In 1987, Kathleen Gannon, of Tempe, Ariz., stabbed her mother to
death with garden shears and beat her-father to death with the butt
of a rifle. According to a source who examined her, Gannon believed
that, when her parents were dead, "she would then somehow become
a normal person." The day before Gannon murdered her parents,
she was injected with a major tranquilizer and given a prescription
for the same drug in pill form.
In 1988, Charles Knowles killed two Detroit police officers before he
was shot to death in a siege of his apartment. Knowles had been
subjected to psychiatric drugs, including Haldol, and other
procedures over a period of 19 years. His family and friends
described him as not a violent person, and Michigan State Mental
Health Director Thomas Watkins confirmed that Knowles had "no
real history of acts of violence" prior to his psychiatric treatment.
Minor tranquilizers, or anti-anxiety agents--the most widely used
class of psychiatric drugs--also have been shown to create violence.
Included in this category are Xanax, Halcion, Valium, Ativan,
Restoril, Tranxene, Librium, Miltown, Equanil, Atarax, Vistaril, and Dalmane.
The Canadian team that researched the connection between aggression
and psychiatric drugs in a prison population stated that, of all
classes, "anti-anxiety agents appeared to be most implicated,
with 3.6 times as many acts of aggression occurring when inmates were
on these drugs. " They maintained: "Considering that
certainly not all aggressive personalities are in prison, that
frustrations also abound in society and that diazepam [Valium] is the
most prescribed drug in the U.S. with chlordiazepoxide [Librium]
third, the implications of the combination of anti-anxiety agents and
aggressiveness are astounding."
In 1970, a textbook on the side effects of psychiatric drugs already
had pointed out their potential for violence. "Indeed, even acts
of violence such as murder and suicide have been attributed to the
rage reactions induced by chlordiazepoxide and diazepa." On
March 30,1981, 11 years after this was published and six years after
the Canadian study, John Hinckley, Jr., attempted to assassinate
Pres. Ronald Reagan in the midst of a Valium-induced rage.
Since the Canadian study was published, Valium has been replaced by
Xanax, another minor tranquilizer, as the most widely prescribed
psychiatric drug. Yet, Xanax is as deadly, if not more so, than Valium.
According to a 1984 study, "Extreme anger and hostile behavior
emerged from eight of the first 80 patients we treated with
alprazolam [Xanax]. The responses consisted of physical assaults by
two patients, behavior potentially dangerous to others by two more,
and verbal outbursts by the remaining four." A woman who had no
history of violence before taking Xanax "erupted with screams on
the fourth day of alprazolam treatment, and held a steak knive to her
mother's throat for a few minutes."
James Wilson had been taking Xanax before he entered the Oakland
Elementary School in Greenwood, S.C., on Sept. 26, 1988. He shot and
killed two eight-year-old girls and wounded seven other children and
two teachers.
Another widely prescribed category of psychiatric drugs consists of
antidepressants, the most common being Prozac, Pamelor, Elavil,
Tofranil, Adapin, Sinequan, and Desyrel. Of these, the largest
sub-group is the tricyclics, so named because three circular rings
are present in their molecular structure.
In 1986, a study linked increased hostility with Elavil. The
researchers noted that persons on the drug "appeared
progressively more hostile, irritable, and behaviorally impulsive....
The increase in demanding behavior and assaultive acts was
statistically significant...." A year later, the same
researchers found that those patients taking Elavil "were
behaviorally more demanding, made more suicidal threats, and were
more often physically assaultive toward others...."
Nevertheless, psychiatrists prescribe these dangerous mind-altering
drugs to children for "mental disorders" such as wetting
the bed, overactivity, or even being late to school. Youngsters who
are given these chemicals often become hysterical, defiant,
belligerent, or hostile.
At the 1989 murder trial of Stanley Jurgevich in Steamboat Springs,
Colo., a medical expert testified that "aggressiveness,
assaultiveness, and agitation" generated by the tricyclic
antidepressant Sinequan had played a significant role in the crime.
In a 1988 Massachusetts case, Robert Lee Harvey slit his six-year-old
son's throat and stabbed him to death, then started stabbing himself.
Harvey had a psychiatric history extending back 14 years and had been
undergoing treatment shortly before the killing. According to police,
antidepressant drugs were found at the scene.
"Wonder drug" causes violence
Over the years, many new psychiatric drugs have been promoted by
psychiatrists and pharmaceutical companies as "wonder
drugs," only to turn out to be highly destructive. Besides
Valium and Xanax, the antidepressant Prozac has been found to create
intense, violent, suicidal thoughts.
A study published in September, 1989, revealed that Prozac can
generate akathisia in as many as 25% of those who take it. Two other
papers subsequently confirmed the connection between Prozac and
suicidal thoughts and actions.
When Prozac user Joseph Wesbecker gunned down 20 of his former co-
workers in Louisville, Ky., in 1989, killing eight and then himself,
he was exhibiting akathisia-like symptoms, including restlessness and
pacing. Three days prior, his psychiatrist had described him as
exhibiting an "increased level of agitation and anger." The
psychiatrist wrote in his patient record, "Plan--Discontinue
Prozac which may be cause."
There have been many other cases of persons committing suicide,
sometimes coupled with murder, while on Prozac. In 1991, for
instance, former San Diego, Calif, deputy sheriff Hank Adams shot his
wife and himself to death in front of his 17-year-old daughter.
Adams, who was taking Prozac, had no history of violence.
