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the shootings were going to happen. Prozac, in fact, endured a rocky road in the press for a time. * October 1, 1997: Luke Woodham, 16, started shooting in his Stories on it rarely appear now. The major media have backed school cafeteria in Pearl, Mississippi. He killed two students, off. But on February 7, 1991, Amy Marcus's Wall Street Journal including his ex-girlfriend, and wounded seven others. He also article on the drug carried the headline, "Murder Trials Introduce killed his mother. Woodham was sentenced to life. Authorities Prozac Defense". Marcus wrote: "A spate of murder trials in later accused six friends of conspiracy. which defendants claim they became violent when they took the ¢ December 1, 1997: At Heath High School in West Paducah, antidepressant Prozac are imposing new problems for the drug's Kentucky, Michael Carneal, 14, found students coming out of a maker, Eli Lilly and Co." prayer meeting. Using a stolen pistol, he shot eight of these stu- Also on February 7, 1991, the New York Times ran a Prozac dents, killing three. One of the wounded girls is paralysed. piece headlined: "Suicidal Behavior Tied Again To Drug: Does * December 15, 1997: Joseph Todd, 14, was arrested in the Antidepressant Prompt Violence?" shooting of two students outside their high school in Stamps, In his landmark book, Toxic Psychiatry, Dr Breggin mentions Arkansas. The students recovered from their wounds. Todd faces that The Donahue Show (Feb. 28, 1991) "put together a group of trial. individuals who had become compulsively self-destructive and ¢ April 24, 1998: Andrew Wurst, 14, allegedly shot and killed murderous after taking Prozac, and the clamorous telephone and his science teacher, John Gillette, at an 8th-grade dance at the audience response confirmed the problem". J.W. Parker Middle School in Edinboro, Pennsylvania. Two stu- Breggin also cites a troubling study by Teicher et al., from the dents and another teacher were wounded. February 1990 American Journal of Wurst is awaiting trial. Psychiatry (147:207-210), which reports on * May 19, 1998: Several days before grad- "...six depressed patients, previously free of uation, honors student Jacob Davis, 18, " . recent suicidal ideation, who developed allegedly shot and killed Robert Creson, a «++ SIX depressed ‘intense, violent, suicidal preoccupations classmate at Lincoln County High School in i 1 after 2-7 weeks of fluoxetine [Prozac] Fayetteville, Tennessee. Creson was dating patients, previously treatment’. The suicidal preoccupations Davis ocginiriend. Davis Balt a ogg free of recent lasted from three days to three months after story, date: ay 21, ; so . . termination of the treatment. The report authored by its Justice Department correspon- suicidal ideation Po estimates that 3.5 per cent of Prozac users dent, Pierre Thomas, offered the following u were at risk. While denying the validity of statistics: "Ten per cent of the nation's developed intense, the study, Dista Products, a division of Eli schools reported one or more violent crimes vi | n i i | Lilly, put out a brochure for doctors, dated in the 1996-1997 school year, including mur- ole t, su c da August 31, 1990, stating that it was adding der, suicide, rape, robbery and fights preoccupations ‘suicidal ideation' to the adverse involving weapons." Even if these CNN events section of its Prozac product figures are self-serving and overblown, after 2-7 weeks of information." they point to a chilling landscape. fluoxetine [Prozac] An earlier study, by Joseph on treatment’. Lipiniski in the September 1989 Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, indi- cates that in five examined cases, peo- ple on Prozac developed what is called akathisia. Symptoms include intense anxiety, inability to sleep, the "jerking of extremities", and "bicy- cling in bed or just turning around and around". Breggin comments that PROZAC LINKED TO AGGRESSIVE BEHAVIOUR The bulk of the American media appears afraid to go after psychiatric drugs as a cause of violent crime. This fear stems in part from the sure knowl- edge that expert attack-dogs are waiting in the wings, funded by big-time phar- maceutical companies. There are doc- akathisia "...may also contribute to the tors and researchers who have seen a drug's tendency to cause self-destruc- dark truth about these drugs in the journals, but are afraid to stand tive or violent tendencies... Akathisia can become the equivalent up and speak out. After all, the medical culture punishes no one of biochemical torture and could possibly tip someone over the as severely as its own defectors, when defection from the party edge into self-destructive or violent behavior... The June 1990 line threatens profits, careers and reputations, and when defection | Health Newsletter, produced by the Public Citizen Research American Journal of Psychiatry (147:207-210, February 1990) alerts the public that deadly effects could be emanating from cor- Group, reports: 'Akathisia, or symptoms of restlessness, constant porate boardrooms. pacing, and purposeless movements of the feet and legs, may And what of the Federal Government itself? The US Food and occur in 10-25 per cent of patients on Prozac." Drug Administration (FDA) licenses each drug released for public The well-known publication, California Lawyer, in a December use and certifies it as being safe and effective. If a real tornado 1998 article titled "Protecting Prozac", details some of the suspect started at the public level, if the parents of the young killers and manoeuvres of Eli Lilly in its handling of suits against Prozac. young victims began to see a terrible knowledge swim into California Lawyer also mentions other highly qualified critics of view—a knowledge they hadn't imagined—and they joined the drug: "David Healy, MD, an internationally renowned psy- forces, the Earth would shake. chopharmacologist, has stated in sworn deposition that 'contrary Commenting on some of the adverse effects of the antidepres- to Lilly's view, there is a plausible cause-and-effect relationship sant drug Prozac, psychiatrist Peter Breggin notes: "From the ini- between Prozac' and suicidal-homicidal events. An epidemiologi- tial studies, it was also apparent that a small percentage of Prozac cal study published in 1995 by the British Medical Journal also patients became psychotic." links Prozac to increased suicide risk." patients, previously free of recent developed ‘intense, violent, suicidal preoccupations after 2-7 weeks of fluoxetine [Prozac] treatment’." American Journal of Psychiatry (147:207-210, February 1990) NEXUS - 29 ",.. SIX depressed suicidal ideation ... AUGUST - SEPTEMBER 1999