Prices of ADHD meds at the middle dose for ninety pills on Drugstore.com in 2011 were Concerta, $540; Vyvanse, $532; Intuniv, $500; Adderall, $278; and Ritalin, $191. The price of the most common antidepressants, like Prozac, Celexa, Lexapro, Zoloft, Cymbalta, and Wellbutrin, for ninety pills, was around $380. Two of the drugs prescribed to Rebecca Riley by Dr. Kifuji happen to be quite pricey. Drugstore.com rates in 2011 for 180 500 mg tablets of Seroquel were $1,048 and for Depakote, $708.
Among drug reps, it is common knowledge that kids are a lucrative market. At the urging of doctors, parents, and teachers, kids are required to buck up and take their meds. In the words of Gwen Olsen, who worked for fifteen years as a drug rep with such pharmaceuticalindustry mainstays as Johnson & Johnson and Bristol-Myers Squibb: “Children are known to be compliant patients and that makes them a highly desirable market for drugs, especially when it pertains to largeprofit-margin psychiatric drugs, which can be wrought with noncompliance because of their horrendous side-effect profiles.” Most large-profit-margin psychiatric drugs are approved by the FDA strictly for use with adults, not kids. However, doctors are allowed to use their discretion and prescribe them to kids for “offlabel” purposes. Doctors can use their medical instincts to determine whether a drug approved for adults might also ease the suffering of kids. But there is no scientific backing for such use. The studies haven’t been conducted. The FDA approval hasn’t been obtained. Off-label prescribing relies on doctors’ instincts alone. While drug manufacturers and their marketing staff are bound by law not to influence doctors’ off-label prescribing habits, it’s not the law that’s foremost on the minds of drug reps fanning out to doctors’ offices all over the country.
It’s upping sales. The right to use adult meds with kids for off-label purposes has left many physicians easy prey to drug reps and pharmaceutical companies’ marketing ploys. A glaring example of this was uncovered in the largest health-care fraud case ever handled by the US Department of Justice, in 2009. Pfizer agreed to a $2.3 billion settlement for promoting off-label use of a variety of drugs, one of which was the antipsychotic medication Geodon. One of Pfizer’s illegal actions was paying 250 child psychiatrists to promote its off-label use with teens. Dr. Neil Kaye, for example, was paid $4,000 a day in speaker’s fees to give speeches to other physicians with titles like, “the off-label use of Geodon in Adolescents.” Geodon happens to be a highly expensive and highly profitable drug. At Drugstore.com in 2011, it cost $1,400 for 180 40 mg capsules. It currently nets Pfizer $1 billion a year.
With Fox News now fronting for the NRA's misleaders on the horrific child killing in CT, we can expect to see a new push to identify any child that may be suspected as problematic and to "treat" them with prescription drugs.
In fact, Dr. Nancy was on NBC News last evening talking about the lack of mental health care. Indeed. What Dr. Nancy did not mention is that most of the young shooters from the past 15 years of gun-crazed carnage had received what passes now for mental health care: a prescription drug cocktail supplied by Big Pharma.
What I fear is that this latest incident, when combined with search for any solution other than gun control, will exacerbate the doping of children, rather than having us examine what we have already done to kids in order to keep them compliant in schools that allow nothing else.
On this 12-year anniversary of the shooting rampage at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, let us not forget the real lesson of Columbine: psychiatric drugs induce violence.
Shooter Eric Harris was taking the antidepressant Luvox at the time he and Dylan Klebold opened fire at Columbine High School, killing 12 students and a teacher and wounding 26 others before killing themselves. At least one public report exists of a friend of Klebold who witnessed Klebold taking the antidepressants Paxil and Zoloft and urged him to come off them. Officially, Klebold’s medical records remain sealed.
Luvox, Paxil and Zoloft are in a class of drugs called selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs). Among the international regulatory agencies issuing warnings on these antidepressants, the FDA issued a Public Health Advisory in 2004 warning that “anxiety, agitation, panic attacks, insomnia, irritability, hostility, impulsivity, akathisia [severe restlessness], hypomania [abnormal excitement] and mania [psychosis characterized by exalted feelings, delusions of grandeur and overproduction of ideas] have been reported in adult and pediatric patients being treated with antidepressants.” (For further information on international studies and warnings about antidepressants, go to CCHR International’s psychiatric drug side effects search engine.)
