THE RISE OF SENSELESS VIOLENCE IN SOCIETY:
PSYCHIATRY’S ROLE IN THE CREATION OF CRIME
Chapter Two
Killer Drugs
"Psychiatry killed my children. Don’t let that happen to you!"
o- Russell Feurst, whose wife shot and killed their
two children after psychiatric "treatments"
and psychiatric drugs.[1]
Virtually all persons who go to psychiatrists are put on one or more
psychiatric drugs. This is an important part of the facade of being
"medical doctors" which psychiatrists hold up before the public.
However, psychiatric drugs, which are unpredictable and extremely
deadly, do not cure anything and instead destroy the life of the person
who takes them.
Drugs That Produce A "Chemical Lobotomy"*
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
* The most common form of psychosurgery, or brain operation, used to
permanently change a person’s behavior. In a lobotomy, the skull is
penetrated or cut open and brain tissue is destroyed. People who have
been lobotomized are often referred to as "vegetables" because of their
lifelessness. (See Chapter 5.)
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
The deadliest class of psychiatric drugs is named the "major
tranquilizers," also known as "neuroleptic" [nerve-seizing] drugs or
"anti-psychotics." Of the more than two dozen drugs in this class,
which was introduced in the mid-1950s,[2] the most commonly used are
Haldol (haloperidol), Compazine (prochlorperazine), Thorazine
(chlorpromazine), Navane (thiothixene), Prolixin (fluphenazine),
Mellaril (thioridazine) and Trilafon (perphenazine).[3]
The purpose of these drugs is to create "maximum behavioral disruption"
a goal clearly reflected in 1950 tests conducted with rats on
Thorazine.[4] Through chemicals, psychiatrists sought to sabotage
thought processes and thereby deny the person control of his own body.
At the time the major tranquilizers were introduced, the lobotomy, an
abhorrent brutality, was highly touted and widely used by
psychiatrists. (See Chapter 5.) However, the operation was disgusting
and the shredded brain was damaged forever, generating objections from
family and friends of the victim.
The major tranquilizers were able to create a zombie state, identical
to that seen in a lobotomy victim, in a person whose brain was still
intact. For this reason, Thorazine, the first of the major
tranquilizers, became known as a "chemical lobotomy."[5]
"I Felt Like My Mind Had Been Put Through a Meat Grinder"
"[On Thorazine] my thoughts spun and never got too far. My hands were
rubber and I could hardly hold a fork," said one person who had been
put on the drug by a psychiatrist.
"After six weeks … I felt like my mind had been put through a meat
grinder," he said. "No longer could I think clearly, no longer could I
speak articulately, no longer could I act confidently."[6]
Another person said that after a week on the major tranquilizer Haldol,
"I was unable to speak. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t say
anything out loud and spoke only with the greatest difficulty…. It
was as if my whole body was succumbing to a lethal poison."[7]
The horrifying mental upheaval and devastation which this
"lobotomizing" effect causes was precisely what appealed to
psychiatrists. These drugs would enable people to be warehoused with
the least "inconvenience" to psychiatrists and staffs of psychiatric
institutions.
Psychiatric Drugs Turn Elderly Citizens Into Zombies
These drugs are now used against the elderly in enormous quantities to
chemically straitjacket them. By 1985, the National Disease and
Therapeutic Index reported that while adults 60 years and older made up
only 11 percent of the population of the United States, they used more
than a third of all anti-psychotic drugs.
