America - The Official Thread

[Rage Racer]

Well to be fair it wouldn’t be the first time Russia has cheated in the Olympics.

Well to be fair, Russia is not the only country whose team cheated in the Olympics. But only this case turned into a political scandal. I don't doubt it's a politic thing.

And I wonder how would the alleged "hacking" help anyone win some more medals.

 

[TetsuKobura]

Well to be fair, Russia is not the only country whose team cheated in the Olympics. But only this case turned into a political scandal. I don't doubt it's a politic thing.

And I wonder how would the alleged "hacking" help anyone win some more medals.

They hacked their bodies with steroids.

 

[Dennisch]

Well to be fair, Russia is not the only country whose team cheated in the Olympics

They're just really bad at masking it.

 

[Scaff]

Well to be fair, Russia is not the only country whose team cheated in the Olympics.

Well to be fair Russia is the only country that didn't have a team at the Olympics and still managed to get caught doping!

 

[TexRex]

Well to be fair Russia is the only country that didn't have a team at the Olympics and still managed to get caught doping!

For what?

Curling.

 

[Dennisch]

For what?

Curling.

But did you see that stone go?!?!! I didn't because curling is ass.

 

[Liquid]

Clean Olympics - How good are you at your sport?
Steroid Olympics - How many intravenous drugs can your corporeal form sustain before your muscles burst out from within?

It's the only solution.

 

[Imari]

Timothy McVeigh was a seriously violent actor. He had guns, but used a truck bomb to devastating effect. In an absorbing interview with Gore Vidal, he discussed the grievances he had with this country. The Unabomber also had grievances, discussed in his Manifesto, which I have read. As a result of their crimes, and because of what I saw at the '99 WTO (the Battle of Seattle), I studied our primitive anarchist movement, reading their books and traveling to Eugene for interviews. I believe our moment of anarchy and neo-Luddism has passed. Now we have another, lesser problem with youth shootings in schools. Like anarchism, it is likely due to alienation but compounded by antidepressants, and so fortunately not well organized. Yes, the US is an inherently violent society, born in revolution, steeped in genocide of natives, civil war, gangsterism, and first use of atomic bombs against cities. We have been constantly at war since WWII, interfering in other country's elections and toppling democracies in favor of complaisant dictators. It's a real mess! Fortunately, I survived it all, and I'm now personally rich and comfortable, though nearing the end of my own life. I have no trouble with honesty about reality.

First class misdirection, and well done plugging your old and rich status again. So why did you want to halt the conversation about armed rebellion in the US?

P.S. Well done blaming school shootings on anti-depressants. Are you sure vaccines aren't also part of the problem?

Clean Olympics - How good are you at your sport?
Steroid Olympics - How many intravenous drugs can your corporeal form sustain before your muscles burst out from within?

It's the only solution.

I would love to see an Olympics where doping was allowed. That would be hilarious.

 

[Rallywagon]

First class misdirection, and well done plugging your old and rich status again. So why did you want to halt the conversation about armed rebellion in the US?

P.S. Well done blaming school shootings on anti-depressants. Are you sure vaccines aren't also part of the problem?



I would love to see an Olympics where doping was allowed. That would be hilarious.

Actually, in this case, he may not be far off. While not a root cause, there is evidence that antidepressants can infact cause some users to go further into depression and have worsing thoughts ofnhurting themselves and others. Indeed, it is a growing body of thought in the psychiatric communtiy that depressions is way more than just a chemical imbalance. That the chemical imbalance of serotonin is infact a symptom, not the cause and that things like your microbiome have more to do with mood than originally considered. (Thats for a different thread though)
As for the last part...
It has been suggested. Especially in combat sports. Have a natural league, and a superhuman league where doping is allowed.

 

[Imari]

Actually, in this case, he may not be far off. While not a root cause, there is evidence that antidepressants can infact cause some users to go further into depression and have worsing thoughts ofnhurting themselves and others. Indeed, it is a growing body of thought in the psychiatric communtiy that depressions is way more than just a chemical imbalance. That the chemical imbalance of serotonin is infact a symptom, not the cause and that things like your microbiome have more to do with mood than originally considered. (Thats for a different thread though)

That's all correct. However, treatments for mental health being ineffective or antagonistic is not a new phenomenon. First line treatment with antidepressants only has something like a 50-60% success rate, many people have to try several treatments, or multiple treatments in combination, and for some pharmaceutical approaches simply do not work. Trust me, I know first hand.

Don't get me started on how medical science doesn't understand depression. They have no idea what's going on. They can't even test for it, it's simply a grab bag of symptoms and a diagnosis that's assigned when no other obvious cause presents itself. There is no positive test that says "this is depression", and they're even further from understanding the actual cause. But that doesn't mean that making a good faith attempt to treat someone with a treatment that does work for some people is causing school shootings. That's a long bow to draw, and I'd think that one would have to come up with some fairly strong evidence to support that. Otherwise it's no better than claiming that vaccines cause autism.

