There has been a great deal of discussion on this topic in recent years. Families of suicide victims tend to blame the pills; the pharma companies blame the depression for which the pills were prescribed.
Personally, I’ve read and heard a good many reports from people who have taken the pills and shortly afterwards experienced fairly strong suicidal urges pretty much out of the blue. The frequency and similarity of these accounts is – at the very least – cause for concern.
The traditional pharma-promoted explanation is that when a person is very depressed, he may be feeling suicidal but is too despondent and unmotivated to take any action on these feelings. When he starts taking the antidepressants, however, his mood and activity level improve sufficiently to enable him to take his own life. This line of reasoning has always seemed a bit of a stretch to me.
Recently I came across a post on Bob Fiddaman’s blog. You can see it here. Bob has been doing some research on this matter, and has some important and interesting things to say. Here are a couple of quotes:
“The majority of persons who died by suicide in Sweden in 2007 had received extensive treatment with psychiatric drugs within a year of death by suicide.”
“Initial findings see 90% of those who died under the care of DHB [District Health Board] services were on or were recently on psychiatric medication at the time of their suicide.”
Bob also draws attention to some of the methods psychiatry/pharma use to spin the data.
It’s well documented in Bob’s post. Please take a look.