A study of 2,000 pharmacies done in 1986 showed that 60.5 percent of
prescriptions for nursing home residents over 65 years of age were for
major tranquilizers and 17.1 percent were for minor tranquilizers*.[8]
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
* "Minor tranquilizers" or "anti-anxiety agents" are the most widely used
class of psychiatric drugs and have been shown to create violence.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
A Harvard Medical School survey of 55 Boston, Massachusetts, area rest
homes published in the January 26, 1989, issue of The New England
Journal of Medicine reported that 55 percent of the 1,201 nursing home
residents surveyed took at least one psychiatric drug, with 39 percent
being given anti-psychotic drugs.[9]
These drugs are not given to "treat" any condition. They are given
solely to turn the victim into a zombie incapable of complaining or
presenting problems to staff. Concerning the use of these drugs on the
elderly, Dr. Jerome Avorn, the director of the program for the Analysis
of Clinical Strategies at Harvard, pointed out, "Drugs do work. They do
quiet them down. So does a lead pipe to the head."[10]
Larry Hodge, administrator at the Life Care Center in Tennessee,
described the heart-rending impact on the elderly of these drugs. "Too
often they were so zonked out during their meals that their heads were
in the mashed potatoes," he said.[11]
Wilda Henry of Florida said her 83-year-old mother became "a vegetable"
five weeks after taking Haldol. This powerful mind-altering drug, which
the Soviet Union used for years to control dissidents, left her mother
babbling, drooling, shaking and unable to control her bowel
functions.[12]
Anise Debose of Washington, D.C., said her 76-year-old father entered a
nursing home active, laughing and talking. Four days later, after
taking the psychiatric drug Mellaril and four other drugs, she said,
"He was restrained to a chair as rigid as a board when I saw him. His
head was thrown back and his mouth was limply hanging down. Both eyes
were closed. The impression all of us had was that he was dead."[13]
Drugged to Death
In 1989, the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Aging reported that while
those over 60 years of age made up only 17 percent of the population,
they accounted for more than half the fatalities resulting from drug
reactions.[14]
According to the American Hospital Association, 17 percent of the 10.8
million elderly admitted to hospitals each year, or 1.9 million
hospital admissions, are due to drug reactions. Four percent of those
drug-related cases, an estimated 76,000 elderly a year, die from the
drug reactions. This annual death rate far exceeds the 58,021 Americans
who lost their lives during the entirety of the Vietnam War. An
average of over 200 elderly people die each day in America from drug
reactions.[15]
"People don’t just die of old age," Dr. Theodore Leiff, professor of
gerontology* at Eastern Virginia University School of Medicine, pointed
out. "Their deaths are caused by something."[16]
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
* The scientific study of the process of aging and of the problems of
aged people. (Webster’s New World Dictionary)
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
As case after case demonstrates, they are being killed behind the
locked doors of nursing homes by lazy, incompetent or criminal
psychiatric staffs who use deadly psychiatric drugs to quash complaints
before they are ever voiced.
Drugs Create Insanity
Not surprisingly, these chemicals, which are capable of throwing the
minds of users into chaos, have a long and well documented history of
creating insanity in persons who take them.
In 1956, just two years after the introduction of Thorazine, two
researchers reported that the drug had caused psychosis, hallucinations
and increased anxiety. The researchers speculated that this
drug-induced insanity arose from the chemically straitjacketing effect
of the drug.[17]
In 1961, researchers reported the case of a 27-year-old man who was
given Thorazine after which he "complained of `feeling like an empty
shell, floating around in the air,’" and said that he heard voices
coming "from two small men standing on his chest." The researchers
concluded that Thorazine was the cause of the man’s "toxic
psychosis."[18]
Another paper published in The American Journal of Psychiatry in 1964
found that major tranquilizers can "produce an acute psychotic reaction
in an individual not previously psychotic."[19]
A 1975 paper described a negative effect from the major tranquilizers
called "akathisia," (from the Greek a- meaning "without" or "not" and
akathisia meaning "sitting"). Akathisia is a drug-induced insanity
which was first recognized as an inability of people taking the drugs
to sit still comfortably.[20]
In this paper, "The Many Faces of Akathisia," researcher Theodore Van
Putten reported that nearly half of the 110 persons in the study had
experienced akathisia. He wrote, "[One woman] started to bang her head
against the wall three days after an injection of … [a major
tranquilizer]. Her only utterance was: `I just want to get rid of this
whole body.’"