For example, how many of the shooters since Columbine were actually on antidepressants at the time of the shooting or in the previous few months? How many of those were legitimately diagnosed with depression, and how many had drugs thrown at them to shut them up? Without at the very least doing a comparison of the number of shooters on antidepressants to the proportion in the general population, it's a wild hypothesis to throw around. One which usually comes from people who think that they cured themselves of depression holistically by meditating with the earth or drinking the essence of sun-soaked flowers, when the reality is that the body has remarkable abilities to heal itself and it was probably a coincidence of timing.

 

[Rallywagon]

That's all correct. However, treatments for mental health being ineffective or antagonistic is not a new phenomenon. First line treatment with antidepressants only has something like a 50-60% success rate, many people have to try several treatments, or multiple treatments in combination, and for some pharmaceutical approaches simply do not work. Trust me, I know first hand.

Don't get me started on how medical science doesn't understand depression. They have no idea what's going on. They can't even test for it, it's simply a grab bag of symptoms and a diagnosis that's assigned when no other obvious cause presents itself. There is no positive test that says "this is depression", and they're even further from understanding the actual cause. But that doesn't mean that making a good faith attempt to treat someone with a treatment that does work for some people is causing school shootings. That's a long bow to draw, and I'd think that one would have to come up with some fairly strong evidence to support that. Otherwise it's no better than claiming that vaccines cause autism.

For example, how many of the shooters since Columbine were actually on antidepressants at the time of the shooting or in the previous few months? How many of those were legitimately diagnosed with depression, and how many had drugs thrown at them to shut them up? Without at the very least doing a comparison of the number of shooters on antidepressants to the proportion in the general population, it's a wild hypothesis to throw around. One which usually comes from people who think that they cured themselves of depression holistically by meditating with the earth or drinking the essence of sun-soaked flowers, when the reality is that the body has remarkable abilities to heal itself and it was probably a coincidence of timing.

Man, i would interject... but i treat my depression with mushrooms and sucking in the fungi goddesses good vibes (and a solid listen through of several 311 albums)... but then, psilocybin has been shown to cause accelerated neurogenesis as well as an effective therapy for many psychological ailments...
Hmmm, while we ponder correlations, another one not being delved into is that of concussions. It is now believed to be one of the leading causes of aggressive/impulsive behaviour in contact sports athletes.

 

[Imari]

Man, i would interject... but i treat my depression with mushrooms and sucking in the fungi goddesses good vibes (and a solid listen through of several 311 albums)... but then, psilocybin has been shown to cause accelerated neurogenesis as well as an effective therapy for many psychological ailments...

There are a number of psychedelic drugs that have had excellent preliminary results either treating mental health issues directly or in aiding talk therapies. However, because the government put them on the naughty naughty list even legitimate research institutions have a hell of a time getting permission to use them for trials. Most don't even bother trying any more and work on other problems that don't require so much legal paperwork. It's mildly disgusting that people are being prevented from investigating potential treatments because of outdated Puritanical ideals of what is and isn't an acceptable drug.

If I didn't work in a job that has random drug testing and would fire me on the spot, I might have tried mushrooms or LSD as a treatment. As it is I'm stuck with SSRIs and benzos. Both of which are 🤬, and I would strongly recommend people only going on if they're really at the end of their rope.

This is getting a bit off topic, so I'll let it stand here unless Dotini wants to actually provide some rationale for his assertion that antidepressants are likely contributing to school shootings.

 

[Rage Racer]

They're just really bad at masking it.

Perhaps, in other cases, you have to prove it. In case of Russians, you don't. Just saying "it's the Russians" would be enough. Like about the "meddling in US elections".

Well to be fair Russia is the only country that didn't have a team at the Olympics and still managed to get caught doping!

For what?

Curling.

It's funny how Krushelnitskiy had his doping tests clean for his entire career and boom! - he's caught with meldonium that is useless in curling. Well, I didn't like the idea of Russian athletes taking part in these games in such conditions, so... Even if somebody mixed the substance in his drink, maybe, he deserved it. I knew something like that would happen.

Clean Olympics - How good are you at your sport?
Steroid Olympics - How many intravenous drugs can your corporeal form sustain before your muscles burst out from within?

It's the only solution.

There's no such thing as "clean Olympics" nowadays. There is allowed pharma, and there is banned (which is called doping). Some athletes are allowed to use doping (like some Norwegian ones who have permission from WADA to take steroid-containing medicine because they have asthma), some are not.

Now, back to the topic. I mentioned the "Russian hacking of the Olympics". Why did they do it, as the US officials say?
Retaliation. For banning the Russian Olympic team.

I remember @Scaff also linked an article about the involment in the US elections. Why did Putin do it?
For revenge.

Why does Assad use chemical weapons on civilians when things are going so well for him?
Because he's a psycho.

When you lack any rational explanation for something (about what would they gain by doing this), you have to go with irrational one.

 

[ryzno]

Like I said, look up what ISIS actually fields. You don't think even an impromptu army runs with just AKs and RPGs, right? That would be insane given the other arms readily available in the middle east. Look at what Al Qaeda has had access to since the 80's. They also have stores of weapons and supplies that I doubt any significant number of US citizens are sitting on, because that would be both dangerous and wasteful unless you expect to get into a full scale guerilla war in the next five years.