Dr. Ann Blake Tracy, executive director of the International Coalition for Drug Awareness and author of Prozac: Panacea or Pandora? – Our Serotonin Nightmare, is an expert consultant in cases like Columbine in which antidepressants are involved.
Columbine shooter Eric Harris
Dr. Tracy says the Columbine killers’ brains were awash in serotonin, the chemical which causes violence and aggression and triggers a sleep-walking disorder in which a person literally acts out their worst nightmare. Harris became obsessed with homicidal and suicidal thoughts “within weeks” after he began taking Zoloft, according to Dr. Tracy. Due to his obsession with killing, Harris was switched to Luvox, which was in his system at the time of the shooting, according to his autopsy. However, the change from Zoloft to Luvox is like switching from Pepsi to Coke, Dr. Tracy said.
A growing number of school shootings and other shooting rampages were committed by individuals under the influence of, or in withdrawal from, psychiatric drugs known to cause mania, psychosis, violence and even homicide. Consider this list of 13 massacres over the past decade or so, resulting in 54 dead and 105 wounded – and these are just the ones where the psychiatric drugs are known. In other cases, medical records were sealed or autopsy reports not made public or, in some cases, toxicology tests were either not done to test for psychiatric drugs or not disclosed to the public. But this is what we do know about the mental health “treatment” of those who committed these acts of violence:
Dekalb, Illinois – February 14, 2008: 27-year-old Steven Kazmierczak shot and killed five people and wounded 16 others before killing himself in a Northern Illinois University auditorium. According to his girlfriend, he had recently been taking Prozac, Xanax and Ambien. Toxicology results showed that he still had trace amount of Xanax in his system.
Omaha, Nebraska – December 5, 2007: 19-year-old Robert Hawkins killed eight people and wounded five before committing suicide in an Omaha mall. Hawkins’ friend told CNN that the gunman was on antidepressants, and autopsy results confirmed he was under the influence of the “anti-anxiety” drug Valium.
Jokela, Finland – November 7, 2007: 18-year-old Finnish gunman Pekka-Eric Auvinen had been taking antidepressants before he killed eight people and wounded a dozen more at Jokela High School in southern Finland, then committed suicide.
Cleveland, Ohio – October 10, 2007: 14-year-old Asa Coon stormed through his school with a gun in each hand, shooting and wounding four before taking his own life. Court records show Coon had been placed on the antidepressant Trazodone.
Blacksburg, Virginia – April 16, 2007: 23-year-old Seung Hui Cho shot to death 32 students and faculty of Virginia Tech, wounding 17 more, and then killing himself. He had received prior mental health treatment, however his mental health records remained sealed.
Red Lake, Minnesota – March 2005: 16-year-old Jeff Weise, on Prozac, shot and killed his grandparents, then went to his school on the Red Lake Indian Reservation where he shot dead 7 students and a teacher, and wounded 7 before killing himself.
Greenbush, New York – February 2004: 16-year-old Jon Romano strolled into his high school in east Greenbush and opened fire with a shotgun. Special education teacher Michael Bennett was hit in the leg. Romano had been taking “medication for depression”.
El Cajon, California – March 22, 2001: 18-year-old Jason Hoffman, on the antidepressants Celexa and Effexor, opened fire on his classmates, wounding three students and two teachers at Granite Hills High School.
Williamsport, Pennsylvania – March 7, 2001: 14-year-old Elizabeth Bush was taking the antidepressant Prozac when she shot at fellow students, wounding one.
Conyers, Georgia – May 20, 1999: 15-year-old T.J. Solomon was being treated with antidepressants when he opened fire on and wounded six of his classmates.
Columbine, Colorado – April 20, 1999: 18-year-old Eric Harris and his accomplice, Dylan Klebold, killed 12 students and a teacher and wounded 26 others before killing themselves. Harris was on the antidepressant Luvox. Klebold’s medical records remain sealed.
Notus, Idaho – April 16, 1999: 15-year-old Shawn Cooper fired two shotgun rounds in his school, narrowly missing students. He was taking a prescribed SSRI antidepressant and Ritalin.