Another woman who had been given these drugs for five days experienced
"an upsurge in hallucinations, screaming, even more bizarre thinking,
aggressive and also self-destructive outbursts, and agitated pacing or
dancing."
A third woman stated that while on the drug she felt hostile and hated
everybody, and heard voices taunting her. Others complained of an
"abject fear or terror" that was difficult for them to explain.[21]
It is no secret today that these drugs can make people insane and
create violence. Such drug-induced symptoms are far worse than any
underlying problems a person might have.
But even more damning is the evidence that the damage caused by these
drugs can be permanent.
Psychiatric Drugs Cause Permanent Disfigurement
Many kinds of psychiatric drugs, including the major tranquilizers, can
cause lasting, grotesquely disfiguring nerve damage known as "tardive
dyskinesia" or "tardive dystonia."
The term "tardive" means "late-appearing," "dyskinesia," means
"abnormal movement of muscles," and "dystonia" means "abnormal tension
in muscles."
In tardive dyskinesia and tardive dystonia, which are permanent
conditions, the muscles of the face and body contort and spasm
involuntarily, drawing the face into hideous scowls and grimaces and
twisting the body into bizarre contortions.
These horrifying effects occur in more than 20 percent of persons
"treated" with major tranquilizers, and currently affect between
400,000 and one million Americans.[22]
The lack of understanding of the mind which is typical of psychiatry
extends to complete ignorance of why it is that psychiatric drugs
destroy people in this way. Psychiatrists theorize that their drugs
damage the muscle-control portion of the brain in a way which makes it
permanently "supersensitive" to messages which pass down nerve pathways
into the brain. The result is that this portion of the brain becomes
permanently deranged.[23]
While the precise location of this brain damage is not known with
certainty, there is no question that it exists. It is clearly visible
in the faces of its tragic victims.
Permanent Insanity Caused by Drugs
In the same way that major tranquilizers can throw the muscle-control
portion of the brain into chaos, these drugs can also make the
thought-control portion of the brain "supersensitive," driving the
person permanently insane.
A 1980 study published in "The American Journal of Psychiatry"
described 10 patients who suffered from this condition, which has been
labeled "supersensitivity psychosis."
In the first stage of this condition, the person becomes psychotic for
a few days immediately after he stops taking the drugs. Persons
familiar with the customary drugging practices of psychiatrists will
recognize this as the "relapse" which psychiatrists always blame on the
person himself rather than the drug, and which is used to force persons
back onto psychiatric drugs.
In the second stage of "supersensitivity psychosis," the insanity which
emerges on withdrawal from the psychiatric drug is "persistent and may
be irreversible."
In the third stage, the psychosis is evident even while the person is
taking the psychiatric drugs. The study notes that when the person
reaches this stage, "in most cases" the person is doomed to be insane
for life.[24]
It cannot be stressed too strongly that this lifelong "insanity" is
entirely and solely brought about by the drugs which are worshipped by
the psychiatric system.
This has given us thousands of tortured victims, permanently destroyed,
cast out of mental institutions to forage our garbage cans while
wrestling with inner terrors implanted in their minds by psychiatric
drugs.
Psychiatric Drugs Create Violence
Even more horrifying is the evidence that these psychiatric drugs can
and do cause persons to become violent.
One Canadian research team which studied the effects of psychiatric
drugs on prisoners found that "violent, aggressive incidents occurred
significantly more frequently in inmates who were on psychotropic
[psychiatric or mind-altering] medication than when these inmates were
not on psychotropic drugs." Inmates on major tranquilizers were shown
to be more than twice as violent as they were when not taking
psychiatric drugs.[25]
A 1988 study documented the tendency of the major tranquilizer Haldol
to increase hostile and violent behavior. According to the study, many
persons who had no history of violence prior to being placed on the
drug, "were significantly more violent on haloperidol [Haldol]."