The RPG thing is also intentional, I might add. They had access to IR guided missiles because those are fairly ubiquitous in the area. But it's older tech, and modern countermeasures are fairly effective, at least on rotorcraft. But you can't use countermeasures against a volley of unguided missiles. And so given what they had fielding RPGs was often actually a better choice than fielding Stingers, which they have as well.

Don't assume that simply because someone chooses to field older tech that's all they have. Sometimes old tech is a good response to more modern systems. It's why I get irritated when people dismiss the North Korean military for fielding old tech. A lot of it is still very effective when used correctly.



No. We're not mindreaders. Don't expect us to be. If you want to be succinct then that's fine, but you still need to adequately explain your point rather than rely on us knowing your innermost thoughts.



There's a difference between "causing problems" and actually being a threat. Single shooters are arguably causing problems for the US government right now, what with school shootings and the like. They're not a threat to the US government or military.



No, you wouldn't. That you even think that a citizenry of enthusiast shooters with non-military weapons could even have a go against a professionally trained force with military arms shows just how delusional you are.

If the citizenry could compete with an actual military, why have a professional military at all? Just call up the citizens. They used to call it a militia, and it worked fine back when the difference between civilian and military weapons was minimal or non-existent, and the level of training required was small. But today, the vast, vast number of citizens are not even in the same ball park as a trained soldier.

The citizenry does not have access to support or strategic information and planning. They don't have the benefit of enormous stockpiles of weapons. You would at best have to mobilise and create all the structures that the military already has in place, so as long as the military gave you six months to prepare you might, maybe be able to defend some small towns, as long as they didn't use any heavy tanks or artillery, air strikes, or missiles on you.

But you still don't have the industrial supplies behind you, because you don't have the capability to man, supply and defend military factories in the face of the strongest military in the world. So all they really have to do is wait a week for you to run out of ammo and then walk in and club you all into submission.



OK, you need to learn some about the politics of the region as well.

ISIS did damage and destabilised things, but there were greater things already going on in the region even before them. ISIS largely took advantage of regions that were already unstable. They did not invade countries that were strong and united, with solid military defences to oppose them. Because despite what you see on the news, their leaders are not actually insane and do (or did) have a reasonable idea of what they were and weren't capable of with the military power at their disposal. Something that you don't seem to be able to accurately assess for a group of US civilians.

You can think what you want.
I bet a majority of armed service members would refuse the order to fire upon American citizens and direct their military weapons at the government.

 

[TexRex]

I bet a majority of armed service members would refuse the order to fire upon American citizens and direct their military weapons at the government.

There is no doubt in my mind that this would be the case, and they'd be far more effective in this--due to their training, their advanced weaponry, and their early response (a soldier/unit refusing to comply would be doing so in the same time that they would be deploying, before the latter action took effect and became an issue for the public)--than the public would be.

 

[Rallywagon]

You can think what you want.
I bet a majority of armed service members would refuse the order to fire upon American citizens and direct their military weapons at the government.

That would depend on each individual as well as circumstance and wording. The military works very hard to work the "question orders" out of you. Most people who are keen on ignoring or questioning orders either go warrant or get out after their first enlistment/commission.

 

[Dotini]

@Imari

36 School shooters/school related violence committed by those under the influence of psychiatric drugs



At least 35 acts of school-related acts of violence, including mass school shootings, have been committed by individuals taking or withdrawing from psychiatric drugs documented in 27 drug regulatory agency warnings to cause mania, psychosis, hostility, aggression and homicidal ideation.

Fact: At least 36 school shootings and/or school-related acts of violence have been committed by those taking or withdrawing from psychiatric drugs resulting in 172 wounded and 80 killed (in other school shootings, information about their drug use was never made public—neither confirming or refuting if they were under the influence of prescribed drugs). The most important fact about this list, is that these are only cases where the information about their psychiatric drug use was made public. (See full list below)

The below list includes individuals documented to have been under the influence of psychiatric drugs and not only includes mass shootings, but the use of knives, swords and bombs. 27 international drug regulatory agency warnings cite side effects including mania, violence, psychosis and even homicidal ideation.

