Isn't it time we have a National debate on this subject? We should also bring to light the incredible amount of damage big pharma is inflicting on Society, don't you think?
NaturalNews by Dani Veracity
In June 2001, a jury in Wyoming determined that the antidepressant drug Paxil caused a man to kill his wife, daughter and granddaughter before killing himself. The jury awarded the surviving family $8 million in damages, according to 'American Medical Publishing's Prescription Medicines, Side Effects and Natural Alternatives'.
In Portland, Ore., Jay Johnston followed his doctor's orders and took the prescribed antidepressants Zoloft and Prozac. He then attempted suicide with a shotgun, permanently disfiguring himself. In the same month as the Wyoming jury's decision, Johnston sued his doctor for not properly monitoring him. The jury found the doctor guilty of criminal negligence and awarded Johnston $5 million, reports Dr. Ann Blake Tracy in 'Prozac: Panacea or Pandora'. Similarly, who could forget Eric Harris, who -- along with Dylan Klebold -- killed 11 people and then himself in the Columbine school shooting? At the time of the shooting, Harris was being treated with the prescription antidepressant Luvox.
These patients are among the growing statistics of people who committed suicide, or tried to commit suicide, while undergoing treatment with prescription antidepressants.
Antidepressant drugs such as Prozac, Luvox and Paxil are selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, commonly known as SSRIs. Serotonin is one of your brain's most important biochemicals; it controls everything from appetite to mood swings. If you're depressed, compulsively eating or gambling, not sleeping properly or even just moody, you're probably lacking serotonin. It's important to note, however, that you can also have too much serotonin.
In Health and Nutrition Secrets, Dr. Russell L. Blaylock writes, "It is also known that these medications increase brain levels of the neurotransmitter serotonin, which, in high concentrations, can also act as an excitotoxin." When antidepressant drugs raise serotonin to an excitotoxin level, the brain reacts in ways similar to mental illness. According to Burton Goldberg's book, 'Alternative Medicine', side effects of SSRIs include uncontrollable facial and body tics, dizziness, hallucinations, nausea, sexual dysfunction, addiction, electric-shock-like sensations in the brain and, of course, homicidal or suicidal thoughts and behavior.
Unfortunately, the doctors prescribing these SSRIs often forget that you can have too much of a good thing -- that is, too much serotonin -- so they prescribe SSRIs to just about everyone. Now, there are some truly bad doctors out there, such as the psychiatrist whom Dr. Joseph Glenmullen describes in Prozac Backlash:
"Anna was started on Prozac but became severely anxious, agitated and sleepless ... Having never been suicidal before, two weeks after starting Prozac, Anna went to her HMO because she felt like killing herself. The psychiatrist on call told Anna the Prozac was indeed making her worse and hospitalized her. But her original psychiatrist disagreed, restarted Prozac, although at a lower dose and added a second, sedating antidepressant (Trazodone), which Anna only took for two days."
Anna's original doctor seems to be little more than a licensed drug dealer. However, let's give the benefit of the doubt to most antidepressant-prescribing doctors and say that they're just ignorant of antidepressants' potentially fatal side effects. Based on Goldberg's figures, physicians -- not psychiatrists -- write over 70 percent of all prescriptions for SSRIs, so they may very well be ignorant of the antidepressant scare.
Pharmaceutical companies, however, have no excuse. Prozac's maker, Eli Lilly, frantically fought any change in the prescribing guidelines for antidepressants; even a general warning. Not even public allegations linking the drug to suicides, murders, murder-suicides and mass murder-suicides could weaken Eli Lilly's staunch defense of the antidepressant. Dr. Glenmullen explains that Eli Lilly's stance was a result, of course, of financial greed: "Pharmaceutical companies spend hundreds of millions of dollars developing and launching a drug like Prozac. By 1991, Prozac was already the number-one bestselling antidepressant, with sales near $1 billion a year. The stakes were indeed high. So the pharmaceutical industry and drug advocates decided to defend Prozac at all costs, despite the risks to individual and public safety." In other words, to the pharmaceutical industry, it seems nothing -- not the individual lives of depressed people, not the massacre at Columbine -- is more important than making $1 billion a year.
You know your life is more important than that; you know that humanity is more important than any financial sum. It's up to you -- not your doctor and certainly not a pill -- to find a way to overcome depression. Visit a therapist and do some cognitive therapy; even the staunchest pill-pusher won't deny that antidepressant medication is no substitute for counseling. If your brain lacks serotonin, there are many safe and natural ways to boost the biochemical. You can find a concise, yet informative article on boosting your mood through diet, right here on foodmatters.tv
Prozac, Luvox, Paxil and Zoloft are just brand names for the same recipe for disaster. Every day, doctors prescribe medications that are known to induce suicide and other violent behavior in depressed people who may already be suicidal. This is so ironic that it's sickening, and only knowledgeable consumers who tell their doctors that they don't want to be given these dangerous drugs can make it stop.
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