Psych meds linked to 90% of school shootings

Expert: Psychiatric drugs likely cause of Lanza's extreme  violence

by Jerome R. Corsi

NEW YORK – From the moment news emerged Friday that a young man had carried  out a horrific massacre of elementary-school children, politicians from local  city halls to the White House have been restoking the age-old push for more gun  control. While guns have been a common denominator in mass slayings at schools  by teens, there’s another familiar element that seems increasingly to be  minimized.

Some 90 percent of school shootings over more than a decade have been linked  to a widely prescribed type of antidepressant called selective serotonin  reuptake inhibitors or SSRIs, according to British psychiatrist Dr. David Healy,  a founder of RxISK.org, an independent website for researching and reporting on  prescription drugs.

Though there has been no definitive confirmation that drugs played a role in  the Newtown, Conn., assault, that killed 20 children and six adults, media have  cited family members and acquaintances saying suspect Adam Lanza was taking  prescription medication to treat “a neurological-development disorder,” possibly  Aspergers.

Healy cautioned that the public needs “to wait to find out what Adam Lanza  was on, and whether his behavior does fit the template of a treatment-induced  problem.”

However, in an email to WND, he said he suspected prescribed psychiatric  medications was the cause of Lanza’s violent behavior.

Healy said that while the public waits to learn more about Lanza, there are  two general points that can be made.

First, he said, “psychotropic drugs of pretty well any group can trigger  violence up to and including homicide.”

“Second, the advocates of treatment claim both that it is the illness and not  the drugs that causes violence and that we are leaving huge numbers of people  untreated.”

But Healy argued that if this were the case, “we should not find that  comfortably over 90 percent of school shootings are linked to medication  intake.”

Dr. Peter R. Breggin, a Harvard-trained  psychiatrist and former full-time consultant at the National Institute of Mental  Health, told WND it’s likely that problems for Lanza began with “getting tangled  up” with psychiatric medicine.

Breggin insisted there has been overwhelming scientific evidence for decades  correlating psychiatrically prescribed drugs with violence.

Writing in Ethical Human Sciences and Services, a peer-reviewed scholarly  journal, in 2003, Breggin concluded  SSRI drugs could be a factor in suicide, violence and ot..., as evidenced in case reports, controlled clinical trials,  and epidemiological studies in children and adults.

Since the 1970s, Breggin has testified in approximately 100 trials, including  one in which Judge Robert Heinrichs ruled the adverse ef....

Breggin  appeared before the Veterans Affairs Committee of the U.S.... in support of his 2008 book “Medication  Madness: The Role of Psychiatric Drugs in Cases of Vio...

Breggin testified to Congress that research conducted in the medical science  demonstrates a causal relationship between antidepressant drugs and the  production of suicide, violence, mania and other behavioral abnormalities.

He warned Congress of the risks of giving these drugs to heavily armed young  men and women in the military.

Read more at http://mobile.wnd.com/2012/12/psych-meds-linked-to-90-of-school-sho...