1. Austin, Texas – May 1, 2017: Kendrex J. White, 21, stabbed four people with a machete-like hunting knife at the University of Texas, killing one and wounding three. The stabbings occurred within a one-block area as the attacker “calmly walked around the plaza,” according to the chief of police. After he was arrested, White told police he did not remember the attack. The police department said that White had recently been involuntarily committed in another city, and county records showed that he had been arrested and charged with a DWI (Driving While Intoxicated) on April 4, 2017. When an officer spoke to him, White said he had taken two “happy pills,” listed as the antidepressant Zoloft.
2. Tallahassee, Florida – November 20, 2014: 31-year-old Myron May, a Florida State University alum, opened fire in the school’s library, wounding three before he was shot and killed by police. ABC Action News found a half-filled prescription for the antianxiety drug Hydroxyzine in his apartment after the shooting. In addition, according to May’s friends, he had seen a psychologist and had been prescribed the antidepressant Wellbutrin and the ADHD drug Vyvanse. He also checked himself in to a mental health center called Mesilla Valley Hospital around September of 2014. Shortly after this, his friends discovered the antipsychotic Seroquel among his prescriptions.
3. Seattle, Washington – June 5, 2014: 26-year-old Aaron Ybarra opened fire with a shotgun at Seattle Pacific University, killing one student and wounding two others. Ybarra planned to kill as many people as possible and then kill himself. In 2012, Ybarra reported that he had been prescribed the antidepressant Prozac and antipsychotic Risperdal. A report from his counselor in December of 2013 said that he was taking Prozac at the time and planned to continue to meet with his psychiatrist and therapist as needed. His lawyer also said that Ybarra had a long history of mental health issues for which he was taking prescribed drugs for at the time of the shooting.
4. Milford, Connecticut – April 25, 2014: 16-year-old Chris Plaskon stabbed Maren Sanchez, also 16, to death in a stairwell at Jonathan Law High School after she turned down his prom invitation. According to classmates and a former close friend, Chris was taking drugs for ADHD.
5. Sparks, Nevada – October 21, 2013: 12-year-old Jose Reyes opened fire at Sparks Middle School, killing a teacher and wounding two classmates before committing suicide. The investigation revealed that he had been seeing a psychiatrist and had a generic version of Prozac (fluoxetine) in his system at the time of death.
6. St. Louis, Missouri – January 15, 2013: 34-year-old Sean Johnson walked onto the Stevens Institute of Business & Arts campus and shot the school’s financial aid director once in the chest, then shot himself in the torso. Johnson had been taking prescribed drugs for an undisclosed mental illness.
7. Snohomish County, Washington – October 24, 2011: A 15-year-old girl went to Snohomish High School where police alleged that she stabbed a girl as many as 25 times just before the start of school, and then stabbed another girl who tried to help her injured friend. Prior to the attack the girl had been taking “medication” and seeing a psychiatrist. Court documents said the girl was being treated for depression.
8. Planoise, France – December 13, 2010: A 17-year-old youth held twenty pre-school children and their teacher hostage for hours at Charles Fourier preschool. The teen was reported to be on “medication for depression”. He took a classroom hostage with two swords. Eventually, all the children and the teacher were released safely.
9. Myrtle Beach, South Carolina – September 21, 2011: 14-year-old Christian Helms had two pipe bombs in his backpack, when he shot and wounded Socastee High School’s “resource” (police) officer. However the officer was able to stop the student before he could do anything further. Evidence showed that he was planning an attack similar to the Columbine High School shooting and had even made a list of who he was going to kill. Helms had been taking drugs for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and depression.
10. Huntsville, Alabama – February 5, 2010: 15-year-old Hammad Memon shot and killed another Discover Middle School student Todd Brown. Memon had a history for being treated for ADHD and depression. He was taking the antidepressant Zoloft and “other drugs for the conditions.” He had been seeing a psychiatrist and psychologist.
11. Kauhajoki, Finland – September 23, 2008: 22-year-old culinary student Matti Saari shot and killed 9 students and a teacher, and wounded another student, before killing himself. Saari was taking an SSRI and alprazolam (Xanax). He was also seeing a psychologist.
12. Fresno, California – April 24, 2008: 17-year-old Jesus “Jesse” Carrizales attacked the Fresno high school’s officer, hitting him in the head with a baseball bat. After knocking the officer down, the officer shot Carrizales in self-defense, killing him. Carrizales had been prescribed Lexapro and Geodon, and his autopsy showed that he had a high dose of the antidepressant Lexapro in his blood that could have caused him to be paranoid, according to the coroner.
13. DeKalb, Illinois – February 14, 2008: 27-year-old Steven Kazmierczak shot and killed five people and wounded 21 others before killing himself in a Northern Illinois University auditorium. According to his girlfriend, he had recently been taking the prescribed drugs Prozac, Xanax and Ambien but had stopped taking Prozac three weeks before the shooting. Toxicology results showed that he still had trace amount of Xanax in his system. He had been seeing a psychiatrist.
14. Jokela, Finland – November 7, 2007: 18-year-old Finnish gunman Pekka-Eric Auvinen had been taking antidepressants before he killed eight people and wounded a dozen more at Jokela High School in southern Finland, then committed suicide.
15. Texas – November 7, 2007: 17-year-old Felicia McMillan returned to her former Robert E. Lee High School campus and stabbed a male student and wounded the principle with a knife. McMillan had been on drugs for depression, and had just taken them the night before the incident.
16. Cleveland, Ohio – October 10, 2007: 14-year-old Asa Coon stormed through his school with a gun in each hand, shooting and wounding four before taking his own life. Coon had been prescribed the antidepressant Trazodone.
