SPECIAL REPORT What Is Really Happening in Class?

Today, students are often screened or “profiled” by using questionnaires that inquire about their own and their parents’ attitudes and behaviors. This includes such questions as how many times they’ve used cocaine or had sexual intercourse.

One U.S. “teen screen” program surveys students with questions such as, “Has there been a time when nothing was fun for you and you just weren’t interested in anything?” The child can then be referred to a psychologist or psychiatrist and, usually, prescribed drugs. Joseph Glenmullen of Harvard Medical School, said the questionnaires of symptoms used to “diagnose” depression “may look scientific,” but “are utterly subjective measures.”

The drugs prescribed for “depression” are known to cause violent and suicidal behavior. In 2003, the British medicine regulatory agency warned doctors not to prescribe SSRI antidepressants for under 18-year-olds because of the risk of suicide. The following spring, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued a similar warning, as did Australian, Canadian and European agencies. Then in October, the FDA went much further, ordering a “black box” warning of suicide risk be prominently placed on SSRI bottles.

The warning came too late for Matt Miller and Cecily Bostock. Matt hanged himself in his bedroom closet after one week of starting to take an SSRI antidepressant. Cecily stabbed herself in the chest with a kitchen knife two weeks after she began taking an antidepressant. “To die in this violent, unusual manner without making a sound … [the drug] must have put her over the edge,” said Cecily’s mother, Sara.

A “black box” warning fails to address the magnitude of the problem as more children die from drugs that are FDA approved for, and then prescribed for, fictitious disorders. Moreover, psychiatric drugs and school programs are also linked to the rise in murderous violence amongst youth. Psychotic episodes and violent behavior are associated with chronic stimulant abuse. At least 5% of patients taking SSRIs suffer “commonly recognized” side effects, including agitation, anxiety, aggression, hallucinations and depersonalization.

Violence by teens that have been taking psychiatric drugs cannot be ignored. A sampling of such crimes includes: In February 2004, 15- year-old Andreas of Germany shot and killed his foster father after years of psychiatric treatment; he was taking prescribed psychotropic drugs. On May 17, 2004, 19-year-old Ryan Furlough of Maryland was convicted of the 2001 first-degree murder of a friend; Ryan was on a prescribed antidepressant at the time. In Japan, in July 1999, two boys, aged 15 and 16, stabbed a 16- year-old, while taking a sedative (sleeping pill) because it made them “invincible.”

Educator Beverly Eakman’s advice is, “Give the mental health industry a leave of absence from our nation’s homes and schools.”

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