FDA warning on SSRIs

[Anonymous]

Friends,

If you are aware of a parent who tried Ritalin - either prescribed for themself, or by trying their child's prescription and found they really liked the effect they got from it - to the point of becoming addicted, please write to me directly and I will put you in touch with a team member from television's "Inside Edition" who wants to
talk to you.

Cassandra Casey
Owner - SSRI Crusaders Activist Group

email me directly at: israelswarrior@h...

Thank you.

[Deborah]

http://www.boston.com/news/local/articl ... a_warning/

Screams, blood, a warning
Details of mother's slaying surface

By Caroline Louise Cole and Kathleen Burge, Globe Correspondent, Staff
|  April 23, 2005

Excerpts:
NEWBURYPORT -- The teenage daughter, awakened in the early-morning darkness by the terrible sound of her mother's screams, ran downstairs to see her bleeding from a shoulder and struggling to hold down the girl's older brother, the police report said.

''Your brother is going insane," Nickoletta Staszewski yelled to her daughter, telling her to flee the house and call 911, according to the
report. Police arrived at the Brentwood, N.H. house at about 5 a.m. Thursday to find the 47-year-old teacher lying dead in a pool of blood
on the dining room floor. Her son, Richard, 21, was wandering the neighborhood naked, blood dripping from his arms.

Yesterday, as he was arraigned on a murder charge, students and friends seemed shaken by the death of the popular teacher with more than 20 years' tenure, who felt called to her profession by a brother born with Down syndrome. Nickoletta Staszewski was inspired by her brother, Jimmy, who died a decade ago, to become a special needs
teacher, said her sister, Mary Fordham.

Richard Staszewski first told police on Thursday that he had killed his mother after an argument. She told him he needed to get a job and to ''stop being a leech," he reportedly told police.

But the son later changed his story, authorities said, telling them he first tried to kill himself and then stabbed his mother without provocation. Richard Staszewski's younger sister, Calandra, told police that he had been taking antidepressants.

Yesterday, Richard Staszewski was arraigned on a charge of second-degree murder in Exeter (N.H.) District Court and held without bail.

He appeared for his brief court appearance wearing an orange jumpsuit, his right eye swollen shut, his face badly bruised, and his hands
wrapped in gauze.

He had been treated Thursday at Exeter Hospital's emergency room for cuts across his hands and fingers so deep that they sliced into the tendons, according to a police report. Staszewski also had shallower cuts on his thighs and chest.

When a Brentwood police officer arrived, he saw Richard Staszewski walking down the street naked, yelling, ''Just shoot me," according to a police report. Staszewski told the officers that he had stabbed his mother and that she was dead, the report said.

Police later found Nickoletta Staszewski's body, a kitchen knife nearby.

The son first told police that he had spent Wednesday driving around with friends, smoking marijuana, and returned home early Thursday
morning. His mother was watching television, he said, and an argument broke out. When she pushed him, he told police, he grabbed a knife and
stabbed her in the throat.

But later he told police that he wanted to correct his story. When he returned home at about 4 a.m. Thursday, he said, he tried unsuccessfully to kill himself with a knife. When he went downstairs to get a larger knife from the kitchen, he saw his mother lying on the couch, watching television, he said.

When his mother asked him what he was doing, he did not answer but stabbed her in the throat, he told police.

One of Richard's friends, Jordan Sandman, who also once attended Nock Middle School and knew the victim, was drawn to the school's makeshift
memorial for the teacher. Like many in town, Sandman said he was startled by his friend's arrest.

''He didn't seem like the type of person who would want to hurt anyone," Sandman said. ''I can't imagine that he could do this."

John Ellement of the Globe staff contributed to this report. Kathleen Burge can be reached at kburge@globe.com.

[Deborah]

I am writing an article for a national magazine and am looking for families with a child who has been harmed or had an otherwise adverse reaction to prescription drugs.  Ideally a case where a child was give a wrong dosage or wrong type of medicine that is normally geared toward adults.  

If you or someone you know would want to be interviewed and possibly photographed, please let me know by email or at (212) 445-4379.