17. Sudbury, Massachusetts – January 19, 2007: 16-year-old John Odgren stabbed another student to death with a large kitchen knife in a boy’s bathroom at Lincoln-Sudbury Regional High School. In court his father testified that Odgren was prescribed the drug Ritalin.
18. North Vernon, Indiana – December 4, 2006: 16-year-old Travis Roberson stabbed another Jennings County High School student in the neck, nearly severing an artery. Roberson was in withdrawal from Wellbutrin, which he had stopped taking days before the attack.
19. Hillsborough, North Carolina – August 30, 2006: 19-year-old Alvaro Rafael Castillo shot and killed his father, then drove to Orange High School where he opened fire. Two students were injured in the shooting, which ended when school personnel tackled him. His mother said he was on drugs for depression.
20. Chapel Hill, North Carolina – April 24, 2006: 17-year-old William Barrett Foster took a shotgun to school and took a teacher and a fellow student hostage at East Chapel Hill High School. After being talked out of shooting the hostages, Foster fired two shots through a classroom window before fleeing the school on foot. Foster’s father testified that his son had stopped taking his antidepressants and antipsychotic drugs without telling him.
21. Red Lake, Minnesota – March 21, 2005: 16-year-old Jeff Weise, on Prozac, shot and killed his grandfather and his grandfather’s girlfriend, then went to his school on the Red Lake Indian Reservation where he shot dead 5 students, a security guard, and a teacher, and wounded 7 before killing himself.
22. Greenbush, New York – February 9, 2004: 16-year-old Jon Romano strolled into his high school in east Greenbush and opened fire with a shotgun. Special education teacher Michael Bennett was hit in the leg. Romano had been taking the antianxiety drug Xanax. He had previously spent time in a psychiatric care facility.
23. Red Lion, Pennsylvania – February 2, 2001: 56-year-old William Michael Stankewicz entered North Hopewell-Winterstown Elementary School with a machete, leaving three adults and 11 children injured. Stankewicz was taking four different drugs for depression and anxiety weeks before the attacks.
24. Ikeda, Japan – June 8, 2001: 37-year-old Mamoru Takuma, wielding a 6-inch knife, slipped into an elementary school and stabbed eight first- and second-graders to death while wounding at least 15 other pupils and teachers. He then turned the knife on himself but suffered only superficial wounds. He later told interrogators that before the attack he had taken 10 times his normal dose of antidepressants. Police said he had been under the care of a psychiatrist.
25. Wahluke, Washington – April 10, 2001: Sixteen-year-old Cory Baadsgaard took a rifle to his high school and held 23 classmates and a teacher hostage. Three weeks earlier, his doctor had switched Baadsgaard’s prescription from Paxil to Effexor. The morning of the incident, his dosage of Effexor had been increased. Baadsgaard said he had no memory of the incident.
26. El Cajon, California – March 22, 2001: 18-year-old Jason Hoffman, on the antidepressants Celexa and Effexor, opened fire on his classmates, wounding three students and two teachers at Granite Hills High School. He had been seeing a psychiatrist before the shooting.
27. Williamsport, Pennsylvania – March 7, 2001: 14-year-old Elizabeth Bush was taking the antidepressant Prozac when she shot at fellow students, wounding one.
28. Oxnard, California – January 10, 2001: 17-year-old Richard Lopez went to Hueneme High School with a gun and shot twice at a car in the school’s parking lot before taking a female student hostage. Lopez was eventually killed by a SWAT officer. He had been prescribed Prozac, Paxil and “drugs that helped him go to sleep.”
29. Conyers, Georgia – May 20, 1999: 15-year-old T.J. Solomon was being treated with the stimulant Ritalin when he opened fire on and wounded six of his classmates.
30. Columbine, Colorado – April 20, 1999: 18-year-old Eric Harris and his accomplice, Dylan Klebold, killed 12 students and a teacher and wounded 26 others before killing themselves. Harris was on the antidepressant Luvox. Klebold’s medical records remain sealed. Both shooters had been in anger-management classes and had undergone counseling. Harris had been seeing a psychiatrist before the shooting.
31. Notus, Idaho – April 16, 1999: 15-year-old Shawn Cooper fired two shotgun rounds in his school, injuring one student. He was taking a prescribed antidepressant and Ritalin.
32. Springfield, Oregon – May 21, 1998: 15-year-old Kip Kinkel murdered his parents and then proceeded to school where he opened fire on students in the cafeteria, killing two and wounding 25. Kinkel had been taking the antidepressant Prozac. Kinkel had been attending “anger control classes” and had previously been under the care of a psychologist.
33. Blackville, South Carolina – October 12, 1995: 15-year-old Toby R. Sincino slipped into the Blackville-Hilda High School’s rear entrance, where he shot two Blackville-Hilda High School teachers, killing one. Then Toby killed himself moments later. His aunt, Carolyn McCreary, said he had been undergoing counseling with the Department of Mental Health and was taking Zoloft for emotional problems.
34. Chelsea, Michigan – December 16, 1993: 39-year-old chemistry teacher Stephen Leith, facing a disciplinary matter at Chelsea High School, shot Superintendent Joseph Piasecki to death, shot Principal Ron Mead in the leg, and slightly wounded journalism teacher Phil Jones. Leith was taking Prozac and had been seeing a psychiatrist.
35. Houston, Texas – September 18, 1992: 44-year-old Calvin Charles Bell, reportedly upset about his second-grader’s progress report, appeared in the principal’s office of Piney Point Elementary School. Bell fired a gun in the school, and eventually wounded two officers before surrendering. Relatives told police on Friday that Bell was an unemployed Vietnam veteran and had been taking anti-depressants.
36. Winnetka, Illinois – 20 May 1988: 30-year-old Laurie Wasserman Dann walked into a second grade classroom at Hubbard Woods School in Winnetka, Illinois carrying three pistols and began shooting children, killing an eight-year-old boy, and wounding five others before fleeing. She entered a nearby house where she shot and wounded a 20-year-old man before killing herself. Dann had been seeing a psychiatrist and subsequent blood tests revealed that at the time of the killings, she was taking the antidepressant Anafranil.

