This week I was interviewed on CNN about new “research” on treating anxiety
in children with the SSRI, Luvox.
[I will first send you research out of Australia about anxiety and serotonin
levels along with an e-mail that just came in from a mother whose son had his
life ruined by Luvox and then I will send the Washington Post article next on
the study.]
I must say that we have taken insanity to an all new height with this recent
study out on anxiety in children. The same drug Eric Harris was on in the
Columbine High School shooting, Luvox, is the drug that was used in this
study to treat anxiety in children. But look at what behavior was considered
to be abnormal enough to give this drug that has “psychosis” listed as a
“frequent” side effect!
“Extreme separation anxiety disorder, he said, would be displayed in a child
who avoided birthday parties and sleepovers. A medium-grade example would be
children who refused to sleep in their own rooms and wanted to get into bed
with their parents.”
Now I don’t know about the rest of you, but I had a child that often jumped
in bed with mom and did not like birthday parties very much. Given a choice
between waiting for children to grow out of that as opposed to drugging them
into psychosis, should not be a difficult choice at all!
We don’t get to enjoy these little children in our lives for very long.
Before we know it they are grown and gone. Why not enjoy the short time they
want to crawl into bed with mom and dad to be cuddled and reassured that
everything is okay? But to look at this as a serious mental disorder for
which they need to be drugged?!! This is greed beyond anything imaginable!
When we look at the science behind anxiety disorders the insanity grows by
leaps and bounds because medical research over the last several decades has
continued to show (as documented in Prozac: Panacea or Pandora?) that
anxiety, along with other mood disorders, is associated with ELEVATED levels
of serotonin, rather than decreased levels of serotonin. So in a patient
suffering from anxiety, WHY would we want to increase already elevated levels
of serotonin with an SSRI?
Dr. Murray Ellis at the Baker Medical Research Institute in Melbourne,
Australia found last year that 75% of those suffering from various anxiety
disorders had EIGHT times higher levels of serotonin even on days when they
did not demonstrate anxiety symptoms.
So, as I asked on CNN, I once again ask, “Why on earth would we want to do
anything to increase serotonin in those who already demonstrate symptoms of
ELEVATED serotonin?”
My heart aches for these children who were tortured and maimed as guinea
pigs, given this deadly drug for the sole purpose of increasing the profits
of those who still have their hands dripping with the blood of all the
Columbine victims.
Ann Blake-Tracy, Executive Director,
International Coalition For Drug Awareness
www.drugawareness.org
____________________________
http://theage.com.au/news/20000514/A59189-2000May13.html
Dramatic reversal in research on anxiety
By STEVE DOW
Sunday 14 May 2000
Startling and unexpected findings on panic disorder patients could
fundamentally change the way anxiety and anxiety-related depression are
treated.
The findings by Melbourne’s Baker Medical Research Institute, presented to a
recent scientific meeting and soon to be submitted to the medical journal The
Lancet, have unsettled scientists and turned upside down their ideas on brain
chemistry among the anxious.
But the evidence from the work by cardiologist Professor Murray Esler and
colleagues is so strong that it is being taken seriously.
The scientists tested the levels of the mood-regulating chemical serotonin in
20 patients who suffer panic attacks and found that, even on a good day, the
average levels of the chemical in the brains of at least 15 of the patients
were eight times higher than normal.
Until now, the theory has been that anxiety, panic and anxiety-related
depression are caused by a lack or underactivity of serotonin in the brain.
Based on this theory, the selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitor (SSRI)
wonder drugs that emerged in the ’90s – marketed as Prozac, Aropax and Zoloft
– are intended to increase serotonin around the brain neurons involved in
anxiety.
Professor Esler emphasised that the SSRIs were “great drugs” and should
remain worldwide bestsellers.
However, there were two important implications of the new research, he said.
First, the conventional view of how SSRIs operate has been challenged. It
would appear that the drugs are effective because, over time, they somehow
decrease, rather than increase, serotonin as originally thought.
Second, the new findings could spark drug companies to create drugs that stop
serotonin directly. Such a response might stop the common problem of
“serotonin agitation” experienced by many patients on SSRIs. These patients
experience increased anxiety in their first weeks of treatment on drugs such
as Prozac, Aropax and Zoloft; the drugs making the problem “worse before they
make it better”, Professor Esler said.
He said there was now compelling evidence that panic disorder and depression
were on a par with high blood pressure and smoking as risk factors for heart
disease. A study of several panic disorder patients had shown a spasm of
coronary arteries was common after an attack. One patient, a woman of 40,
suffered a clot and subsequent heart attack because of her panic disorder.