Thanks in advance,

Dan Brillman

[Deborah]

Army Recruiters Say They Feel Pressure to Bend Rules
    By Damien Cave
    The New York Times

    Tuesday 03 May 2005

    It was late September when the 21-year-old man, fresh from a three-week commitment in a psychiatric ward, showed up at an Army recruiting station in southern Ohio. The two recruiters there wasted no time signing him up, and even after the man's parents told them he had bipolar disorder - a diagnosis that would disqualify him - he was all set to be shipped to boot camp, and perhaps Iraq after that, before senior officers found out and canceled the enlistment.

    Despite an Army investigation, the recruiters were not punished and were still working in the area late last month.


http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/050305Y.shtml

[Deborah]

Not Guilty by Involuntary Intoxication. I like that language.

http://www.charlotte.com/mld/observer/n ... 682300.htm
Posted on Thu, May. 19, 2005
Jury to decide if mom planned killing of son
Defense says illness worsened by drugs
GREG LACOUR
Staff Writer

LENOIR - Late on the snowy morning of Feb. 26, 2004, Janet Bell Hall shot and killed her 11-year-old son, Eric, and shot and beat her then-16-year-old daughter, Ashley, who survived, in their home in Granite Falls. The attorneys defending the 38-year-old Hall during her murder trial in Superior Court don't dispute this.

But, they argue, Hall was struggling with chronic depression and problems with the medication that was supposed to treat it, and she wasn't in her
right mind when she attacked her children.

State prosecutors, though, contend Hall was, in Assistant District Attorney Tom Rusher's words, "a loveless, self-centered woman" who knew precisely what she was doing when she shot her son execution-style in the back of his head and beat her daughter with an aluminum baseball bat before shooting her twice.

Today, after nearly a month of testimony, jurors will get the case. Hall is charged with first-degree murder in Eric's death and the attempted
first-degree murder of Ashley.

Both sides offered their closing arguments Wednesday, and Judge Beverly Beal will issue instructions to jurors beginning at 9:30 a.m. They'll deliberate after that, and if they convict Hall of first-degree murder, as the state
has asked, the trial would move into its penalty phase. Prosecutors would then ask jurors to sentence Hall to death.

But those aren't the only options. If they determine Hall acted without thinking or planning sufficiently beforehand, jurors could also find Hall guilty of second-degree murder, in which case Beal would impose a lesser sentence. Jurors could also find Hall not guilty by reason of insanity, which would commit her to a state psychiatric hospital, or not guilty by involuntary intoxication, in which case she'd be set free. If she's acquitted for both reasons, she would be committed.

On Wednesday, prosecutors tried to remind jurors of evidence that indicates Hall planned -- however quickly or sloppily -- everything she did.

Ashley, now 18, testified early in the trial that she was awakened that morning by the shock of her mother beating her in the head with the bat,
said Assistant District Attorney Eric Bellas.

And Hall didn't stop there, indicating this wasn't a rash, heat-of-passion beating, Bellas said. She beat her daughter on the head, "not just once but over and over again," he said, then chased her throughout the house, eventually shooting Ashley once in the collarbone and again in the chest with a .25-caliber semiautomatic pistol.

Mother and daughter didn't always get along, Bellas said, but "Ashley didn't provoke her mother. She hadn't even spoken to her. She hadn't even seen her. She was sleeping."

As for Eric, he said, Hall shot her son deliberately, once in the abdomen, another time in the back of the head, severing his spinal cord. Residue on the boy's body indicates it was a contact wound -- the gun was pressed to
skin.

"Ladies and gentlemen, he knew what was happening. He'd already been shot in the belly," Bellas said. "Eric Hall's last act on earth was to try to get away from his mother."

But it was a mother who had established mental and emotional problems, and a change in medication three weeks before had worsened rather than solved the problems, argued defense attorneys Robert Campbell and Lisa Dubs.

The depression started in 1996 after Hall's father died, Campbell told jurors. She sought help from a psychiatrist, who prescribed, in succession, high doses of the antidepressants Luvox, Lexapro and Zoloft. Hall's husband,
Jimmy, testified that after his wife started taking Zoloft on Feb. 3, 2004, she began sleeping during the day and cleaning the house in manic bursts in the middle of the night.

The morning of the shootings, Campbell said, Hall even took out hamburger buns to prepare for dinner later -- hardly the actions of a woman planning to kill her children.