Springfield, Oregon – May 21, 1998: 15-year-old Kip Kinkel murdered his parents and then proceeded to school where he opened fire on students in the cafeteria, killing two and wounding 22. Kinkel had been taking the antidepressant Prozac.
Filmmaker Michael Moore, who directed the documentary “Bowling for Columbine,” has said this, following his extensive look at the Columbine tragedy:
“In Bowling for Columbine,” we never really came up with the answer in terms of why this happened. I think we did a good job of exposing [that] all the reasons that were given were a bunch of B.S. ….And none of it really made any sense. That’s why I believe there should be an investigation in terms of what…prescribed pharmaceuticals these kids were on….
“It just would be shocking…to the millions of parents who prescribe this for their kids if it was finally explained to them, if this is the case, that this perhaps occurred for no other reason other than because of these prescriptions. “Imagine what that would do, imagine how people would totally re-think things – grasping for every little straw they can to explain why something like Columbine happens, when in fact it may be nothing more than this. How else do you explain two otherwise decent kids, very smart, no history of violence to other kids in the school – why them, why did this happen? It’s an extremely legitimate question to pose, and it demands an investigation.” (See the video clip of Michael Moore here.)
Given the growing list of shooters who were on psychiatric drugs, given the fact that 22 international drug regulatory agencies warn these drugs can cause violence, mania, psychosis, suicide and even homicide, and given the fact that a major study was just released confirming these drugs put people at greater risk of becoming violent, CCHR International asserts: “Any recommendation for more mental health ‘treatment,’ which [inevitably] means putting more people and more kids on these [psychiatric] drugs, is not only negligent, but considering the possible repercussions, criminal.”
If you or someone you know has been harmed by psychiatric drugs, you can contact us privately by clicking here or by calling 303-789-5225. All information will be kept in the strictest confidence. We welcome your comments on this article below.
Pressure cooker schools (see Race to Nowhere) and the doping of school children (see The War on Kids) are having a predictable but no less tragic outcome. As reported by the New York Times, suicide, depression, cutting, bulimia, and other manifestations of mental illness are approaching epidemic proportions on college campuses. Predictably, unnamed experts in the Times piece do not find the doping a children as the culprit but, rather, as allowing more troubled children to attend college:
Experts say the trend is partly linked to effective psychotropic drugs (Wellbutrin for depression, Adderall for attention disorder, Abilify for bipolar disorder) that have allowed students to attend college who otherwise might not have functioned in a campus setting.
Big Pharma to the rescue for problems that child doping initiated, going back to Ritalin in elementary school. I suggested to the Times reporter in an email that he read some of the work by Dr. Peter Breggin to get some facts that aren't purchased by Smith-Kline or one of their competitors.
Here is another clip from the Times piece that captures some of the reality at Stony Brook:
. . . .Stony Brook, an academically demanding branch of the State University of New York (its admission rate is 40 percent), faces the mental health challenges typical of a big public university. It has 9,500 resident students and 15,000 who commute from off-campus. The highly diverse student body includes many who are the first in their families to attend college and carry intense pressure to succeed, often in engineering or the sciences. A Black Women and Trauma therapy group last semester included participants from Africa, suffering post-traumatic stress disorder from violence in their youth.
Stony Brook has seen a sharp increase in demand for counseling — 1,311 students began treatment during the past academic year, a rise of 21 percent from a year earlier. At the same time, budget pressures from New York State have forced a 15 percent cut in mental health services over three years.
Dr. Hwang, a clinical psychologist who became director in July 2009, has dealt with the squeeze by limiting counseling sessions to 10 per student and referring some, especially those needing long-term treatment for eating disorders or schizophrenia, to off-campus providers.
But she has resisted the pressure to offer only referrals. By managing counselors’ workloads, the center can accept as many as 60 new clients a week in peak demand between October and the winter break.
“By this point in the semester to not lose hope or get jaded about the work, it can be a challenge,” Dr. Hwang said. “By the end of the day, I go home so adrenalized that even though I’m exhausted it will take me hours to fall asleep.”
For relief, she plays with her 2-year-old daughter, and she has taken up the guitar again.
