy but I cannot think of any other reason why Obama would side-step the issue of these drugs and their role in school shootings.
I'm not suggesting for one minute that every school shooter's actions can be blamed on the medication he was taking, but it's well worth looking into from the perspective that, if proven there is no link, can be debunked by the US government once and for all.
I'm assuming that the link is practically impossible to debunk. If these assumptions are correct, why is Obama not addressing them?
Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely.
To listen to more about the link between school shootings and psychiatric medication I recommend a recent radio interview with investigative journalist, Evelyn Pringle. Evelyn charters the history of mental diagnosis and psychiatric drugs and also touches on Teen Screen, the pharmaceutical push of pre-screening school kids for a mental disorder, a program that has recently closed but not after filtering millions of children through the mental health system.
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