In this study, the researchers attributed the marked increase in
violence to akathisia, the adverse drug reaction described earlier.[26]
A report published in The Journal of the American Medical Association
exemplified the agitation which can accompany akathisia. Four days
after a man described in the report started taking Haldol, "[H]e became
uncontrollably agitated, could not sit still, and paced for several
hours."
After complaining of "a jumpy feeling inside, and violent urges to
assault anyone near him," the man assaulted and tried to kill his dog.
The researcher noted the irony that the drug could cause violence, "a
behavior the drug was meant to alleviate."[27]
Killers on Psychiatric Drugs
Another article published in the American Journal of Forensic*
Psychiatry described five cases of "extreme acts of physical violence"
due to akathisia caused by Haldol.[28]
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
*Pertaining to or employed in legal proceedings.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
In the first case, a 23-year-old male with a history of developing
severe symptoms of akathisia after being given Haldol was injected with
the drug in the admissions room of a psychiatric unit.
After the injection, the man escaped, ran to a park, disrobed, and
tried to rape a woman. "When pulled off by the husband," the article
described, "he proceeded down the street, broke down the front door of
a house where an 81-year-old lady was sleeping. He severely beat her
with his fists, `to a pulp,’ by his own description, following which he
found knives and stabbed her repeatedly, resulting in her death."
He then ran into another woman who was with her child, and "repeatedly
stabbed the woman in front of the child, whereupon he moved onto the
next person he encountered, a woman whom he severely assaulted and
stabbed to the extent that an eye was lost and an opening into the anus
was created resulting in major surgery."[29]
The report describes four other cases of violence attributed to
akathisia caused by Haldol. One was a suicide. Another was a suicide
attempt in which a man stabbed himself repeatedly, and later remarked
that "he could never even feel the knife when stabbing himself." The
third case was a man who beat his mother to death with a hammer after
being given the drug.
In the fourth case, a man, 35 years old, "had been receiving Haldol as
an outpatient for approximately four months and described how
progressively his head was rushing, that he felt speeded up, that he
was in great pain in his head and had an impulse to stab someone to try
to get rid of the pain.
"He went to the nearby grocery store he frequented on a regular basis
and impulsively and repeatedly stabbed the grocer whom he had known for
some time."[30]
Drug-Induced Psychotic Violence
Many similar acts of psychotic violence have been linked with these
psychiatric drugs and the drug-induced state of akathisia.
One particularly clear example is the 1989 case of David Peterson, who
walked out of a mental institution in Middletown, Connecticut, bought a
hunting knife and then stabbed a 9-year-old girl 34 times, killing
her.[31]
Peterson said he killed the girl to get back at his psychiatrist for
not changing the drug he was being given, a major tranquilizer, which
was causing him "pain."[32]
In 1987, Kathleen Gannon, of Tempe, Arizona, stabbed her mother to
death with garden shears and beat her father to death with the butt of
a rifle.[33] According to a source who examined her, Gannon believed
that when her parents were dead, "she would then somehow become a
normal person."[34]
The insanity of this senseless murder unravels when one learns that the
day before Gannon killed her parents, she was injected with a major
tranquilizer and given a prescription for the same drug in pill
form.[35]
On October 17, 1988, Charles Knowles killed two Detroit, Michigan,
police officers before he was shot to death in a siege of his
apartment. Knowles had been subjected to psychiatric drugs, including
Haldol, and other procedures over a period of 19 years.[36]
Knowles’ family and friends described him as not a violent person, and
even Michigan State Mental Health Director Thomas Watkins admitted that
Knowles had "no real history of acts of violence" prior to his
psychiatric treatment.[37]
Violence Created by Valium
"Minor tranquilizers," or "anti-anxiety agents," which are the most
widely used class of psychiatric drugs, have also been shown to create
violence. The most commonly used drugs of this class are Xanax,
Halcion, Valium, Ativan (lorazepam), Restoril (temazepam) and Tranxene
(clorazepate).[38] This class also includes Librium (chlordiazepoxide),
Miltown and Equanil (both having the generic name meprobamate), Atarax
and Vistaril (both having the generic name hydroxyzine), Dalmane
(flurazepam) and others.
