Subject: Chemically-Induced Suicide: 80 Percent of Suicide Victims Took Antidepressant Drugs Fri Feb 29, 2008 2:46 am
(NaturalNews) A Swedish writer has accused the National Board of Health and Welfare (NBHW) of covering up evidence suggesting a connection between psychiatric drugs and suicide. Under a recent law, Swedish health-care providers must fill out reports on all suicides committed by patients under their care or within four weeks of a health care visit. The reports are then sent to the NBHW, which compiles and analyzes them.
Recently, the NBHW released the first report analyzing the 367 suicides recorded in 2006. "Not a single word is written about the most compelling fact: Well over 80 percent of persons killing themselves were treated with psychiatric drugs," Janne Larson writes.
According to data received via a Freedom of Information Act request, more than 80 percent of the 367 suicides had been receiving psychiatric medications. More than half of these were receiving antidepressants, while more than 60 percent were receiving either antidepressants or antipsychotics. There is no mention of this either in the NBHW paper or in major Swedish media reports about the health care suicides.
Why the truth won't be reported in the mainstream media "It was contrary to the best interests of Big Pharma and biological psychiatrists" to expose the information, Larson writes. "It blew the myths of antidepressants and neuroleptics [antipsychotics] as suicide protecting drugs to pieces. It would also have hurt the career of many medical journalists to take up this subject; journalists who for years have made their living by writing marketing articles about new antidepressant drugs."
These statements are quite true. The conspiracy of silence between Big Pharma and the mainstream media is now so strong that accurate news about the dangers of psychiatric drugs is rarely reported. As we recently saw in the death of Heath Ledger, the mainstream media is quick to blame the victim, but slow to realize that the real cause of these behavioral problems rests with the chemicals that alter brain function (and therefore alter behavior).
Evidence has emerged that a class of antidepressants known as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) actually increases the risk of suicide in those who take them. While such claims have been hotly disputed by the pharmaceutical industry and many psychiatrists, experimental, epidemiological and case study evidence continues to emerge that reinforces such a link. The evidence suggests that those taking SSRIs are approximately twice as likely to commit suicide as those not taking such medications. This risk increase appears to be independent of the specific diagnosis or other underlying health factors.
Even worse, recent research published in the peer-reviewed journal PLoS Medicine (see http://medicine.plosjournals.org/perlse...) reveals that antidepressant drugs don't work any better than placebo at reducing depression. This study looked at all the clinical trials conducted on SSRIs, not just the ones selected by drug companies for publication. It reveals that SSRI drug manufacturers committed scientific fraud in censoring studies that did not show positive results. Now, the whole world knows that the disease mongering and hype behind antidepressant drugs was based on pure scientific fraud.
Links between SSRIs and suicide The link between SSRI use and suicide in youths has been firmly established enough that the United States and United Kingdom have licensed only one such drug (fluoxetine, marketed under the brand name Prozac) for use by those under the age of 18. In the United Kingdom, off-label use by children is blatantly illegal. In the United States, the FDA requires a "black box" warning that SSRIs may increase the risk of suicide in those under the age of 18, but that warning is routinely ignored, and hundreds of millions of doses of Prozac have been taken by children and teens.
A "black box" warning is the most severe warning the FDA can issue without withdrawing a product from the market. In December 2006, an FDA advisory panel recommended increasing the age on the SSRI black box warning to 25 years of age. In reality, the black box warning is a way for the FDA to allow dangerous drugs to remain on the market: It gives them an excuse to say, "We warned you!"
The dangers of Prozac Prozac has been found to increase the risk of aggressive and suicidal thoughts and behaviors. When the drug was first submitted to the FDA for approval in 1985, the agency's then-chief safety investigator, Richard Kapit, suggested that the drug bear a "labeling warning [for] the physician that such signs and symptoms of depression may be exacerbated by this drug." In 2004, the FDA finally added the labeling requirement.
Antipsychotics may also increase suicide risk by inducing a condition known as akathisia — a subjective, often-misdiagnosed feeling of inner restlessness that can range from mild anxiety to a feeling of overwhelming doom. Akathisia can also be induced by certain SSRIs, including Prozac and Paxil. A 2006 study published in PLoS Medicine concluded that akathisia induced by antipsychotic use is significantly correlated with suicide, and that the condition appeared to be overwhelmingly more likely in patients taking SSRIs than in those taking a placebo, with 10 times as many patients on SSRIs exhibiting symptoms severe enough that investigators were forced to pull them from the study.
Yet Larson alleges that the Swedish government has failed to investigate any potential link between SSRIs or antipsychotics and suicide. The investigation form that the government sends to local healthcare providers to fill out after a suicide does not contain any questions about drug treatment.
According to Larson, a truly objective investigation would have to look at whether the patients exhibited symptoms that could be attributed to akathisia (which is nearly always a drug side effect) and whether suicide was preceded by an increase or abrupt drop in drug dosage.
"[NBHW] claimed: 'Every investigated suicide where one can see flaws that can be taken care of, can contribute to the prevention of further suicides,'" Larson writes. "Yet no investigation at all was done in the suicide-inducing effect of antidepressants and neuroleptics."
Suicides and violent behavior It is important to note that nearly every school shooting that has happened in the United States over the last decade has been conducted by young males who were taking antidepressant drugs. The drugs not only cause suicidal behavior, they also seem to promote extreme violence towards other individuals. In most school shooting cases, the young men committing the violence also committed suicide after killing classmates and teachers. These are classic signs of antidepressant use.
Dr. Fred Baughman (www.ADHDfraud.org) has spoken extensively about the link between antidepressants and violent behavior, and has accused the drug companies of lying to the public about depression in order to sell more antidepressant drugs. His most recent article is published at OpEdNews: http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne...