"Ladies and gentlemen," he said, "mamas don't kill their children unless something is wrong."

Greg Lacour: (828) 324-0055; glacour@charlotteobserver.com

[Timoclea]

(For everyone but you, Deborah, because you seem like a nice enough lady, but we're just never going to agree on anything remotely related to modern psychiatry.)

This tragedy was caused by:

Malpractice by the pshrink, or negligence bythe patient *before* she became manic, or negligence by the spouse.

Anyone taking any antidepressant should be warned of what the symptoms of mania are and should be told to call their doctor *immediately* if they notice any.

This woman had *multiple* nights of sleeping through the day and cleaning the house in manic bursts at night?

*ONE* manic night should have triggered immediate action by her pshrink to do absolutely whatever was necessary control the mania, to assess her for immediate risks to self and others, etc.

It also should have triggered her shrink evaluating her for bipolar disorder.

Either the doctor didn't address the potential side effects with the patient and ensure she had someone watching her who knew what to watch for and who to call in case of problems, or the patient didn't take the information at the beginning to her spouse, or the spouse ignored it, or the doctor did not respond correctly when told the patient was having side effects.

Chainsaws can be incredibly useful for doing things like removing fallen trees safely from downed power lines--by qualified personnel only, of course.

If you cut off your leg with a chainsaw, the problem is not that chainsaws are bad and evil, the problem is that you or someone else didn't follow the appropriate safety rules for using a chainsaw (which include knowing what you're doing before using one at all).

Psychiatric drugs are not bad and evil.

When the safety rules for using them are followed, they are powerful, useful, necessary, and safe.

When the safety rules for using them are not followed, they're every bit as dangerous as a chainsaw in the hands of a 25 year old man with the mind of a six year old.

The problem is not that the drug is bad, any more than the problem in chainsaw accidents is that chainsaws are bad.

The problem is that the *sane* people did not follow the appropriate safety rules for handling a powerful, necessary, but potentially very dangerous tool.

The doctor *should* have provided the patient with a handout on the warning signs for all of the serious possible side effects, including mania.  The doctor should have carefully explained everything on the handout and made sure the patient knew when to call the doctor immediately and when to call 911.  The doctor should have required the patient to provide the handout to a friend or responsible third party--usually but not necessarily the spouse--with the offer to have his nurse explain anything on the sheet that the friend didn't understand.  The doctor should have followed up with the patient to ensure this had been done and gotten a signed acknowledgement of informed consent for the patient's files.

When you go in for surgery and they drug you so you mustn't drive for a certain length of time, they *make* you bring a friend to drive you home.  If you're going to take psychiatric medications, they should make you have a friend to keep an eye on you *at least* whenever you're making a major change.

Most pshrinks that I've encountered *do* carefully explain possible side effects, but they aren't as careful as I've recommended above at *documenting* that they have done so.  I think they should document it.  That's a procedural change I'd like to see made.

If this woman had had her dose(s) lowered, and specific problem drugs (problems *for her personally*) removed, and had had a mood stabilizer added if necessary to bring the mania under control, the violence would have never happened.

Just like if you learn what you're doing first and follow the safety rules for using a chainsaw properly you're going to cut off the log, not your leg.

Does malpractice happen?  Yes, it sometimes does.

Does criminal negligence happen even when malpractice does not?  Yes, it sometimes does.

So do serious chainsaw accidents, or other serious or fatal accidents among people operating power tools or heavy equipment.

Psychiatric drugs are powerful, dangerous, necessary tools.

Someone not careful and conscientious enough to be a heart surgeon or a brain surgeon shouldn't be a psychiatrist, either.  Practice of any branch of medicine is one of the most serious responsibilities there is.

We have procedures to screen out poor candidates before they become doctors.  We have medical licensing boards to yank the licenses of bad doctors who slip through the cracks.

We have criminal negligence laws for when people are told how to handle something dangerous and they don't pay attention.

The doctor should have explained about mania and psychosis risks.  Her husband had noticed what he should have known was mania.  He should have reported it to the doctor.  The doctor should have immediately acted to control the mania or hospitalized the woman until they could get it controlled.

Somebody along that whole chain of events failed in a major responsibility.  The first person in that chain of failure needs to go to jail for it.