The Canadian team which researched the connection between aggression
and psychiatric drugs in a prison population stated that of all classes
of psychiatric drugs, "anti-anxiety agents appeared to be most
implicated, with 3.6 times as many acts of aggression occurring when
inmates were on these drugs."
The researchers warned in 1975, "Considering that certainly not all
aggressive personalities are in prison, that frustrations also abound
in society and that diazepam [Valium] is the most prescribed drug in
the United States, with chlordiazepoxide [Librium] third, the
implications of the combination of anti-anxiety agents and
aggressiveness are astounding."[39]
Five years earlier, a textbook on the side effects of psychiatric drugs
had already pointed out the potential for violence from these drugs,
stating, "Indeed, even acts of violence such as murder and suicide have
been attributed to the rage reactions induced by chlordiazepoxide and
diazepam."[40]
On March 30, 1981, 11 years after this psychiatric text was published
and six years after the Canadian study was done, John Hinckley Jr.
attempted to assassinate President Ronald Reagan in the midst of a
Valium-induced rage.[41]
Violence Caused by Xanax
Since the Canadian study was published, Valium has been replaced by
Xanax, another minor tranquilizer, as the most widely prescribed
psychiatric drug. And yet Xanax is as deadly, if not more so, than
Valium.
According to a 1984 study of Xanax, "Extreme anger and hostile behavior
emerged from eight of the first 80 patients we treated with alprazolam
[Xanax]. The responses consisted of physical assaults by two patients,
behavior potentially dangerous to others by two more, and verbal
outbursts by the remaining four."
The study reported that a woman who had no history of violence before
taking Xanax "erupted with screams on the fourth day of alprazolam
[Xanax] treatment, and held a steak knife to her mother’s throat for a
few minutes."[42]
In a later study, more than half of the Xanax study group experienced
"dyscontrol," meaning violence or loss of control of aggressive
behavior. The violence in the study group included "deep neck cuts …
transverse wrist cuts … tried to break own arm … threw chair at
child … arm and head banging … jumped in front of a car."[43]
James Wilson had been taking Xanax before he entered the Oakland
Elementary School in Greenwood, South Carolina, on September 26, 1988,
and then shot and killed two 8-year-old girls, wounded seven other
children and wounded two teachers.[44]
"Antidepressants" Create Killers
Another widely prescribed category of psychiatric drugs is the
so-called "antidepressants." The most common of these include Prozac,
Pamelor (nortriptyline), Elavil (amitriptyline), Tofranil (imipramine),
Adapin and Sinequan (both having the generic name doxepin) and Desyrel
(trazodone).[45]
Of these drugs, the largest sub-group is the "tricyclics," so named
because three circular rings are present in their molecular structure.
The tricyclic drugs which psychiatrists use most often are Pamelor and
Elavil. Other tricyclic-type drugs often used by psychiatrists include
Asendin (amoxapine), Tofranil and Norpramin (desipramine).
All the tricyclics have similar characteristics, and according to Drugs
in Psychiatric Practice, they all have "similar unwanted effects."[46]
In 1986, a study linked increased hostility with Elavil. The
researchers noted that persons on the drug "appeared progressively more
hostile, irritable, and behaviorally impulsive…. The increase in
demanding behavior and assaultive acts was statistically
significant…."[47]
A year later, the same researchers found that persons on Elavil "were
behaviorally more demanding, made more suicidal threats, and were more
often physically assaultive toward others…."[48]
A separate study on Tofranil published in 1965 "revealed a significant
increase in the expression of overt hostility outwards on the average
for all subjects when they were on the imipramine."[49]
Psychiatrists give these dangerous mind-altering drugs to children for
"mental disorders" such as wetting the bed, being active or even being
afraid of school. And yet children who are given these drugs become
hysterical, defiant, belligerent or hostile.[50]
At the 1989 murder trial of Stanley Jurgevich in Steamboat Springs,
Colorado, a medical expert testified that "aggressiveness,
assaultiveness and agitation" generated by the tricyclic antidepressant
Sinequan had played a significant role in the crime.[51]
Robert Lee Harvey slit his 6-year-old son’s throat and stabbed him to
death and then started stabbing himself. Harvey had a psychiatric
history extending back 14 years, and had been undergoing treatment
shortly before the killing. According to police, antidepressant drugs
were found at the scene.[52]
Prozac: "Wonder Drug" Causes Violence
Over the years, many new psychiatric drugs have been promoted by
psychiatrists and drug companies as "wonder drugs," only to turn out to
be highly destructive. Valium and Xanax, described above, are specific
examples. Others are described in Chapter 3.
