Harmful Nature Of Psychotropic Drugs.

Posted on July 7, 2014

by Jerry Alatalo

There are perhaps no men or women who read this that do not know of someone who has committed suicide while taking prescription antidepressant or similar drugs. Is this to jump to the conclusion that the drugs are the cause of suicides, or can there be an argument made that depressed people are more often the ones who end up taking their own lives? Seconds after the last keystrokes an ambulance with sirens blaring sped up the local highway. Probably only a coincidence but does add some deepening of intensity here.

The primary reason for this writing comes from talking with a person whose son/daughter committed suicide while on antidepressant drug(s). The talk occurred over the Fourth of July weekend. As someone who is childless, it is impossible to fully describe or feel what that person went through, but obviously a parent losing a child to suicide must be one of the most absolutely painful experiences any human being has to endure.

So, the reason for focusing on this information is the hope that some other parent(s) will become spared the pain of such an experience. Now, if the parents’ pain isn’t overwhelming enough, there is the shared pain felt by brothers and sisters, relatives and friends that occurs. And then there is an ongoing “ripple” effect where each person who knew the person who committed suicide experiences small to large levels of guilt illustrated by the self-questioning: “could I have done more to prevent his/her doing this?”

Each man and woman, friend, relative or acquaintance, depending on how much time they spent with the deceased, will suffer a form of soul-shattering from guilt on what can now never occur. And, because the event is so powerfully tragic, these kinds of questions and feelings will likely remain for the rest of the associated persons’ lives. Simply put, suicide or murder caused by ingestion of mind-altering drugs are extremely consequential and extremely harming in a multiple of ways including psychologically, spiritually, and physically.

This is essentially the point here: if – and it’s a colossal if – psychotropic drugs, evidently the most ingested being Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors (SSRI) for depression and/or “ADHD”, play a real part in the suicides or violent actions toward others, then these drugs need a very serious second look for the harmful consequences of their use.

Probably the question, “has human health been sacrificed on the altar of profit?” best describes the focus of this writing. At this point, with the limited amount of contact with the information, my reply to that question is strongly in the affirmative, and being perfectly honest it is disturbing that government agencies responsible for health safety – namely America’s Food and Drug Administration (FDA) – have failed to adequately address concerns.

Not being an expert – having no degree in psychology, pharmacology, etc. – or practicing psychiatrist, it’s somewhat of a leap to write about these drugs, but provocative information from filmmakers, psychiatrists like Peter Breggin whose talk can be viewed at the end of this, and other concerned citizens leads one to feel that there is a “there there.”  Is ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder?) really a disease?

According to 77-year-old psychiatrist Dr. Peter Breggin, pharmaceutical corporations invented ADHD. He believes what occurred was that pharma companies found out what upset teachers about students’ behavior the most, then matched their products (drugs) to “solve” the “disease”/ student activities which upset teachers. He gives examples like not staying in line, speaking out of turn, answering the teacher’s questions before he/she fully asks it, and the “I know, I know!!” of students who are probably attention-deprived at home.

So, the typical behaviors of growing children then became a new psychological “disease” – ADHD – and sales of drugs to control children’s behavior began to skyrocket. Is the child bored with his or teacher, so engages in activities that disrupts the classroom? ADHD. Does the student receive poor or no discipline from his or her parents so acts like a “free spirit” saying and doing whatever strikes them at the moment? ADHD.  On the other hand, perhaps the child has been taught to live creative, spontaneous, and free by his or her parents, been reading complex books from an early age, or involved in artistic activities leading to more gregariousness than other students. ADHD.

The problem is that “being a kid” was never seen as a disease before ADHD became imagined/invented. Some kids get taught manners such as never interrupt an adult while they’re speaking, no running around in stores, or always respect your elders – and some kids are not. So, because there are kids who don’t know about manners and self-control they end up diagnosed with ADHD, start taking the drugs, and become basically zombies without any spontaneity. For teachers the problem gets solved, just like for parents who sit their children down in front of the television.

For WordPress users, by typing “SSRI” or “antidepressants” in the tag search box of Reader you’ll find many articles. After reading a few it became apparent that one in twelve Americans are taking one or more antidepressants, and that psychotropic drugs have the highest profit margins of nearly all products. An example would be a pill that costs $.20 to make and sells for $20 or a 10,000% profit, so this explains the tremendous power that pharmaceutical corporations exert over the political process and drug-related legislation.

