Marine Andrew White in being treated by the VA for PTSD was prescribed 19 different drugs and died in his sleep
Stan White has worked long and hard since the senseless death of his young son Andrew to raise awareness of the mass drugging of our military and veterans by the VA especially for PTSD. He has rallied many parents of those who have lost their lives to form a group to help stop this insanity by our government. Stan and I have done radio shows together since about 2009 in an attempt to raise awareness and gather families of those who have been lost.
Please share this information with others so that they too might have answers to what has gone wrong and why they have suffered such a terrible loss. Australian researcher, Dr. Murray Esler, found in 2000 that those suffering anxiety disorders like PTSD have serotonin levels EIGHT TIMES HIGHER than normal! Shocked by his discovery he has been asking since that time what I have been asking for over two decades: Why are we giving them antidepressants that increase serotonin when research demonstrates that the initial problem is elevated levels of serotonin?
Beyond that the FDA has extended the Black Box Warning for increased suicide (about double the rate) for those under the age of 25, which would include a large number of these young military personel who are being given these drugs to treat PTSD thus increasing their chances of suicide. Clearly the numbers demonstrate that to be the end result.
And once again a big thanks to our good friend Douglas Kennedy from Fox News who has done much to get this information on antidepressants to the public.
Ann Blake Tracy, Executive Director,
International Coalition for Drug Awareness
www.drugawareness.org & http://ssristories.drugawareness.org
Author: “Prozac: Panacea or Pandora? – Our Serotonin Nightmare – The Complete Truth of the Full Impact of Antidepressants Upon Us & Our World” & Withdrawal CD “Help! I Can’t Get Off My Antidepressant!”
View the Fox News Report here:
Transcript of this report from Fox National News
May 27, 2013
Reporter Jamie Colby: Some really important concerns this Memorial Day weekend about the treatment our soldiers receive when they return from battle. And there’s a Fox News investigation into the increased use of powerful psychiatric drugs on our veterans and the impact these drugs are having. Our Douglas Kennedy looked into this as part of our series on drugging the American soldier.
Reporter Douglas Kennedy: Marine Corporal Andrew White survived the war in Iraq in 2005.
Stan White (Father): Temper tantrums, tremors…
Reporter Douglas Kennedy: Unfortunately says his father his father Stanley, he could not survive the drug cocktail prescribed to him by his caregivers at the Department of Veteran’s Affairs.
Stan White (Father): Once they treat you for PTSD, the first line of treatment seems to be a series of medications. We call them “lethal cocktails.” And if it doesn’t work they increase the dosage, give you more and more and more and more….
Reporter Douglas Kennedy: Andrew was prescribed 19 different medications from the VA, and was on 5 drugs for insomnia when he accidentally died in his sleep in 2011. A cocktail that included the antidepressant Paxil, the anti-anxiety Klonopin and the antipsychotic Seroquel.
Dr. Peter Breggin: It’s inexcusable to be giving our military and our vets multiple psychiatric drugs and cocktails. They do no good, they do huge harm.
Reporter Douglas Kennedy: Peter Breggin is a psychiatrist, who says the military and VA’s use of psych drug cocktails is verging on criminal.
Dr. Peter Breggin: We now know that exposure to multiple drugs over a period of months or years leads to chronicity, it leads to disability…
Reporter Douglas Kennedy: And he says it leads to suicide and accidental death. Still between 2005 and 2011, the military and VA went on a spending spree with psychoactive medication. Increasing prescriptions by a whopping 682%. An increase, which this military spokesman defends.
Military Spokesman, Captain Michael Colston, MD, U.S. Navy Medical Corps: What might be appropriate in addition to giving an antidepressant drug, to give a medicine that helps with the anxiety for a little while and then when the anxiety goes away but the depression hasn’t still quite remitted, you may want to think about using another medication.
Reporter Douglas Kennedy: The military says the use of drug cocktails is safe if used as prescribed. What would you say?
Stan White (Father): I do not agree. There’s no research available that we know of that says that multiple drugs are safe.
Reporter Douglas Kennedy: Unfortunately he says his son was a guinea pig, for what he calls psych drug experiments. In Charleston, West Virginia, Douglas Kennedy, Fox News.
Douglas Kennedy was the first national reporter to link antidepressant medications to adolescent suicide and violence, prompting government hearings that eventually resulted in the black box warnings from the Food and Drug Administration. Most recently he exposed an Internet fraud selling phony cancer drugs to the terminally ill, in which the owner of the Web site was later indicted. Previously he worked at the New York Post as a crime reporter and solved a double homicide in Queens by finding a dead body before the cops. Read more about Douglas Kennedy here.
WARNING: In sharing this information about adverse reactions to antidepressants I always recommend that you also give reference to my CD on safe withdrawal, Help! I Can’t Get Off My Antidepressant!, so that we do not have more people dropping off these drugs too quickly – a move which I have warned from the beginning can be even more dangerous than staying on the drugs!
The FDA also now warns that any abrupt change in dose of an antidepressant can produce suicide, hostility or psychosis. And these reactions can either come on very rapidly or even be delayed for months depending upon the adverse effects upon sleep patterns when the withdrawal is rapid! You can find the CD on safe and effective withdrawal helps here: http://store.drugawareness.org/
Ann Blake Tracy, Executive Director,
International Coalition for Drug Awareness
www.drugawareness.org & http://ssristories.drugawareness.org
Author: Prozac: Panacea or Pandora? – Our Serotonin Nightmare – The Complete Truth of the Full Impact of Antidepressants Upon Us & Our World” & Withdrawal CD “Help! I Can’t Get Off My Antidepressant!”