One so-called "wonder drug," the psychiatric antidepressant Prozac, has
been found to create intense, violent suicidal thoughts in persons
taking it.
A study published in September 1989 revealed that Prozac can generate
akathisia — which in its worst stages has led to murder and suicide —
in up to 25 percent of persons who take the drug.[53] Two other papers
have subsequently confirmed the connection between Prozac and suicidal
thoughts and actions through the horrifying characteristics of this
side effect of akathisia.[54]
Not surprisingly, when Prozac user Joseph Wesbecker in that same month
gunned down 20 of his former co-workers in Louisville, Kentucky,
killing eight and then himself, he was exhibiting akathisia-like
symptoms, including restlessness and pacing.[55]
Three days prior to the killings, Wesbecker’s psychiatrist described
him as exhibiting an "increased level of agitation and anger," another
symptom of akathisia. The psychiatrist wrote, "Plan — Discontinue
Prozac which may be cause."[56]
Jacquie Miller, shot four times by Wesbecker, was one of the last
persons to see Wesbecker alive. She said, "Prozac shot me. … I
looked up into the face of who was holding the rifle. He was
completely gone. There was just nothing there of what makes a person a
person. He was totally out of it."[57]
There have been many other cases of persons committing horrible
suicides, sometimes coupled with murder, while on Prozac. One such
case took place on April 16, 1991, when former San Diego, California,
deputy sheriff Hank Adams shot his wife and himself to death in front
of his 17-year-old daughter. Adams, who was taking Prozac, had no
history of violence.[58]
Persons who have nearly killed themselves or killed others while on
Prozac have described becoming progressively more hostile and
aggressive after starting on the drug, a clear symptom of akathisia.
In these cases, when the Prozac was discontinued, these seemingly
inexplicable feelings of aggression disappeared.
On July 17, 1990, New York secretary Rhonda Hala filed a $150 million
lawsuit against Prozac manufacturer Eli Lilly, charging that the drug
had driven her to mutilate herself with razor-sharp objects more than
150 times and to attempt suicide six times. Hala stated that after she
came off the drug, her obsessive impulses to harm herself
disappeared.[59]
In Scotland, Duncan Murchison, who had no prior history of violence,
threatened to murder his girlfriend while on a mindless rampage
precipitated by his use of Prozac. During the six months he was on the
drug, Murchison became progressively more hostile and aggressive —
symptoms which disappeared after he stopped taking Prozac. While on
the drug, Murchison also twice attempted to commit suicide.[60]
The Frightening Statistics of Prozac
Since its introduction onto the market in January 1988, the drug has
already compiled the following frightening record:
o Prozac has accumulated more adverse reaction reports filed with the
U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in three and a half years than
any other drug in the 22-year history of the FDA’s adverse drug
reaction reporting system.[61]
o As of June 1992, more than 23,000 adverse reaction reports regarding
Prozac had been received by the FDA. These adverse reactions include
delirium, hallucinations, convulsions, violent hostility and
aggression, psychosis, more than 1,100 suicide attempts and a similar
number of Prozac-related deaths.[62]
o In a two-year period since the first lawsuit in mid-1990, more than
100 lawsuits were filed against Eli Lilly, seeking almost $1 billion in
damages by families of people who had committed suicide while on
Prozac, families of those who had been murdered by people on Prozac,
and people who had themselves been damaged while on Prozac. The curse
of this drug is so widespread that the Association of Trial Lawyers of
America has established a special Prozac litigation section to provide
information about Prozac to attorneys who are approached by people
harmed by the drug.[63]
o Numerous former Prozac users have argued in court that the drug
pushed them to commit insane acts of murderous violence.[64]
o Published reports from researchers at Harvard Medical School,[65]
Yale University,[66] Columbia University,[67] the State University of
New York,[68] and the Veterans Administration[69] have presented
