Jordan Peterson (above) is a Canadian clinical psychologist and a professor of psychology at the University of Toronto.
Peterson was prescribed a low dose of a benzodiazepine a few years ago for anxiety following an extremely severe autoimmune reaction to food, according to his daughter, Mikhaila.
Last year, when his wife, Tammy, was diagnosed with terminal cancer, the dose of the benzo, believed to be clonazepam, was increased. Clonazepam is a sedative used to treat seizures, panic disorder, and anxiety. The National Center for Biotechnology Information (NBCI) also suggests that clonazepam is effective in managing neuroleptic-induced akathisia.
After Peterson's dose was increased he began to suffer. His daughter, Mikhaila, on her YouTube channel, tells viewers:
"It became apparent that he was suffering from both a physical dependency and a paradoxical reaction to the medication. A paradoxical reaction means the drugs do the opposite of what they’re supposed to." Mikhaila added that her father experienced akathisia, which she explains as a condition “where the person feels an incredible, endless, irresistible restlessness, bordering on panic, and an inability to sit still. The reaction made him suicidal.”
She's correct. Akathisia is a precursor to suicide and drug companies have known about this for a long time and failed to warn either prescribing physicians or the consuming public about this dangerous condition.
In 1998, Dr Roger Lane, who, until early 2001, was the Medical Director of the Zoloft Product Strategy Team at Pfizer, wrote about the association and risk of violence and suicide for all SSRI drugs. As Dr Lane writes, these conditions are sometimes hard to detect and diagnose, although not so hard to treat. E.g. “SSRI-induced akathisia is a relatively rare event but is frequently unrecognized when it does occur . . . In addition to the obvious motor (objective) manifestations of ‘inability to sit still’, most researchers agree that akathisia has a strong psychological component. The most outstanding feature of akathisia is subjective distress.
Lane warned, "It may be less of a question of patients experiencing fluoxetine-induced suicidal ideation, than patients feeling that ‘death is a welcome result’ when the acutely discomforting symptoms of akathisia are experienced on top of already distressing disorders.” For this reason, is it imperative that both physicians and their patients be forewarned and alerted about this serious risk."
Lanes article, “SSRI-Induced Extrapyramidal Side-Effects and Akathisia; Implications for Treatment”, appeared in the Journal of Psychopharmacology (J Psychopharmacol. 1998;12(2):192-214.)
Mikhaila currently has two videos posted on YouTube. The first, from September 2019 and an update which was uploaded yesterday.
In the February update, Mikhaila tells viewers:
"After several failed treatment attempts in North American hospitals, including attempts at tapering and micro-tapering, we had to seek an emergency medical benzodiazepine detox, which we were only able to find in Russia. It was incredibly gruelling and was further complicated by severe pneumonia which we’ve been told he developed in one of the previous hospitals. He’s had to spend 4 weeks in the ICU in terrible shape, but, with the help of some extremely competent and courageous doctors, he survived. The decision to bring him to Russia was made in extreme desperation when we couldn’t find any better option. The uncertainty around his recovery has been one of the most difficult and scary experiences we’ve ever had."
Between them, both videos have amassed over one and a half million views.
I'd like to thank Mikhaila for raising awareness on this issue, which, only last week, was played down by two high profile psychiatrists on Twitter. (See 'Two Psychiatrists Explain Akathisia')
For more information on akathisia and the numerous drugs that can cause it (over 500) please visit and take the Akathisia 101 online accredited course. You might just save a life!
Here are Mikhaila's two videos, after which is an educational video from MISSD (The Medication-Induced Suicide Prevention and Education Foundation in Memory of Stewart Dolin)
Bob Fiddaman
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