Every time there’s a tragedy like we saw Thursday in Illinois, where someone goes berserk and kills people and usually then kills himself, I say the same thing to my wife: Drugs. And I’m not talking about illegal drugs. I’m talking about legal, prescription psychiatric drugs. And you know what? I’m right–every single time.

In the wake of the Columbine massacre in 1999 when Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold killed 12 students, a teacher, and then themselves, it was found:

Harris was prescribed the anti-depressant Zoloft by his family doctor. Shortly afterwards, Harris reported having suicidal and homicidal thoughts. Harris was then switched to a similar drug Luvox. At the time of his death, Harris had therapeutic Luvox levels in his serum. Some analysts, such as psychiatrist Peter Breggin, have argued that one or both of these medications may have contributed to Harris’ actions. It has been claimed that side-effects of these drugs include increased aggression, loss of remorse, depersonalization and mania.
Wikipedia – Columbine High School Massacre

Last year, Cho Seung-Hui killed 32 people at Virginia Tech–the worst such mass-murder in our country’s history. According to WorldNetDaily:

The New York Times has reported the killer was on a prescription medication, and authorities have said he was confined briefly several years ago for a mental episode. They also have confirmed that the “prescription drugs” found among his effects related to the treatment of psychological problems.

Dr. Peter Breggin, a prominent critic of psychiatric drugs and founder of the International Center for the Study of Psychiatry and Psychology, said even if Cho wasn’t taking psychiatric drugs the day of the shooting, “he might have been tipped over into violent madness weeks or months earlier by a drug like Prozac, Paxil, or Zoloft.”

The same WorldNetDaily article goes on to list dozens of episodes where kids have gone berserk and killed people–while on prescription psychiatric drugs. Some of those episodes you’ve heard about because they received national media attention–some of them you may not have heard about. I suspect there are many such cases that go unreported.

This past Thursday, 27-year-old former student Stephen Kazmierczak (pictured at the top right) gunned down five people at Northern Illinois University (NIU) and then killed himself. Why? He became “erratic” after stopping his “medication” a few weeks ago. You can be sure the medication in question was not aspirin. You can also be sure the drug manufacturer is working hard to keep whatever brand name of psychiatric drug it was out of the headlines. This young man, at 27, was certainly not a child, but from what I can tell in news accounts, he’s been taking psychiatric drugs since he was a teenager.

The trend is disturbing and cannot be ignored–children and young adults are taking psychiatric drugs in far too many numbers. According to Dr. John Breeding, around the time of Columbine there were more than 5 million children in the United States being given psychiatric drugs. The number of children taking these types of drugs has been doubling every 10 years since the 1970s, meaning today there are almost 10 million children on them. Folks, something is seriously wrong here. We’re drugging our kids needlessly.

For any doctors (or patients, or parents of patients) reading this, I’m not advocating that parents immediately stop giving their kids their psychiatric meds. Only parents and doctors can make those decisions–together. Sudden withdrawal, as seen this past week, can have tragic consequences.

Of course there are exceptions. Some children have mental conditions that make them a danger to themselves or to others. They simply do not know right from wrong. Typically, in these kinds of cases, the child does not even know what a gun is nor how to use it. I’m talking about a severe mental defect where drugs are the “higher good” that prevents a child from hurting themselves or others with physical violence like hitting or throwing objects. The vast majority of cases we see today where children are being given psychiatric drugs are NOT of this type.

Are drugs to blame for violence like Columbine, Virginia Tech or NIU? Not completely. Statistically speaking, 99.999% of children who are given psychiatric drugs do not kill others. Humans are complicated and I’m sure there was something aberrant with these particular young people to begin with. That is, I do not excuse the perpetrators for their actions. But it does seem to me psychiatric drugs play a major role, and without the drugs, there’s a good chance we would not have these kinds of tragedies.

My larger point is this: Regardless if we continue to see such episodes of violence or not, I believe we parents are giving our children psychiatric drugs far too much of the time. My advice is to get your child off such medications if he or she is taking them now (under a doctor’s guidance), and to look for alternatives–and at a minimum a second opinion–if your doctor recommends starting your child on psychiatric drugs.

What do you think? Leave an opinion in the comments.

Technorati Tags: Northern Illinois University shootings, Columbine shootings, Virgina Tech shootings, psychiatric drugs, anti-depressants, Eric Harris, Dylan Klebold, Cho Seung-Hui, Stephen Kazmierczak, Zoloft, Luvox, Prozac, Paxil