persuasive evidence that Prozac causes intense, violent, suicidal
preoccupation. Additionally, a study at the University of South
Carolina had to be abruptly terminated when five people developed
intense, violent, suicidal and homicidal thoughts.[70]
o Documents released under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act revealed
that prior to the Wesbecker murders in 1989, the FDA had evidence of
five violent Prozac-linked deaths in its files.[71]
o Pre-market tests of Prozac done by Eli Lilly show at least six deaths
linked to Prozac.[72]
o Drug oversight authorities in both Sweden and Norway have refused to
authorize Eli Lilly to market Prozac in those countries, concluding the
testing given the drug was inadequate to justify approval. Both
countries expressed concern at the high 20-milligram starting dose of
Prozac.[73]
o More than 100 reports and documents linking violent incidents of
murder and suicide to Prozac have been received by CCHR.[74]
o The Public Citizen Health Research Group, an organization founded by
consumer activist Ralph Nader, has called for the FDA to require a
suicide warning to be placed on Prozac.[75]
o After conducting an inquest into the suicide of an 18-year-old Prozac
user, a coroner in British Columbia stated that he could not rule out
Prozac as the cause of the suicide and called on the Canadian
government to establish a national registry to monitor all
Prozac-related deaths in the country.[76]
FDA’s Double Standard: Banning an Amino Acid While Approving Harmful
Drugs
L-tryptophan is an amino acid that occurs naturally in many foods. It
is known for its relaxing quality and was taken by many as a natural,
safe way to help induce sleep. It was distributed primarily through
health food stores.
In November 1989, however, the FDA recalled all products in which
L-tryptophan was the sole or major component after researchers linked
its use to two deaths.[77]
Despite proof obtained in October 1990 that the deaths were caused by
contaminated materials used in the production of a particular batch of
L-tryptophan — not the substance itself o- L-tryptophan still remains
banned.[78]
Compare this to the FDA’s inaction against Prozac and other psychiatric
drugs. Why would the FDA, entrusted with the protection of Americans’
health, become a willing party to the destruction of Americans?
The manipulation of the FDA by drug companies was brought to view by
U.S. Representative John Dingell of Michigan, who in 1989 conducted
hearings into the FDA and the generic drug industry. The investigation
and subsequent probes by the Department of Health and Human Services
and the Department of Justice found that FDA officials received payoffs
from private drug firms for rushing through drug approvals that were
based on false or incomplete data.[79]
In 1990, in response to a request from U.S. Representative Ted Weirs of
New York, the General Accounting Office (GAO), an investigative arm of
Congress, reviewed all the drugs approved by the FDA between 1976 and
1985. The GAO study revealed that more than half of the approved drugs
had "serious postapproval risks" described by the GAO as "adverse
reactions that could lead to hospitalization, increases in the length
of hospitalization, severe or permanent disability, or death."[80]
One of the drugs that the GAO reviewed was the psychiatric
"anti-anxiety" drug Halcion, manufactured by Upjohn Company. Halcion,
commonly given as a sleeping pill, has reported side effects that
include agitation, confusion, amnesia, hallucinations, suicide, death
and violent crimes, including murders.[81]
On June 19, 1988, Ilo Grundberg of Hurricane, Utah, shot her mother
eight times in the head while she slept. Grundberg was charged with
murder, but the charges were dropped when the prosecutor and the judge
became convinced that she was turned into a killer by Halcion.[82]
FDA’s Conflict of Interest Taints Drug Approval Process
Dr. Sidney Wolfe, director of the Public Citizen Health Research Group,
has pointed out, "Most of these awful adverse drug reactions, whether
they’re shooting someone, falling down, fracturing a hip, getting
depressed, are preventable, and that’s the biggest tragedy."[83]
While the Food and Drug Administration is entrusted with the vigilant
protection of Americans from dangerous drugs, an inspection of the
hazardous drugs it has allowed on the market shows the agency to be
ineffective.
