From another site
http://forums.fark.com/cgi/fark/comments.pl?IDLink=2744872On SSRIs, bipolar, and medications in general, in relation to mass killings:
What we know:
• Of the several dozen premeditated student-perpetrated school shooting sprees (multiple random victims, not one-on-one murders that just happen to take place at a school: while still evil, we're talking a whole 'nother level of evil here), in the current rash (since February of 1992, with the Moses Lake, WA incident), nearly all have taken place in "nice, peaceful" middle-class to upper middle-class small towns and suburbs (nearly always there is some Pillar of the Community type seen on TV moaning and wringing his hands and saying, "B-b-but, this is such a nice, peaceful community! These things don't happen here!" Excuse me, Mr. Pillar, but such places are pretty much the only places where "these things" do happen!). Only recently has that begun to change, with the relatively recent shooting on an Indian reservation (more on that later). Not one incident has taken place in "da 'Hood." Littleton, not Denver, for instance.
• With only two exceptions in the current rash (both recent, and one very recent, namely, yesterday), and few others prior to the start of the rash, all of the perpetrators have been middle-class to upper middle-class white male youth. The only exceptions were a white female back in the 1970s (way before the rash), Jeff Weiss (the American Indian on the reservation -- more on him later), and Cho Seung-Hui. No Blacks nor Hispanics, and no lower class except for Jeff Weiss.
• Note that in both cases (the social type of the community and the socioeconomic class of the shooter), the exceptions occurred either prior to the rash, or recently. If this hypothesis is correct, we should soon see somewhat more minorities and lower-class people involved, but it should still skew rather heavily towards the white middle-class and small towns / suburbs class.
We know for a fact that Jeff Weiss was on Prozac. We know for a fact that Klebold was on Luvox. We know that one of the Jonesboro kids was being medically treated for psychiatric problems. In all, over 15% of the perpetrators to date are known for a fact to have been on such drugs, way more than would be expected in a random sampling if there were no correlation. Exactly 0% are known for a fact not to have been (because medical records are sealed), except in incidents prior to the existence of such drugs (such as Andrew Kehoe and the Bath School Massacre, and even he fits the pattern because we know that he suffered a blow to the head, which is something known to rarely cause the same symptoms as the specific side-effect of SSRIs that I'm talking about here).
What is special about small towns, suburbs, and middle-class white youth? Their parents can afford psychiatric help for their kids, and are more likely to seek it. All else being equal, a child of suburban yuppies / soccer moms is considerably more likely to be on SSRIs than an urban youth. But, with government programs extending the benefits of child psychology and psychiatry to the disadvantaged, this will change somewhat. Jeff Weiss is an example here.
This is the only hypothesis about school shootings that holds up to the observed statistics about socioeconomic class, as well as the fact that the rash started suddenly and hit a sharp peak and has declined somewhat more slowly since then. Nothing gradual (such as the decline in Traditional Family Values, bullying, increasing violence in the media, etc.) can explain such a sharp peak, let alone the other socioeconomic statistics I've noted.
It should also be noted that a similar rash of seemingly random violence occurred about a decade before the first of the current rash of school shootings. It, too, happened almost exclusively among a specific group of people who received government mandated health care that included mental health care, and who were among the first to receive SSRIs. This rash was so dramatic that it caused a whole new two-word idiom to be added to the English language, which has even ironically appeared in the titles of at least two violent first-person shooter video games, even though most people who play such games weren't even born yet when the last of such incidents was in the news.
I speak of course of the rash of postal worker rampages. "Going postal" used to refer only to how one might ship a package, as opposed to going American Express or UPS or some such.
There have also been many other incidents that we know SSRIs were connected to, which show the same pattern. The murder of actor-commedian Phil Hartmann by his wife who killed herself immediately afterwards is an example: she had Zoloft in her bloodstream at the autopsy.
The specific side effect is called "hypermania," and is a known side-effect of SSRIs when improperly used, improperly prescribed, improperly withdrawn from, or, very rarely, even when properly prescribed, used, and withdrawn from. As with Whitman and Kehoe, it can be caused by other things as well, such as a brain tumor or blow to the head. Others in this thread have shown the mechanisms by which hypermania can trigger the specific sort of behavior seen in such incidents.
Part of hypermania is a complete loss of conscience, and of feelings of connectedness to others (similar to sociopathy). Emotional attachments can even be reversed: one teenaged girl on SSRIs stabbed her favorite great aunt, whom she dearly loved, to death. It should be noted that in the advertisements for Zoloft seen on TV as recently as last year, they actually advertised the suppression of the conscience as one of the benefits of the drug even when it's working correctly! "Do you suffer from feelings of ... guilt?" What is guilt, but the conscience!? The makers of these drugs are actually admitting -- nay, proclaiming in their advertisements to the public -- that these drugs suppress the conscience as one of the intended effects!
I don't deny that these drugs are very important and very useful, and help a lot more people than they harm. The thing is, hypermania is a side effect that often harms and even kills other people who did not take the drug, and did not have an opportunity to read the label and warnings and make an informed decision as to whether the risk of side effects was worth it. This is a much bigger potential liability mess than second-hand tobacco smoke! What pharmaceutical company is going to admit that these kids died of a side-effect of their drugs that someone else took?
I think we have sufficient probable cause here to justify a study in which the sealed medical records of all perpetrators of such incidents are analyzed (in a way to preserve the individual privacy where that is still a concern) to see how many of the 85% we don't know for sure about one way or the other do or do not involve SSRIs or similar medications taken or withdrawn from recently prior to the incidents. This question needs to be answered once and for all.