If it was the pshrink's fault, his license needs to be yanked.

If the woman told the pshrink, when she was in a responsible state of mind, that she had told her husband what to watch for and she lied, then it wasn't "involuntary"---it was negligent, and she's responsible for it.

If I was the pshrink, I would have insisted on the husband knowing since they were both in the house with kids and he was the other custodial parent.

If the husband had been told and just blew it off, he was criminally negligent.

Somebody belongs in jail, and the pshrink *probably*, looking at the whole chain of events, was negligent and needs to lose his license.  But it's not the drug company, or the drug, or the drug rep that belongs in jail.

This comes down to the pshrink, the woman, and her husband.  One or all of them didn't do something vital that they absolutely had a responsibility to do and people died from the negligence.

It's nice and comfortable to blame the drug and say, "Oh, it's nobody's fault, it was just that big bad old evil nasty mean chemical."

The problem is, it's letting someone off the hoook whose *personal* criminal negligence caused deaths.

I don't know if it's the woman, the husband, or the doctor who's the guilty party here, or some combination of the three, but I know *at least* one of them is.

We don't like to call other people stupid, or socially obnoxious, or ignorant, or criminally negligent.  It's embarrassing.  It's "not nice."

It's "rude."

And it's a lot less socially unpleasant to blame an inanimate object or a big corporation when someone does something bad or a horrible accident happens.

Even when you have three people where at least one of them was clearly horribly criminally negligent and whose horrible criminal negligence *is* what caused the bad thing to happen.

"Nice" and "polite"---but wrong.

It's a terrible thing that the woman did.

A terrible thing that was the direct, personal, criminal fault of the doctor, the woman, and/or her husband.

Bad ol' me for saying so, but hell yes it was that person(s)' personal fault and not the fault of an inanimate chemical, or the company that makes and sells it, or the FDA.

Individuals personally close to the events failed to follow vital safety rules and people died.

Some people hate corporations so much they like to blame them for anything they can.  Some people hate "chemicals" or things that are "unnatural" so much they like to blame them for anything they can.  Some people just think it's "mean" or "rude" to blame anyone who's "suffered a loss" for things they screwed up that caused it to happen.

I guess people can have a lot of motivations to let someone off the hook for something they did.

But, hey, look, the emperor over there ain't got no clothes on!

It was their fault.

Timoclea

The mystery of the beginning of all things is insoluble by us, and I for one must be content to remain an agnostic.
--Charles Robert Darwin, English naturalist

[Cannabis]

Your arguments sound reasonable except if the only people responsible for drug side effects are the doctors and patients then why is there a need for the FDA? I don't agree that any person can predict that they are about to enter a drug induced psychotic episode.

Psychiatry is the top profession to work in where you get paid even if you're not achieving any positive results over a period of years. Pharmaceutical companies are also culpable because they sell the fairytale to doctors that their pills will work if they only use the right one.

Fuck pharmaceutical companies and their Nazi collaborators, whoever they are.

[Antigen]

On 2005-05-20 10:55:00, Timoclea wrote:

When the safety rules for using them are not followed, they're every bit as dangerous as a chainsaw in the hands of a 25 year old man with the mind of a six year old.

That's the problem, Julie. The safety rules for all these new drugs are still in the earliest stages of development and based largely on faulty info from FDA and the pharmacos. Until recently, pshrinks were telling patients that Prozac is non-habit forming. I guess they believed it, why not? That's what the FDA told them. Now we know better.

The trouble is that the psyche industry is handing this shit out like candy w/ little, if any, regard to the consequences of their "treatment". I know a girl who threatened to fight back when a school administrator threatened to put her through a wall. In my view, that's a pretty normal, healthy response to a threat of violence and well within the kid's right to self defense. But the schoolpeople didn't see it that way. They arrested the girl, took her down to Broward County Juvenile Intervention Facility (JIF), assessed her as having anger management problems and gave her Welbutrin all before ever notifying the parent.

These are not just isolated incidents. It's happening all over the damned place! People need to understand that a drug can only do something for you to the exact extent that it does something to you! You should never take psyche drugs w/o trying every other reasonable option, knowing all you can know about the drug and carefully weighing the risks against the benefits. If some quack tries to hand you pills as a first line treatment run!