https://www.cchrint.org/school-shooters/

 

[Scaff]

@Imari

36 School shooters/school related violence committed by those under the influence of psychiatric drugs



At least 35 acts of school-related acts of violence, including mass school shootings, have been committed by individuals taking or withdrawing from psychiatric drugs documented in 27 drug regulatory agency warnings to cause mania, psychosis, hostility, aggression and homicidal ideation.

Fact: At least 36 school shootings and/or school-related acts of violence have been committed by those taking or withdrawing from psychiatric drugs resulting in 172 wounded and 80 killed (in other school shootings, information about their drug use was never made public—neither confirming or refuting if they were under the influence of prescribed drugs). The most important fact about this list, is that these are only cases where the information about their psychiatric drug use was made public. (See full list below)

The below list includes individuals documented to have been under the influence of psychiatric drugs and not only includes mass shootings, but the use of knives, swords and bombs. 27 international drug regulatory agency warnings cite side effects including mania, violence, psychosis and even homicidal ideation.

Please don't cite Scientology are if it were a peer reviewed source.

 

[Dotini]

Please don't cite Scientology are if it were a peer reviewed source.

A thousand pardons! I did not know. Do you have peer-reviewed sources which deny antidepressants are linked to violence?

Here are some more non-peer reviewed sources which say essentially the same thing as the first source cited:
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/hyla-cass-md/is-it-drugs-not-guns-that_b_2393385.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2017/07/25/antidepressants-linked-murders-murderous-thoughts/

 

[Scaff]

A thousand pardons! I did not know.

Then perhaps it's time you started taking a bit more care with your sources, given that the link between the two took me seconds to discover.

It's also the second time you gave done so today, it's also far from the first incident in your posting history, as such you apologies carry pretty much zero value to me.

Do you have peer-reviewed sources which deny antidepressants are linked to violence?

You don't prove a negative, you wish to try and make the link, you provide the evidence.

Here are some more non-peer reviewed sources which say essentially the same thing:
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/hyla-cass-md/is-it-drugs-not-guns-that_b_2393385.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2017/07/25/antidepressants-linked-murders-murderous-thoughts/

And are just as worthless, correlation does not equal causality, never has and never will.

I'm willing to put money on every shooter having watched TV, doesn't mean it's causal factors.

It's lazy non science of the lowest order.

 

[Rallywagon]

Ok ok mods... how about i toss Dontini a bone then? https://breggin.com/the-proven-dangers-of-antidepressants/

 

[Scaff]

Ok ok mods... how about i toss Dontini a bone then? https://breggin.com/the-proven-dangers-of-antidepressants/

It better, but still not peer reviewed, and still a long way from showing causality in the number of school shooting as was the original claim made (putting aside the accuracy of the claim in regard to the number on or just off medication hasn't even been proven).

I'm well aware on a personal level of the potential side-effects of two anti-depressants, however its a rather large leap from those to it being the prime causal factor in shootings (and doesn't explain why other countries with similar usage rates don't experience the same thing to the same degree).

 

[Spurgy 777]

Why anyone would be surprised that a lot of school shooters are on anti depressants is beyond me. It should be quite obvious that someone who shoots up a school is likely to have mental health issues and therefore likely be on anti depressants. Surely it's a much more logical conclusion that severe mental illness can make you violent and not the anti depressants?

 

[Scaff]

Rather than look at the shock value headlines around this subject I found the original study and took a look at that (as reporting of just about any science paper is often sensational bull ****).

Here it is for all to read:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3002271/

From the conclusions and summary:

"Violence cases as defined here were infrequently reported, accounting for 0.25% of all serious adverse drug events, and confined to a relatively small number of drugs."
So its a very small amount of those who suffer from serious adverse affects in the first place, this is an important area of research, but its not a large number of people by any measure.

"The submission of an individual adverse event report does not itself establish causality, only that a reporting individual suspected a relationship existed. However, such reports frequently contribute to a broader assessment of causality."
So its doesn't claim to be causality, as further research is needed.

Oh and of note at the end:
"Competing Interests: Mr. Moore has received consulting fees from litigators in cases involving paroxetine, and was an expert witness in a criminal case involving varenicline. Dr. Glenmullen has been retained as an expert witness in cases involving varenicline and psychiatric drugs including antidepressants, antipsychotics, benzodiazepines, mood stablizers, and ADHD drugs. Dr. Furberg has received consulting fees from litigators in cases involving gabapentin. "

 

[Rallywagon]

Posts move faster than me....

