SSRIs and Mass Killings: must-see mini-documentary you might have missed

Thursday, April 17, 2014 by: J. D. Heyes
Tags: SSRIs, mass killings, mini-documentary

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(NaturalNews) A powerful new video documentary links psychotropic drugs to mass murders, citing evidence from several shooting incidents dating back to the late 1990s.

The video, "Medicated to Death: SSRIs and Mass Killings," which can be seen in its entirety here, notes that beginning with 15-year-old student Kip Kinkle in 1998, who murdered his parents and two classmates, nearly every mass killing in the U.S. has involved a shooter who was taking prescription SSRIs, or selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors.

SSRIs are frequently used to treat depression and anxiety, but they have increasingly been linked to erratic behavior that often turns deadly.

In Kinkle's case, an ensuing investigation found that he had been taking a popular SSRI, Prozac, since the summer of the previous year.

Most recently, the shooter at Fort Hood, Spc. Ivan Lopez, had also been taking a raft of antidepressant drugs when he "snapped" after a request for leave was denied by his superiors.

In the video, Dr. Xavier Amador, a clinical psychologist who interviewed Maj. Nidal Hassan, who killed several soldiers at Fort Hood in 2009, warned that those who have exhibited psychiatric problems should be treated aggressively, especially when given antidepressants.

The numbers are telling

"You have to take care to be aware of which symptoms are improving more quickly than others," he said. "People whose motivation comes back, their ability to sleep comes back, they feel more energy -- but they're still feeling hopeless and suicidal."

What is notable is that the manufacturers of these drugs are quick to downplay any dangerous links, the video says.

"Too often, people like to assume -- they project. They make a little bit of logic, and they say, 'Whoa, that could theoretically explain a large problem," Dr. Abbey Strauss, a psychiatrist, told a local ABC News affiliate, in the video. "That's faulty logic."

He went on to say that linking violence to SSRI use was "over-simplistic."

As documented in the video, in 2010 the Public Library of Science published a study titled "Prescription Drugs Associated With Reports of Violence Towards Others," which examined how 484 drugs were associated with 1,937 cases of violence. Of the 484 drugs, 31 of them were associated with 79 percent of violent behavior; 11 of the 31 were antidepressants.

Click here to see the entire video report.

Sources:

https://www.youtube.com

http://www.foxnews.com

http://www.naturalnews.com

http://science.naturalnews.com