Some persons who nearly have killed themselves or slain others while
on Prozac have described becoming progressively more hostile and
aggressive after starting on the drug, a clear symptom of akathisia.
In these cases, when Prozac was discontinued, these seemingly
inexplicable feelings of aggression disappeared.
In 1990, New York secretary Rhonda Hala filed a $150,000,000 lawsuit
against Prozac manufacturer Eli Lilly, charging that the drug had
driven her to mutilate herself with razor-sharp objects more than 150
times and to attempt suicide six times. Hala stated that, after she
came off the drug, her obsessive impulses to harm herself disappeared.
In Scotland, Duncan Murchison, who had no prior history of violence,
threatened to murder his girlfriend while on a rampage precipitated
by his use of Prozac. During the six months he was on the drug,
Murchison became progressively more hostile and aggressive--symptoms
that disappeared after he stopped taking Prozac. While he was on the
drug, Murchison twice attempted to commit suicide.
Since its introduction onto the market in January, 1988, the drug has
compiled the following record:
It accumulated more adverse reaction reports filed with the U.S. Food
and Drug Administration within the first three and a half years than
any other drug in the 22-year history of the FDA's adverse drug
reaction reporting system.
As of June, 1992, more than 23,000 adverse reaction reports regarding
Prozac had been received by the FDA. These included delirium,
hallucinations, convulsions, violent hostility and aggression,
psychosis, and more than 1,100 suicide attempts and a similar number
of Prozac-related deaths.
In a two-year period following the first lawsuit in mid 1990, more
than 100 lawsuits were filed against Eli Lilly, seeking almost $ 1,
000,000,000 in damages by families of people who had committed
suicide while on Prozac, families of those who had been murdered by
persons on the drug, and individuals who had themselves been damaged
while on Prozac. The Association of Trial Lawyers of America has
established a special Prozac litigation section to provide
information to attorneys who are approached by people harmed by the drug.
Numerous former Prozac users have argued in court that the drug
pushed them to commit insane acts of murderous violence.
Published reports from researchers at Harvard Medical School, Yale
University, Columbia University, the State University of New York,
and the Veterans Administration have presented persuasive evidence
that Prozac causes intense, violent, suicidal preoccupation. A study
at the University of South Carolina had to be terminated abruptly
when five subjects developed intense, violent, suicidal, and
homicidal thoughts.
Documents released under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act revealed
that, prior to the Wesbecker murders in 1989, the FDA had evidence of
five violent Prozaclinked deaths in its files.
Pre-market tests of prozac done by Eli Lilly show at least six deaths
linked to the drug.
Drug oversight authorities in Sweden and Norway have refused to
authorize Eli Lilly to market Prozac in those countries, maintaining
that testing was inadequate to justify approval. Both countries
expressed concern at the high 20-milligram starting dose.
The Public Citizen Health Research Group, an organization founded by
consumer activist Ralph Nader, has called for the FDA to require a
suicide warning to be placed on Prozac.
After conducting an inquest into the suicide of an 18-year-old Prozac
user, a coroner in British Columbia stated that he could not rule out
the drug as the cause of the suicide and called on the Canadian
government to establish a national registry to monitor all Prozac-
related deaths in the country.
While the Food and Drug Administration is entrusted with the vigilant
protection of Americans from dangerous drugs, an inspection of the
hazardous medications it has allowed on the market shows the agency
to be ineffective. This is explained in large measure by the
staggering conflicts of interests the FDA has allowed into the drug
oversight process. For instance, a hearing into the charges against
Prozac and other psychiatric antidepressants was held in late 1991,
at which the agency claimed to be unable to find any damning evidence
against antidepressants.
Subsequent investigation of the panel revealed that five out of the
10 members had active financial interests with the manufacturers of
antidepressants totaling more than $ 1,000,000 at the time they
claimed to find no evidence against Prozac. The FDA has been accused
of serving the interests of the profit-driven drug companies, not
those of the American people, and allowing killer drugs to be placed
on the market.
Each day, at a handsome profit, the psychiatric industry writes new
prescriptions for disability, violence, suicide, and murder. The
disastrous consequences are felt by all Americans.
In 1989, Emanuel Tsegaye walked into the Chevy Chase Federal Savings
Bank in Bethesda, Md., and opened fire on his fellow employees with a
.38-caliber revolver. After killing three women and critically
wounding a male employee, he took his own life. Tsegaye had been kept
on psychiatric drugs since his 1986 release from Perkins Psychiatric
Institution in Jessup, Md.
Betty Hahn of Tustin, Calif, bludgeoned her mother to death with a
hammer in 1988. Hahn had been given two psychiatric' drugs--the
antidepressant Pamelor and the anti-anxiety agent Xanax--and
apparently was withdrawing from Xanax at the time of the killing.
Mary Feurst was described by her husband, Russell, as a loving mother
and spouse when she entered the mental health system. After extensive
psychological and psychiatric treatment, which included
antidepressant drugs, Mary said that she was planning on killing her
children. She then was institutionalized and treated with more
psychiatric drugs.
The psychiatrists released her in June, 1982, after what they felt
was "significant recovery." They did not warn him that his
wife was homicidal or caution him about the effects the drugs she was
taking could have on her behavior. On July 22, 1982, Mary Feurst shot
her six-year-old son in the face and back and her nine-year-old
daughter in the head with a .38-caliber revolver, killing them both.
"Psychiatry killed my children," Russell Feurst maintains.
"Don't let that happen to you!"
USA Today Magazine, 05-01-1994, pp 44.