 

[Imari]

You can think what you want.
I bet a majority of armed service members would refuse the order to fire upon American citizens and direct their military weapons at the government.

And if they were told that those citizens were terrorists?

You make it sound like the order from the government would be "Go out and gun down those innocents in cold blood". You know damn well that if the government wants someone shot they find something that they're guilty of. In this particular case, you're all armed terrorists threatening the stability and safety of the country and it's legitimate government. And honestly, in many ways that would absolutely be true.

The military can and will fire on native civilians given appropriate justification. That's their job. They've done it before. If you want to bet your life on the idea that they won't do their job, I guess that's evolution hard at work.

A thousand pardons! I did not know. Do you have peer-reviewed sources which deny antidepressants are linked to violence?

It's not up to others to disprove your claims. You know about Russell's Teapot as well as the rest of us.

I pointed out that you should compare the amount of drug caused school shootings to the number of non-drug caused shootings. Apparently you hadn't done that already. Did you just see a big list of shootings caused by mentally unstable people and assume that it was statistically unlikely unless antidepressant medication was also a causal factor? Because I really, really doubt you did the math on that one.

Ok ok mods... how about i toss Dontini a bone then? https://breggin.com/the-proven-dangers-of-antidepressants/

Potential for similar effects is not the same as actual proof of something happening. It lends credence to the idea that such a thing might be plausible, but given that we're talking about a specific set of incidents it's largely pointless. One should look at that specific set of incidents and use the data from them to justify or support a hypothesis.

We know that mental illness can cause aberrant behaviour, and we know that medication can suppress that, exacerbate it, or do nothing at all. It seems like coming to the conclusion that antidepressants are causative in the case of school shootings would require some evidence of such from those shootings. What would be even harder is how does one separate the effect of antidepressants from straight up mental illness?

Given the small sample size I honestly doubt it can be done in a statistically rigorous manner. But that's because I'm pretty familiar with stats and confidence intervals, and it's basically impossible to get anything more than the most basic conclusions out of a couple dozen data points. Certainly not something that would be as confounded as the relationship between antidepressants and mental illness on behaviour.

I'm curious to see if people will keep trying to justify a hypothesis that doesn't have nearly enough data to be supported. It's an interesting idea, and it could be true, but there's no way that anyone can reasonably even start to make the assertion. Maybe with another few dozen school shootings and some solid statistical work taking into account the shooters backgrounds, medical history and other contributing factors we might get somewhere on that.

Why anyone would be surprised that a lot of school shooters are on anti depressants is beyond me. It should be quite obvious that someone who shoots up a school is likely to have mental health issues and therefore likely be on anti depressants. Surely it's a much more logical conclusion that severe mental illness can make you violent and not the anti depressants?

You'd think so, but apparently you haven't heard that the pharmaceutical companies are actually part of the Illuminati and it's all part of their plan to brainwash us into being their unthinking corporate capitalist sheeple. Tin foil hat vaccines buzzwords, maaaan.

 

[Rallywagon]

Truly, I'm not trying to say that drugs are a cause of mass shootings, just playing more of a "Dontini's" advocate if you will. As Spurgy suggested. It's not really a surprise. But boy, the media sure seems to like the idea, even when they say they don't...
For the record though, i am not a pharma lover either. If anything, the way anti-depressants and other things, like viagra and bextra, where marketed makes me leery to say the least. That said, myself and all my children are current on vaccinations.

As a side note, isnt it interesting that the year Pfizer gets hit with the largest fine ever dealt out, they doubled their lobbying expenditures from around 10 million a year to over 25? I guess you have to be looking at multi billion dollar fines in order for the pay offs to not, well, pay off.

 

[Dotini]

A short list of scholarly articles regarding antidepressants and violence. These studies are seemingly done with healthy adults. I can only wonder what the results would be for those who are already alienated.

... youth shootings in schools.... is likely due to alienation but compounded by antidepressants...

On the other hand, I have a very depressed friend who uses antidepressants and is alienated, but has never once in 40 years been violent or done self-harm.

The more general question is that of Drugs and the Drug Industry in America. Probably needs a thread of its own.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5066537/
Conclusions
Antidepressants double the occurrence of events in adult healthy volunteers that can lead to suicide and violence.

http://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.1001875
Conclusions
The association between SSRIs and violent crime convictions and violent crime arrests varied by age group. The increased risk we found in young people needs validation in other studies.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blo...drugs-and-violence-review-fda-data-finds-link
Conclusions
Acts of violence towards others are a genuine and serious adverse drug event associated with a relatively small group of drugs. Varenicline, which increases the availability of dopamine, and antidepressants with serotonergic effects were the most strongly and consistently implicated drugs. Prospective studies to evaluate systematically this side effect are needed to establish the incidence, confirm differences among drugs and identify additional common features.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4729837/

We believe our study shows that, despite using clinical study reports, the true risk for serious harms is still uncertain. The low incidence of these rare events and the poor design and reporting of the trials makes it difficult to get accurate effect estimates.