The graduate with a Science degree asks, "Why does it work?"
The graduate with an Engineering degree asks, "How does it work?"
The graduate with an Accounting degree asks, "How much will it cost?"
The graduate with a Liberal Arts degree asks, "Do you want fries with that?"
--Anonymous

[Deborah]

*Thursday Evenings 5-6pm PST: Annie Armen Live on World Talk Radio*

Tonight: June 09, 2005 From 5-6pm PST
AAL Series: Dangers of Psychiatric Drugs Part 12

Topic: Psychiatric Drugs Survivor of 36 years SPEAKS OUT WITH DRUG FREE HEALING ACTION NATIONWIDE!

Featured Guest: "DOC" MIKE

For AAL Program Details, Please Visit:
http://www.anniearmenlive.org/psychiatric_drugs.htm

Toll Free Call in Number: 888/514-2100

To Listen LIVE tonight from 5-6pm PST (8-9pm ET)
http://www.worldtalkradio.com/archive.asp?aid=4251
and click on LISTEN NOW - top right hand corner.

THIS SHOW IS SPONSORED BY "DOC" MIKE.
Check out his website at http://www.docmike.com
LIFE SAVING INFORMATION AT YOUR FINGER TIPS!

[Paul]

[I was able to find this in the archives, but unable to pull up the article. If someone could post the whole article I would appreciate it = Paul]

http://www.charlotte.com/mld/charlotte/news/
[then search archive with her name]

GRANITE FALLS MOTHER GETS LIFE SENTENCE

Source: GREG LACOUR, STAFF WRITER
Janet Bell Hall began her life sentence in prison at precisely 5 p.m. Tuesday, as a Caldwell County sheriff's deputy led her from the back of the courthouse to a waiting patrol car.A few feet away, two of her sisters, a niece and a nephew watched. Just before Hall ducked into the car, she turned to them and, with an almost imperceptible flick of her fingers, waved goodbye.Jurors in Hall's first-degree murder trial in Superior Court had just sentenced her to life in prison

Published on May 25, 2005, Page 1B, Charlotte Observer, The (NC)

[Paul]

[I found this via a Google search, instead of searching via the newspapers archives]

http://www.charlotte.com/mld/charlotte/ ... 692247.htm
Posted on Fri, May. 20, 2005
Click here to find out more!

Mom is guilty in murder of 11-year-old

Woman also awaits sentence in shooting of 16-year-old daughter

GREG LACOUR

Staff Writer

LENOIR - Janet Bell Hall may die of lethal injection. She may spend years on death row, or the rest of her life in prison. It doesn't matter to her brother-in-law, Ricky Shelton.

"The family's happy it came out as convictions in both cases. We know she's going to stay in jail," Shelton said Thursday, after a jury in Superior Court convicted Hall of shooting and killing her 11-year-old son, Eric, and beating and shooting her then-16-year-old daughter, Ashley, in their Granite Falls home last year.

"We don't care one way or the other whether she's on death row or serves life in prison," Shelton said. "As long as she spends the rest of her life in prison."

Beginning Monday, the jury that convicted her after a nearly monthlong trial will have to determine her fate. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty for Hall, and her conviction of first-degree murder in Eric's death guaranteed a penalty phase in which jurors will decide whether Hall should be executed.

Jurors on Thursday also convicted Hall, 38, of the attempted first-degree murder of Ashley, who survived. Judge Beverly Beal will sentence Hall for that crime after jurors determine the sentence for the murder.

Shelton, 40, of Granite Falls, said he's spoken recently with Ashley, who he said lives in the area and is still trying to cope emotionally with the fact that her mother tried to kill her. Ashley, now 18, was beaten numerous times in the head and shot in the collarbone and chest.

"She is so lucky to be here herself, it's unbelievable," Shelton said. "She's going to be happy to hear her mother's not going to be around her no more."

For reasons that still aren't clear, Hall attacked her children on the morning of Feb. 26, 2004. In addition to beating and shooting Ashley, she shot Eric once in the abdomen and once in the back of the head.

Then, when her husband Jimmy got home, Hall fled in her car. She wasn't captured until the next night, when she was in an accident at the intersection of Lenoir-Rhyne Boulevard and U.S. 70 in Hickory.