America stands almost alone in regard to allowance of prescription drug advertising, as most developed nations have passed laws that disallow television commercials. Those are the ads that have no real message but that you invariably end up relaxing on a nice sunny beach, free of worry, in some drug-induced paradise. Whoever was behind the law which requires the speaking of potential adverse side effects in TV ads deserves some credit at least. Comedians are thankful for the side effects legal measure and have made hay by contrasting the fantastic claims of drug makers against possible suicide, stroke, death…

One could find a parallel between psychotropic drugs and genetically modified organisms (GMO) in that both have powerful corporate interests influencing politicians and passage of laws without full scientific study. Another similarity can be seen in both being “quick” fixes. GMOs offer farmers the opportunity to avoid the work needed to remove weeds from their crops, while teachers get spared having to deal with free spirit young people who have no malevolent motive, but like Cyndi Lauper “just wanna’ have fun.”

But both have a real, dark, flipside to their coins. With GMOs, there is the risk posed by genetic drift into the natural environment with little (if any, conducted by the GMO companies themselves) or no long-term study before FDA approval, a gamble of profoundly large consequences, as well as the health effects of Roundup/glyphosate – including decreased production of humans’ 90% of total serotonin made in the gut, perhaps leading to the depression, which then leads to taking antidepressants, or anti-psychotic drugs if serotonin levels fall too low.

With SSRI/antidepressant drugs, the dark consequences include suicide, violence against others, loss of spontaneity, and unknown natural, body/brain defense reactions to the drugs that result in imbalances, among others. As mentioned at the start of this writing, everyone probably knows someone who was on psychotropic drugs and committed suicide. The persons who pulled the triggers in America’s most well-known mass-shootings were all on some type of psychotropic drugs.

Veterans upon returning from Afghanistan and Iraq, because of what they saw and experienced in those war zones that contradicted what they believed the wars were all about, suffered physical, emotional, and spiritual harm which became almost impossible to bear without some form of drug treatment. Most people, including myself until recently, are unaware that the suicides of American veterans didn’t just begin after the soldiers returned to the US. Many soldiers took their own lives while in Afghanistan and Iraq, a fact that was probably intentionally kept from the American public to avoid protest against the wars and demands for their ending.

Some 22 veterans per day are taking their own lives according to recent reports, and the number who were taking antidepressants/SSRI/psychotropic drugs has not been widely reported. Mainstream media companies make a ton of money from drug advertising. The similarity between school students and soldiers could be envisaged after thinking about the large number of soldiers who became extremely disillusioned with their elected government and representatives/leaders. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder in veterans could be called “adult onset ADHD”, like “ADHD” treated in the easiest, quickest manner through writing the prescription, as opposed to looking further for the real source of the conditions.

ADHD was created to primarily serve the purpose of selling drugs and making profit, secondarily to settle students in overcrowded schoolrooms. PTSD is a more scientific-sounding name for “shell shock”, sharing with ADHD a disease name that is more amenable to the sale of drugs. Both have been treated with drugs sold by corporate sales representatives trained in only talking benefits and never about tragic, adverse side effects. ADHD and PTSD drug treatments are both dangerous to human health, the adverse side effects far outweighing any benefits experienced by patients.

There are many more “diseases” than just ADHD and PTSD where psychotropic drugs are doing damage to human health at physical, psychological, and spiritual levels. Being a kid is not a disease. War is a disease. Psychotropic drugs are a symptom of greed and what Martin Luther King called “spiritual bankruptcy” of societies which continue to spend more on weapons of war than social uplift.

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This very important issue will be the subject of more posts in the future. Please research, think about, and act according to conscience in defense of family, friends, and neighbors who may fall into the psychotropic drug nightmare. For what it’s worth, I have never taken antidepressants or other forms of psychotropic drugs, my addiction in years past was brain harming alcohol, the views of 77-year-old psychiatrist/author Dr. Peter Breggin are valid and worthy of further research, and the debate over psychotropic drugs needs to occur in Congressional hearings.

For powerful, important information please visit then forward on as widely as possible ssristories.com.

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(Thank you to Peter Breggin @ YouTube)