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RE: Anti-Anxiety Pills
one of the problems with actually studying mass shooters is to draw any conclusions or strong statistics because the sample size is so small. if we had good numbers we could see if there are more of these mass shooters now or before the introduction of antidepressants and antianxiety medications.
Right, but that was the whole implication of the OP...that the drugs are the cause. However, the last statistic that I saw says that 13% of Americans are taking antidepressants with the majority being SSRIs. Given that the number of mass shooters is statistically insignificant it doesn't seem like you could accurately say that the drugs are the cause. The fact that most mass shooters are on these drugs just says that they had mental issues which is pretty clear given their actions. Why blame the drug instead of the mental condition that led to the drug being prescribed in the first place? Most sick people take medicine. Doesn't mean the medicine is the cause of their sickness. To argue otherwise is fallacious unless you have other evidence.
it does say on the label things like "may cause aggression, may cause suicidal thoughts or actions"
They wouldn't have to put "cause" on there unless it caused those things.
I don't believe aggression is typically listed as a side effect on most (or any?) SSRIs. Suicidal thoughts or actions is listed as a side effect on some or all of them but there is only a statistically measurable increase over placebo for those under 24 years of age. There are very many drugs that have extreme side effects listed as a possibility (with death often being one of them) but these types of side effects are exceedingly rare.
Drunk driving kills 10,000 people a year. Far more than mass shooters. Poor decision making and reduced reaction time are among the many side effects of alcohol. And it's recreational. Even assuming every single mass shooting is caused by an SSRI (which I do not believe), how could you justify banning them over banning alcohol?
The statistics do not show SSRIs to be the cause of mass shootings (based on how many people take them and don't kill people). You can believe it is the cause but it doesn't make it so. Why believe the drug is the cause over the underlying mental condition that led to the drug being prescribed in the first place? What's your suggestion for their use? Do you believe the government should be able to ban people from taking them? Do you believe that they don't help people?
Aggression is on the label for Chantix along with suicidal actions. Which is killing yourself.
I am 100% sure I have not suggested banning anything. I don't believe in banning things.
Psyche drugs are overprescribed and the people who are on them are poorly monitored, what we really need is to return to impatient treatment for crazy dangerous people. The problem is that we can't really even have the conversation because the drug companies control the media and our government. Is anyone from the government even keeping statistics on how many mass shooters are on prescription drugs when they commit their crimes?
I was just trying to figure out what you were suggesting.
I agree, anti-depressants and other such medications are over prescribed. Pain medication too which is a whole other problem and a much bigger one. The problem with saying the mediation is the cause of violent behavior here though is that 1) People who are taking such medications, particularly the stronger varieties, already have mental problems that may lead to such behavior anyway and 2) the number of mass shooters is so low as to be statistically insignificant.
As a general rule, people who have anxiety problems or mild to moderate depression are not going to start shooting people because they start taking an anti-depressant and in fact in most cases they help. The problem, I believe, comes from people with more serious issues whether the medication is a contributing factor or not. It doesn't matter so much whether or not drug companies control the media or government, it matters whether or not doctors have the appropriate knowledge and are doing the right thing. They ultimately decide who gets such medication.
indeed, but they seem to be fairly suggestable thus the $27 billion a year the drug companies spend to influence doctors and consumers. If they have to disclose that a drug causes aggression and/or suicide I think its safe to assume that drug may, in some cases but clearly not all, cause aggression and/or suicide.
Another way doctors choice is limited is by politicians who have defunded a lot of the inpatient capacity we once had, the drug companies told them that medication could replace those facilities to some extent.
Most mass shooters are batshit crazy and prior to the 80s a lot of them would be in an inpatient facility. It's not enough to hand someone a bottle of pills and take away any legal guns they may possess and then send them on their way, that doesn't keep them or anyone else safe from them, a false sense of security at best. This is not to suggest that the average crazy person is dangerous, most are not, there is no reason to take most crazy people's guns but for the ones that can't be trusted with guns those people should not be free, if they can't be trusted with guns how can they be trusted with cans of gasoline or moving vans or any of the other weapons of mass murder that we don't restrict the ownership of to the sane?
That's just the thing though. There are not a "lot" of mass shooters. By that measure, there are only a handful of people who should or would have been in such an inpatient facility that are not today. If there are significantly fewer people in such facilities today, then either the medication HAS done a great job or there were too many people there to begin with.
Sure, anti-depressants may cause suicide and may even cause aggression. But tampons may cause anaphylactic shock and in probably greater numbers. Virtually any substance in the world can cause death to someone in some way. When it is more likely to win the lottery while being attacked by a shark while getting struck by lightning (maybe an exaggeration but not much of one) than to kill people because of antidepressants, I think you can say they are reasonably safe, at least on those terms. Nothing is completely so. Either the odds of such medication causing mass shootings is incredibly low or doctors have done a great job prescribing them only to those who won't react that way.
As far as advertising and the drug industry, it isn't really clear to me why they spend so much on advertising. I don't believe that doctors generally prescribe medicine based on tv ads and they typically have more direct contact with drug reps anyway making the ads redundant for them. People can't chose to buy any old prescription medicine they want so they would have to ask their doctor. Doctors don't generally prescribe medicine just because you ask for it (though clearly some doctors are better than others). So why all the ads? Maybe people see the ads, think they have the symptoms advertised then decide to go see a doctor and in some percentage they really do have whatever condition the drug treats and this increases sales enough for the ads to pay off? I don't know... At any rate, the ultimate responsibility is with the doctors, ads or no ads. If overprescription is a problem, blaming the ads hides a larger underlying problem with proper diagnosis and treatment.
For those mass shooters who have a previous history of violence, they probably should have been locked up. I think the reasons they are not go beyond what drugs are available though. No doubt there has been a failure in treatment for these people whether the drugs have anything to do with it or not.
you are right, in reality mass shooters don't really kill many people, we probably shouldn't do anything about them. The problem is some people want to pass gun laws as a result and won't even talk about other factors like drugs. I would be happy doing nothing except maybe banning "gun free zone" signs.
Of course the ads pay off, otherwise they wouldn't spend 30 billion a year on them, way more money than the gun industry makes.
The drug companies are like the tobacco companies, out to make money and willing to suppress research and regulations that impact their profits. They own the politicians and scientists and doctors and sell a dangerous product. If you look for the long term safety studies for anti-depressants and various other psychiatric drugs what you will find is that there are not any.