The Baker Institute wishes to recruit patients who suffer panic disorders and
depression for future studies. Contact the institute on 95224212.
NEWS 14: The Health Report
_____________________________________
Teenager on Luvox – aggressive, homicidal
3/26/01
This letter is for your feedback section on the net. In July of 1999 our son,
then 14 years old, was started on Luvox by a psychiatrist for treatment of
his compulsive behavior. We had actually taken him there for treatment of
depression, but the doctor said he was depressed because of his compulsive
disorder. As our son was 6 foot tall and 300+ pounds, the doctor eventually
had him on a dose up to 300 mg a day. Our son started to act very aloof and
irritable. When he was depressed he talked about killing himself, he would
sleep a lot, and he drew pictures of guns. But once on the Luvox, he became
aggressive towards us and would swing at us at the least provocation.
Just before Christmas he came up to me, his mother, and said, “Something is
wrong with me,” but he couldn’t explain it. I didn’t realize at all what he
meant. On Christmas he opened his gifts methodically with no expression on
his face. He had always loved this holiday and now he was acting like a
zombie.
In the winter of 2000, we got a call from his school that he had threatened
some people. The police were called. Apparently our son, who had never done
anything wrong in school or out, had been talking in the cafeteria about
killing the family of a girl he knew, then killing her. He went into graphic
detail and then looked at two boys who were sitting nearby listening and said
to them, “If you tell anyone, I’ll kill you”. The boys turned him in.
We found out through interviews the police had with other kids in the school
that our son had also plotted the same demise for another family of a girl he
knew. He had told this girl to her face. She and her family, however, knew
our son and knew this was not his normal behavior. They therefore did nothing
about it.
To make a long story short, he was arrested but not taken to jail
immediately because we begged to take him home and watch him 24 hours a day.
He had to be drug tested. He had to go to a partial program for troubled kids
for two weeks. He was given 10 days out of school suspension and the story,
of course, went all over the school. He lost his best friend because the
mother would not let him hang around with our son anymore. No one called to
support him or us. We were isolated from the community. We had to hire a
lawyer because the local police wanted to put him in jail. They had written
up a report that made our son look like he was insane. The report went to the
juvenile court and Children’s Services. We were visited by Children’s
Services and interviewed. Our son went through approximately three different
psychiatric evaluations; however, all of these were done after he was taken
off the Luvox. We had taken him off the drug after this all happened because
we were afraid it might have caused his behavior problem. I had read about
Columbine and knew the boy involved had been on Luvox too. The psychologists
who evaluated him found him to be fine except for depression; again, these
evaluations were after he was taken off the Luvox. Everyone who interviewed
him after he was off the Luvox could not believe he had threatened people
the way he did, he was not the same person.
We were lucky enough to have the case dismissed as it was our son’s first
offense as a juvenile and our state allows one mistake. They supposedly
closed the file, but the local police will have it open until our son is 18.
In the meantime, if he gets into any trouble, they will use it against him.
We pulled our son out of school and homeschooled him to keep him away from
the cruelty of the kids at school. We had to have him tutored and sent him to
summer school so that he could keep up with his class. He is now called a
“Sophomore” instead of a “Junior” because he was short 3/4ths of a credit,
even with all of our effort; although he will graduate with his class as a
Senior next year. The school told us he just won’t ever be a “Junior”. Our
son faces taunting to this day, not as bad as when he first went back to
school in the fall. A boy said “rape” next to him in class and a girl in the
class told her mother and the mother called the police about our son because
she had heard the story and thought he was the one talking about rape. The
guidance counselor told him this year that he has to watch everything that he
says. He cannot say certain words at school, like “gun”, “shoot”, “murder”,
etc because he could get in trouble.
This child will never be the same because of Luvox. His high school years are
a nightmare now and people in this small town will know him as being
“dangerous”. On the bright side, the families of the two girls that he
threatened refused to file any charges against our son because they knew this
was not his usual behavior and that something was “obviously wrong”.
The psychiatrist who gave our son the Luvox became very defensive immediately
after the episode and said that it was not the Luvox, it was our son. He said
that no cases had ever been won against SSRIs. He also told our son that what
he did was horrible, that nobody would ever forget it or forgive him and that
even if he went to another school, they would find out about it.
Can you imagine a psychiatrist saying this to a patient? Needless
to say, we left him after the legal aspect of the case was closed.
My son told me later that when he was on Luvox, he wasn’t afraid to do
anything. He said he had “no fear”.
We hope this will help make people aware of the dangers of Luvox and the
other SSRI drugs. I only wish there was some way to help the people like my
son who have lost so much to this drug.
Please do not print our name or our e-mail address.