Subject: Re: Chemically-Induced Suicide: 80 Percent of Suicide Victims Took Antidepressant Drugs Fri Feb 29, 2008 6:16 am
Antidepressant drugs don't work – official study
They are among the biggest-selling drugs of all time, the "happiness pills" that supposedly lift the moods of those who suffer depression and are taken by millions of people in the UK every year.
But one of the largest studies of modern antidepressant drugs has found that they have no clinically significant effect. In other words, they don't work.
The finding will send shock waves through the medical profession and patients and raises serious questions about the regulation of the multinational pharmaceutical industry, which was accused yesterday of withholding data on the drugs.
It also came as Alan Johnson, the Health Secretary, announced that 3,600 therapists are to be trained during the next three years to provide nationwide access through the GP service to "talking treatments" for depression, instead of drugs, in a £170m scheme. The popularity of the new generation of antidepressants, which include the best known brands Prozac and Seroxat, soared after they were launched in the late 1980s, heavily promoted by drug companies as safer and leading to fewer side-effects than the older tricyclic antidepressants.
The publication in 1994 of Listening to Prozac by Peter Kramer, in which he suggested anyone with too little "joy juice" might give themselves a dose of the "mood brightener" Prozac , lifted sales into the stratosphere.
In the UK, an estimated 3.5 million people take the drugs, collectively known as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), in any one year and 29 million prescriptions were issued in 2004. Prozac, the best known of the SSRIs made by Eli Lilly, was the world's fastest-selling drug until it was overtaken by Viagra.
In the study, researchers conducted a meta-analysis of all 47 clinical trials, published and unpublished, submitted to the Food and Drug Administration in the US, made in support of licensing applications for six of the best known antidepressant drugs, including Prozac, Seroxat – which is made by GlaxoSmithKline – and Efexor made by Wyeth. The results showed the drugs were effective only in a very small group of the most extremely depressed.
Two drugs were excluded from the study because of incomplete data. A third drug, chemical name nafazodone, has been withdrawn from the market because of side-effects.
Professor Irving Kirsch of the University of Hull, who led the study published in the online journal Public Library of Science (PLoS) Medicine , said the data submitted to the FDA would also have been submitted to the licensing authorities in Britain and Europe. It showed the drugs produced a "very small" improvement compared with placebo of two points on the 51-point Hamilton depression scale.
That was sufficient to grant the drugs a licence but did not meet the minimum three-point difference required by the National Institute for Clinical Excellence (Nice) to establish "clinical" significance. Yet Nice approved the drugs for use on the NHS in the UK because it only had access to the published trials, which showed a larger effect.
Professor Kirsch said: "Given these results, there seems to be little reason to prescribe antidepressant medication to any but the most severely depressed patients, unless alternative treatments have failed to provide a benefit. This study raises serious issues that need to be addressed surrounding drug licensing and how drug trial data is reported."
Five years ago, there were allegations that antidepressant drugs were addictive and could trigger suicides. All but Prozac were banned for children, although a major investigation on the safety of medicines cleared them of causing suicide in adults.
Alternative treatments for depression, such as counselling or physical exercise , should be tried first, Professor Kirsch said. The pharmaceutical companies had withheld data that was available to the licensing authorities so that doctors and patients did not understand the true efficacy, or lack of it, of the drugs.
"This has been the frustration. It has made it very difficult to answer the question of whether the drugs work. The pharmaceutical companies should be obliged when they get a drug licensed to make all the data available to the public. When you analyse all the trials of these SSRIs, both published and unpublished, it leads you to more sober conclusions," he said.
Tim Kendall, deputy director of the Royal College of Psychiatrists' research unit, said the findings, if proved true, would not be surprising. As head of the National Collaborating Centre for Nice guidelines on mental health, he said it had proved impossible to get access to unpublished trials in the past.
"The companies have this data but they will not release it. When we were drawing up the guidelines on prescribing antidepressants to children [in 2004] we wrote to all the companies asking for it but they said no. The Government pledged in its manifesto to compel the drug companies to give access to their data but that commitment has not been met."
The new finding would make doctors "much more cautious about prescribing the drugs," Mr Kendall added.
GlaxoSmithKline, makers of Seroxat, said the authors of the study had "failed to acknowledge" the very positive benefits of SSRIs and their conclusions were "at odds with the very positive benefits seen in actual clinical practice." A spokesperson added: "This one study should not be used to cause unnecessary alarm for patients.
Lilly said in a statement: "Extensive scientific and medical experience has demonstrated that fluoxetine [Prozac] is an effective antidepressant.
Wyeth said: "We recognise the need for both pharmacological and non-pharmacological treatments for depression."
On the new training for therapists, Mr Johnson said the programme signalled a decisive shift away from drugs in favour of non-drug treatments for depression. "We are not taking the decision away from clinicians," he said.
"For many, medication is successful. But talking therapies can have dramatic effects. We have put a lot of emphasis on medication in the past and it is about time we redressed the balance and put more emphasis on talking treatments."
The treatments that do work
* Exercise: Helps some people with depression. Douglas Adams, author of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, said running helped him cope with depression.
* Friends: Talking through your feelings can help in mild depression with a friend or relative or in a self-help group.
* Cognitive behavioural therapy: Teaches you to challenge negative thoughts and feelings of hopelessness.
* Interpersonal therapy: Focuses on relationships and problems such as difficulties with communication.
* Counselling: Helps you think about the problems in your life and find new ways of dealing with them.
* Antidepressants: Increasingly seen as a second-line treatment, if exercise or talking treatments do not work.
Subject: Chemically-Induced Suicide: 80 Percent of Suicide Victims Took Antidepressant Drugs 
Fri Feb 29, 2008 2:46 am