Shifting to Triage
Near the student union in the heart of campus, the Student Health Center building dates from the days when a serious undergraduate health problem was mononucleosis. But the hiring of Judy Esposito, a social worker with experience counseling Sept. 11 widows, to start a triage unit three years ago was a sign of the new reality in student mental health.
At 9 a.m. on the Tuesday after the campus’s very busy weekend, Ms. Esposito had just passed the Purell dispenser by the entrance when she noticed two colleagues hurrying toward her office. Before she had taken off her coat, they were updating her about a junior who had come in the previous week after cutting herself and expressing suicidal thoughts.
Ms. Esposito’s triage team fields 15 to 20 requests for help a day. After brief interviews, most students are scheduled for a longer appointment with a psychologist, which leads to individual treatment. The one in six who do not become patients are referred to other university departments like academic advising, or to off-campus therapists if long-term help is needed. There are no charges for on-campus counseling.. . .
We have laws against the doping of racehorses. Any legislators out there interested in extending the same benefit to children, who are regularly subjected to legal speed and anti-psychotic drugs for the benefit of ignorant parents, total compliance schools, and to satisfy the bottomless greed of the pharmaceutical companies?
. . . . A recent Journal of the American Medical Association article (October 28, 2009) by Dr. Christoph Correll and colleagues reported on a 12 week trial of these four antipsychotic medications, so called "second generation" drugs because of their more recent development, in children from age four to 19 who had not previously received this class of medication. The children received medication doses decided upon by their doctors; a comparison group of youth was followed and did not receive any of these medications. The research sought to ask if there were significant changes in three important physical measures in this short period of time: weight, lipids (cholesterol and triglycerides), and insulin resistance (a measure of how the body handles sugar that is predictive of obesity and diabetes). Their results were disturbing.
All four of the studied antipsychotic medications [aripiprazole (Abilify), olanzapine (Zyprexa) quetiapine (Seroquel), and risperidone (Respirdal)] were associated with weight gain, ranging from about 10 to 22 pounds, with the comparison group showing no significant changes, in 12 weeks. Significant changes in body lipids were associated with three of the medications but not with aripiprazole or the comparison group. Evidence of changes in glucose and insulin were noted only for olanzapine.
Rates of the diagnosis of bipolar disorder in children and adolescents had risen forty (40) times in ten years. What was going on? Genes surely don't mutate that quickly, nor families, and while the environment continues to worsen it is not at that rate. The diagnosis of bipolar disorder was being made liberally, perhaps to better identify those youth in need of treatment, but at a price we are increasingly seeing since the diagnosis is usually accompanied by the prescription of an antipsychotic medication. New additions to what doctors will prescribe are likely now that the FDA Psychopharmacological Drugs Advisory Committee (June 2009) approved quetiapine and olanzapine for the treatment of schizophrenia and bipolar mania (risperidone had already been approved) - though the FDA has yet to act on the Committee's approvals.
I am not crusading against the use of antipsychotic medications in youth. These medications are a proven treatment for youth with psychotic illness and thus critical to their safety, health and recovery. Untreated psychosis, over time, is known to be "neurotoxic", which is to say that in ways we do not yet understand the brain undergoes tissue destruction, at a time of important brain development, with resulting loss of functioning. The dilemma, thus for families and doctors, is that a needed treatment brings with it significant side-effects and health risks. Serious mental illness in a child is a very tough and sometimes heartbreaking journey for a family, all the more unsettling by evidence that treatment can carry its own - and a different - set of problems.
As Commissioner Hogan and I wrote in the Bipolar Advisory, and the same applies to all major mental illnesses, doctors and families need to prudently pursue a thorough diagnostic evaluation to feel confident that a psychotic disorder warranting antipsychotic treatment is what your child is experiencing. Families are entitled to full information about their child and should not be shy about asking questions that are answered in everyday English that explain the basis for the diagnosis offered - and what to expect from treatment, including benefits and risks. A second opinion, when in doubt, or if treatment is complex or not working well enough, should be sought; any doctor who does not welcome a second opinion is probably a doctor worth getting rid of. Youth change, and so does their illness, so reconsidering the diagnosis from time to time, and the treatment, is fair and should not be dismissed as some form of denial of the reality of a child's illness. . . .
