Suicide

Thirty-three years ago, in August 1983, an article titled Suicide Associated with Akathisia and Depot Fluphenazine Treatment appeared in the Journal of Clinical Psychopharmacology. The authors were Katherine Shear, MD, Allen Frances, MD, and Peter Weiden, MD. Here are some quotes, interspersed with my comments/observations: "Akathisia is a common and distressing side effect of neuroleptic medication that can be difficult to recognize and treat. Several previous reports mention maladaptive behavioral consequences, such as poor compliance with prescribed medication and aggressive or self-destructive outbursts. We are reporting suicides in two young Hispanic men who had developed severe akathisia after treatment with depot fluphenazine. Depression with suicidal behavior has been observed following fluphenazine injection, but suicide associated with akathisia has not been previously noted." ...

On September 28, US Senator John McCain (R-AZ) introduced a bill in the Senate titled Veteran Overmedication Prevention Act (S. 3410). This is a companion bill to HR 4640, Veteran Suicide Prevention Act introduced in the House by Congressman David Jolly (R-FL) earlier this year. The objective of both bills is to combat suicide deaths by ensuring that accurate information is available on the relationship between suicides and prescription “medication”. At the present time, 20 US veterans a day are dying by suicide. ...

In 2010, Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica published a study by Göran Isacsson et al. The paper was titled Antidepressant medication prevents suicide in depression. Here's the conclusion: "The finding that in-patient care for depression did not increase the probability of the detection of antidepressants in suicides is difficult to explain other than by the assumption that a substantial number of depressed individuals were saved from suicide by postdischarge treatment with antidepressant medication." ...

Robert Findling, MD, is a pediatrician and a psychiatrist. He is the Director of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at Johns Hopkins Children’s Center, and Vice President of Psychiatric Services and Research at the Kennedy Krieger Institute. On July 31, Dr. Findling published a brief video (and article) on Medscape: Adverse Events Caused by a Drug Warning? Dr. Findling’s article is essentially a commentary on a study by Christine Lu et al, which was published by the BMJ on June 18. Here is the conclusion paragraph from the Lu et al report: ...

On June 18, the British Medical Journal published an article by Christine Lu et al, titled Changes in antidepressant use by young people and suicidal behavior after FDA warnings and media coverage: quasi-experimental study. Here’s the conclusion paragraph from the abstract: "Safety warnings about antidepressants and widespread media coverage decreased antidepressant use, and there were simultaneous increases in suicide attempts among young people. It is essential to monitor and reduce possible unintended consequences of FDA warnings and media reporting." ...

My Story I tried to commit suicide for the first time when I was 15. I spent my 16th birthday locked up in Dammasch State Mental Hospital, I freaked out when I was told I was going to have to stay so my clothes were ripped off me, by male aids and I was thrown naked in a real padded room… hint they are NOT padded. The light was on all the time and nothing was provided for cover to keep warm. I remember seeing men looking at me and I remember pictures being taken thru the peek hole window. I was in that room, with meals shoved thru a slit in the door for 3 days. The toilet was a hole in the floor and no, there wasn’t any toilet paper. . While at the “hospital”, I remember being put in a strait jacket and tied into a chair and my “meds” forced down my throat. When I realized I could vomit them back up I was sedated and given drugs via an IV. I woke up to being raped. I made friends with one gal, she was 14. She had ( I know know as ) anorexia. I watched her try and try and try to eat. She died. Another person I made friends with hung himself and died. The psy dr said I was on the schedule for shock treatments since I refused to co-operate with the rules and the staff. That scared the shit outta me. I started doing all the things I was supposed to do and 3 months later I was released.. cured. Nothing was different for me, except I learned how to manipulate people to get what I wanted. I HATED that feeling so I never took “advantage” of that “skill”.. Remember I had just turned 16.In my early 20’s I tried to commit suicide again and committed to another hosp in Vancouver WA with a DX of Manic Depression. I was on a cocktail of lithium, stelazine, tofranil chloral hydrate and a few others I can’t remember the names of .. for more than 7 years I saw a psychiatrist until my divorce and my insurance ran out. Dumped to fare the best I could into the mental health system for the poor I quit all my drugs cold turkey.It was while under the Dr’s care I read a book he recommended called Self-Talk. I believed I was sick with metal illness(es?) until I read that book. For the first time I heard no one can make me feel anyway at all unless I choose to let them. That my responses to life were totally under my control and direction ALL of them. I was 32. I’ve attempted suicide or came very very close to it 6 times in my life. Finally I asked myself, self, I’m smart enough to have gotten the job done so whats REALLY going on? I figured out WHY I kept diving into the back hole. I really do walk a different, road now thanks to getting the message my subconscious kept sending me. Thats been my experience with the Mental Health system. I am continually agast and appalled at the amount of drugs being forced onto people, particularly children, We adults have been fed a line of BS for so long about depression that it’s destroying us as a nation and no one can see it. ...

There was an interesting article, Antidepressant regulations tightened following suicide, in the Copenhagen Post on January 7. Thanks to Mad in America for the link. It is reported that Danilo Terrida, aged 20, committed suicide in 2011 "…eleven days after he was prescribed antidepressants following an eight-minute-long conversation with a doctor." The doctor has been deemed responsible for the suicide by the National Agency for Patients' Rights and Complaints. According to its website: "The National Agency for Patients' Rights and Complaints functions as a single point of access for patients who wish to complain about the professional treatment in the Danish health service." ...

On December 27, 2013, Connecticut State Police issued a 7,000-page, heavily redacted, report on the massacre that occurred at Sandy Hook Elementary School just over a year earlier (December 14, 2012). For the record, I have not read the 7,000-page report, but I have read the Wikipedia article Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, last updated January 4, 2013, and several media reports on the matter, including reports from the New York Times, the Hartford Courant, and the Washington Post. ...

BACKGROUND On December 8, I received the following question from a reader: (The subject matter is the controversial CAFÉ – Comparisons of Atypicals in First Episode of Psychosis - study. This was the study in which Dan Markingson committed suicide.) "It appears that there was no head-to-head with a control group taking a placebo pill. Nor was there a control group featuring 'old' types of 'antipsychotic'. If that was the case then it is very poor study. If you are just looking at 3 'new' subtypes of a 'new' class - then what on earth can you hope to show from the data." ...

There’s an interesting article on Mad in America dated September 17, 2013. It’s titled Psychiatry & Suicide Prevention: A 30-year Failed Experiment, and was written by Maria Bradshaw. Maria Bradshaw is the founder of CASPER, an organization that rejects the medical model of suicide prevention in favor of a sociological model. Ms. Bradshaw founded CASPER after her son’s antidepressant-induced suicide. Here’s the gist of Ms. Bradshaw article: Roger Mulder, MD, is head of psychiatry at Otago University in New Zealand. For at least the last 15 years, he has supported the notion of psychiatric intervention as a suicide-prevention measure. For instance, here’s something he wrote in 2008 in an article published in Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica: ...