Hall's attorneys didn't dispute what she did, but they tried to convince jurors that she was suffering from severe depression and side effects from the medication she was taking to treat it. Had jurors acquitted her on grounds of insanity, Hall would have been committed to a state psychiatric hospital; had they acquitted her on grounds of involuntary intoxication, she would have gone free.

Although jurors in this case didn't hear about it, Hall has been accused of killing a family member before. She was charged in 2001 with voluntary manslaughter in the shooting death of her brother in Caldwell County.

But after she claimed self-defense, prosecutors dismissed the charges because they didn't think they had enough evidence to convict. Beal ruled that details about the shooting were inadmissible during the trial.

[Paul]

Deborah,

I am curious as to why you are posting
this information for your Fornits
contribution, but when I mentioned
Safe Harbor's recent Non-Pharma
conference you ignored it?

Paul

[Anonymous]

Yeah, Prozac made her do it---twice.  It reached right back in time and made her do it a couple of years before she was on it.  What a nasty unnatural evil *chemical*.

*sigh*

Psychiatric medications are reasonable and necessary as a first line treatment for: bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder with command hallucinations, and major depression or BPD where the specific patient is a danger to herself.

Patients on psychiatric drugs should always have their condition followed very carefully by a competent, licensed psychiatrist.

Anything else is negotiable.

Julie

[Deborah]

Involuntary Intoxication?
Drug Induced Mania?

Standoff Suspect Described As Family Man 2 hours, 5 minutes ago

LOS ANGELES - The Alabama man accused of trying to kidnap a woman and engaging police in a four-hour standoff on a major highway was described by those who know him as a peaceful family man and school volunteer.
     
Police say they don't know what might have motivated Dennis Elliot Shellhouse, who was visiting Southern California from Phenix City, Ala., on business.

Shellhouse, 45, remained hospitalized with dog bite and gunshot wounds Thursday, two days after the highway chase and standoff that backed up traffic for miles.

Shellhouse's mother said he was taking diet pills and antidepressants but was otherwise healthy.

"He may have gone crazy," Jane Shellhouse, 67, told the Daily News of Los Angeles by phone. "It is not like him to do something like this."

She said he is an industrial trainer who owns his own company, attends church with his family and mentors his 14-year-old son's high school robotics team. He was a Phenix City Schools Heart of the Community Volunteer in 2004 and 2005.

South Girard School Assistant Principal Joshua Laney said he could only believe the case was one of mistaken identity.

"There's no way that the guy that I know would ever attempt to take anybody hostage for money," Laney said.

Upon release from the hospital, Shellhouse is expected to be booked in Los Angeles on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon, authorities said. He also faces charges related to the attempted kidnapping in Ventura County, a sheriff's spokesman said.

Shellhouse has no criminal record in his hometown, said Lee County, Ala., Sheriff Jay Jones.

Tuesday's chase began after an armed man posing as a delivery courier tried to kidnap a woman from her porch. The woman got away, and he fled in a van, leading officers on a 75-mile chase. They got him to stop by ramming the vehicle, but he held them at bay for hours before they shot out a window and shoved a tear gas grenade inside.

He was wounded by a deputy after he allegedly pointed a gun, and was bit by a dog sent to drag him out of the van.

Copyright © 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. The information contained in the AP News report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press.

[Deborah]

Paul, can you elaborate? I don't know what you're trying to say.

***I am curious as to why you are posting
this information for your Fornits
contribution, but when I mentioned
Safe Harbor's recent Non-Pharma
conference you ignored it?***

Apparently you haven't read this thread or you wouldn't need to ask the first part of the question.

If you are talking about:
Safe Harbor is having a non medication conference
in June.
I offered to get the folks at Safe Harbor going
with the Mental Health Services Act for funding,
but they where not interested. I tried ...
http://fornits.com/wwf/viewtopic.php?to ... =40#102890

Did it ever occur to you that Safe Harbor doesn't want/need your "help" or dirty money from MHSA?
I really don't know the politics or specifically what MHSA is, but it seems you should be posing your comments/questions to Safe Harbor, not me. If they don't want to talk to you, nothing I can do about it.