The FDA has advised that antidepressants may also cause suicide in young adults (18 to 24 years) and recommends that “patients of all ages” treated with antidepressants should be monitored for “clinical worsening, suicidality, and unusual changes in behaviour.”42 GlaxoSmithKline also issued letters to doctors, informing them about the increased harm in young adults6 and admitted that for adults with depression “(all ages), the frequency of suicidal behaviour was higher in patients treated with paroxetine compared with placebo: 11/3455 (0.32%) versus 1/1978 (0.05%).”43 A cohort study from Sweden recently showed an increase in violent crime in young adults taking antidepressants (hazard ratio 1.43, 95% confidence interval 1.19 to 1.73).44

Therefore we suggest minimal use of antidepressants in children, adolescents, and young adults, as the serious harms seem to be greater, and as their effect seems to be below what is clinically relevant.4 45 46 47Alternative treatments such as exercise48 49 or psychotherapy4 50 may have some benefit and could be considered, although psychotherapy trials also suffer from publication bias.51

The need for identifying hidden information in clinical study reports to form a more accurate view of the benefits and harms of drugs has been highlighted by the Restoring Invisible and Abandoned Trials (RIAT) initiative,52 and the recent revised version of trial 329.36 More data from clinical study reports are expected to become available in the coming years, with the EMA’s new policy to make all newly submitted reports publicly available.53 As it can be quite labour intensive to perform systematic reviews using clinical study reports, more reliable automated methods for text mining are needed, such that all data, including that from individual patient listings and case report forms, can be routinely considered.36 54

 

[Joey D]

So Ohio Governor John Kasich thinks the two-party system might be coming to an end: https://www.politico.com/story/2018...rats-republicans-hickenlooper-423456?cmpid=sf

While it's in my DNA to hate anything and anyone from Ohio, I actually don't mind Kasich and would've rathered him get the Republican nod two years ago.

I also hope he's right. The two-party system in the US is terrible. Both Republicans and Democrats are virtually the same with only a few minor moral differences. I'd really like to see both the Libertarian and Green parties take off and actually effectively challenge the other two parties. I mean when the best two people you can come up with are Donald Trump and Hilary Clinton, your party is really scraping the bottom of the barrel for candidates. It seems like it should be a no-brainer for some other party to take hold.

Unfortunately, I don't think this will happen for a long time, if ever. The two parties are so entwined in America I don't see that changes. Plus, way too many people have the mindset "a third party will never win, so it's a wasted vote." I'd rather "waste" my vote on someone who stands for what I believe in instead of "wasting" my vote on whatever horrid candidate the two main parties throw at us.

 

[Imari]

A short list of scholarly articles regarding antidepressants and violence. These studies are seemingly done with healthy adults. I can only wonder what the results would be for those who are already alienated.
On the other hand, I have a very depressed friend who uses antidepressants and is alienated, but has never once in 40 years been violent or done self-harm.

The more general question is that of Drugs and the Drug Industry in America. Probably needs a thread of its own.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5066537/
Conclusions
Antidepressants double the occurrence of events in adult healthy volunteers that can lead to suicide and violence.

http://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.1001875
Conclusions
The association between SSRIs and violent crime convictions and violent crime arrests varied by age group. The increased risk we found in young people needs validation in other studies.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blo...drugs-and-violence-review-fda-data-finds-link
Conclusions
Acts of violence towards others are a genuine and serious adverse drug event associated with a relatively small group of drugs. Varenicline, which increases the availability of dopamine, and antidepressants with serotonergic effects were the most strongly and consistently implicated drugs. Prospective studies to evaluate systematically this side effect are needed to establish the incidence, confirm differences among drugs and identify additional common features.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4729837/

So you've got nothing to do with school shootings. You've got some tenuous information on violent side effects of antidepressants, and you've somehow handwaved that into "school shootings are alienation compounded with antidepressants". Logic at it's finest, ladies and gentlemen.

And while you're at it, you've picked one of the least concerning parts of anti-depressants to focus on. They are seriously, seriously addictive. The withdrawals are generally way worse than something like benzos, which are generally considered to be right up there. In fact, coming off them it's often incredibly hard to distinguish between withdrawal symptoms and recurring depression symptoms because you're not medicated when you should be. The other side effects like mood swings, sexual dysfunction, severe nausea, headaches and the like are far more common.

Unfortunately, I don't think this will happen for a long time, if ever. The two parties are so entwined in America I don't see that changes. Plus, way too many people have the mindset "a third party will never win, so it's a wasted vote." I'd rather "waste" my vote on someone who stands for what I believe in instead of "wasting" my vote on whatever horrid candidate the two main parties throw at us.

After the results of the last election, it's clear that the wacky electoral system sways the result pretty strongly anyway, so there's a good chance your vote is wasted even if you vote for one of the big two. Vote for who you believe in, or don't vote at all if you think they're all unworthy. I think there's more value in doing what you believe and feeling good about your choice than there is feeling scummy because you felt forced into voting for a candidate you didn't want to just because the system is broken.