DRUGS AND VIOLENCE Lives Destroyed

On May 28, 1998, Brynn Hartman murdered her husband, comic Phil Hartman�known for his work on such popular TV shows as �Saturday Night Live,� �The Simpsons� and �Third Rock from the Sun��before killing herself. She had been taking a Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitor (SSRI) antidepressant, which the coroner found in her system along with alcohol and cocaine. A 1999 lawsuit filed by the executor of the Hartman estate claimed that Los Angeles psychiatrist Arthur Sorosky had given Mrs. Hartman samples of the antidepressant in March of that year and that in the weeks before the shooting, she told friends of side effects that made her feel �� like she was going to jump out of her skin.� It further stated that she contacted the psychiatrist for help four days before the incident�he merely suggested she cut the dosage in half. A lawsuit filed by family members was settled out of court.

Whenever and wherever tragedy and violence of this nature occur, psychiatrists notoriously shift blame for the act to the person�s �mental illness.� Dr. Joseph Glenmullen of Harvard Medical School and author of Prozac Backlash says that people who take SSRIs can �become very distraught. � They feel like jumping out of their skin. The irritability and impulsivity can make people suicidal or homicidal.�

In March 2004, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Public Health Advisory warned: �Anxiety, agitation, panic attacks, insomnia, irritability, hostility, impulsivity, akathisia (severe restlessness causing violence), hypomania and mania have been reported in adult and pediatric patients being treated with [SSRI] antidepressants.� 65 Seven months later the FDA went futher and ordered that a �black box� label be prominently displayed on SSRI bottles, which warns about suicide risk. However, this fails to address the drugs� propensity to cause homicidal behavior and that children and adults are dying because of them.

Dr. David Healy, director of the North Wales Department of Psychological Medicine, who has undertaken extensive research of SSRIs, concludes: �What is very, very clear is that people do become hostile on the drugs.�

As the Washington Times� Insight magazine headlined in their article on the Columbine High School shooting in 1999, �Though shocked by bizarre shootings in schools, few Americans have noticed how many shooters were among the 6 million kids now on psychotropic drugs.� The ringleader, Eric Harris, had been taking an antidepressant with side effects that include mania, irritability, aggression and hostility. Mania can produce in individuals �bizarre, grandiose, highly elaborate destructive plans, including mass murder,� according to psychiatrists� own reports.

In 1998, Michael Hutchence, lead singer of the Australian rock band, INXS, killed himself after combining alcohol and a suicide- and violence-inducing antidepressant. The coroner determined that Hutchence �hanged himself with his own belt and the buckle broke away and his body was found kneeling on the floor and facing the door.� INXS guitarist Tim Farris told media, �I can�t be angry at Michael � I think the world [people] should be very careful about taking antidepressants � people should [realize that] they�re putting things like that into their bodies.�

In 1997, singer and songwriter Elliott Smith was an Oscar nominee for best original song, �Miss Misery,� which was featured in the movie �Good Will Hunting.� He produced two more CDs and was working on another when he was found dead on October 21, 2003, apparently from a self-inflicted stab wound to the chest. A Los Angeles psychiatrist had been treating Smith for alcohol and drug use. The coroner found �prescribed levels of antidepressant and attention-deficit-hyperactivity-disorder medications in his system, including clonazepam, mirtazapine, atomozetine and amphetamine.�

Actor Spaulding Gray became famous in 1987 for his movie monologue, �Swimming to Cambodia.� He also played the lead role on Broadway in Gore Vidal�s �The Best Man.� For much of his life, he battled the false diagnosis of �hereditary depression� despite no scientific evidence that depression is a genetic or an inherited condition.

In 2001, nearly crippled by a car crash, Gray spent 31 months recuperating. However, despite the fact that�as friends said�he was suffering a skull fracture and physical trauma, psychiatrists diagnosed depression and prescribed a cocktail of psychotropic drugs. In the wake of treatment failures, the inevitable admissions to psychiatric facilities followed, as did attempts at suicide. His wife, Kathie Russo, spoke of the therapists: �They all would basically spend 10 minutes and send him on his way.� As new psychiatric drugs and therapies failed, the downward spiral continued. �You name it, he�s been on it. Antidepressants, antipsychotics. He was on Depakote the first time he tried [jumping off a] bridge. He was on such a high dosage, he was really out of it,� she said.

�This was a man who had never taken antidepressants in his life,� she said, �and he was now taking a cocktail of five different pills every morning �. He gave up. He just said, �Nothing is working.�� On January 10, 2004, Gray left his home and family, including three children, and never returned. On March 7, his body was found floating in the East River in New York, an apparent suicide.

Psychiatrists do know the connection between psychiatric drugs, violence and suicide. But the business of prescribing these drugs is obviously too good and much too lucrative to stop�merely to protect or save lives.

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