ANTIDEPRESSANT & PAIN MED: War Vet Kills Self In Front of VA Medical Center: OH

DAYTON Jesse Charles Huff walked up to the Veterans Affairs Department’s Medical Center on Friday morning wearing U.S. Army fatigues and battling pain from his Iraq war wounds and a recent bout with depression.

The 27-year-old Dayton man had entered the center’s emergency room about 1 a.m. Friday and requested some sort of treatment. But Huff did not get that treatment, police said, and about 5:45 a.m. he reappeared at the center’s entrance, put a military-style rifle to his head and twice pulled the trigger.

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SSRIs: Sharp Drop in Brain Activity + Worsening Depression & Suicidality

hile antidepressant medications have proven to be beneficial in helping people overcome majordepression, it has long been known that a small subset of individuals taking these drugs can actually experience a worsening of mood, and even thoughts of suicide. No clinical test currently exists to make this determination, and only time usually weeks can tell before a psychiatrist knows whether a patient is getting better or worse.

Now, UCLA researchers have developed a non-invasive biomarker, or indicator, that may serve as a type of early warning system.

Reporting in the April edition of the peer-reviewed journal Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica, Aimee Hunter, an assistant research psychologist in the UCLA Department of Psychiatry, and colleagues report that by using quantitative electroencephalographic (QEEG), a non-invasive measurement of electrical activity in the brain, they were able to observe a sharp reduction of activity in a specific brainregion in individuals who proved susceptible to thoughts of suicide within 48 hours of the start of treatment.

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Kauffman Study – (SSRI) Drugs: More Risks Than Benefits?

As the number of “anecdotes” exceeds 1,600—hardly a small number—the association of SSRIs with murder/suicide, often combined, must be taken seriously. The SSRI website was searched to find combined murder/suicide incidents attributed to a specific SSRI. There were three for fluvoxamine, four for citalopram, 10 each for paroxetine and sertraline, and 31 for fluoxetine. Where the studies above substantiated suicide from SSRI use, the total on the SSRI website of 48 simultaneous murder/suicide incidents associated with SSRI use ties together SSRIs and murder. Since there were about two murders per suicide, we may infer that the murder rate on SSRIs could be about 250/100,000. Since no clinical trial involving multiple homicides is ever likely to be run, no firmer evidence is likely to be found. Healy noted that much of the evidence for suicide and murder came from the efforts of journalists and lawyers.

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6/2/2000 – Use of Sertraline Linked to Suicidality

Use of Sertraline Linked to Suicidality LONDON, May 30 (Reuters Health) – The use of sertraline might prompt some patients to commit suicide, a UK researcher warns based on a study of healthy volunteers. In a double-blind, randomized crossover study, Dr. David Healy of the University of Wales College of Medicine compared the effects of…

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