This ineffectiveness is explained in large measure by the staggering
conflicts of interests which the FDA has allowed into the drug
oversight process. For example, the FDA held a hearing into the
charges against Prozac and other psychiatric antidepressants in late
1991, at which it claimed to be unable to find any damning evidence
against antidepressants at all.
However, subsequent investigation of the panel revealed that five out
of the 10 panel members had active financial interests with the
manufacturers of antidepressants totaling more than $1 million at the
time they claimed to be blind to the evidence against Prozac.[84]
The FDA currently serves the interests of the profit-driven drug
companies, not the interests of the American people, and thus killer
drugs are placed on the market.
Prescriptions for Violence Bring Profits to Psychiatry
Each day, at a handsome profit, the psychiatric industry writes new
prescriptions for disability, violence, suicide and murder. The
disastrous consequences are felt by all of us.
On February 16, 1989, 33-year-old Emanuel Tsegaye walked into the Chevy
Chase Federal Savings Bank in Bethesda, Maryland, and opened fire on
his fellow employees with .38-caliber revolver. After killing three
women and critically wounding a male employee, Tsegaye took his own
life.
Tsegaye had been kept on psychiatric drugs since his 1986 release from
Perkins Psychiatric Institution in Jessup, Maryland.[85]
Betty Hahn of Tustin, California, bludgeoned her mother to death with a
hammer in December 1988. Hahn had been given two psychiatric drugs,
the antidepressant Pamelor and the anti-anxiety agent Xanax and was
apparently withdrawing from Xanax at the time of the killing.[86]
"Psychiatry Killed My Children. Don’t Let That Happen to You!"
Mary Feurst was described by her husband, Russell, as a loving mother
and spouse until after she entered the mental health system.
After extensive psychological and psychiatric treatment, which included
antidepressant drugs, Mary originated that she was planning on killing
her children. She was then institutionalized and "treated" with more
psychiatric drugs.[87]
The husband said that the psychiatrists released Mary in June 1982,
after what they felt was "significant recovery." The psychiatrists did
not warn him that his wife was homicidal or warn him about the effects
the drugs she was taking could have on her behavior.
On July 22, 1982, Mary Feurst shot her 6-year-old son in the face and
back and her 9-year-old daughter in the head with a
.38-caliber revolver, killing them both.[88]
"Psychiatry killed my children," Russell Feurst now warns others.
"Don’t let that happen to you!"[89]
o———————————————————————-
Copyright (c) 1992 Citizens Commission on Human Rights. All Rights
Reserved. Scientology, Dianetics and L. Ron Hubbard are trademarks and
service marks owned by Religious Technology Center and are used with
its permission. Scientologist is a collective membership mark and
designates membership in the affiliated Churches of Scientology.
Scientology is an applied religious philosophy. Grateful acknowledge-
ment is made to the L. Ron Hubbard Library for permission to reproduce
selections from the copyrighted works of L. Ron Hubbard. Printed in
USA.
o———————————————————————-
————————————————————————-
To find out more about the anon service, send mail to h…@anon.penet.fi.
Due to the double-blind, any mail replies to this message will be anonymized,
and an anonymous id will be allocated automatically. You have been warned.
Please report any problems, inappropriate use etc. to ad…@anon.penet.fi.