Currently there are 7.3 billion people on the planet and 6. 9 billion mobile phone subscriptions — almost one phone for every person! Few of us can even imagine living without our electronic devices like smartphones and computers. But what is living in a sea of electronics doing to our brains? There’s evidence that our electronic devices may be hazardous to both our physical and mental health.
The list of antidepressants that can cause sudden death is growing exponentially, with citalopram - under the brand names Celexa and Cipramil - the latest such drug to be added, according to a new study.
The research, published recently in the British Medical Journal, revealed that the drug tends to cause a lengthening of the Q-T interval, a part of the cycle of heart beat measured by an electrocardiogram, or what is more commonly known as an EKG or ECG. Indeed, a number of drugs are known for creating this phenomenon, the most notable among them being methadone, which has been documented as causing sudden death in some patients, especially when dosages are increased too rapidly.
“There are no symptoms indicating a risk. A perfectly normal person will literally drop dead,” writes Heidi Stevenson at GaiaHealth.com.
A silent killer
The heartbeat is regulated by a series of electrical pulses, and key points of the pattern printed on an EKG are labeled P, Q, R, S, T. If the time between the Q and T waves is lengthened, it is referred to as “Q-T elongation,” or a prolonged Q-T segment; the only way to know if it is occurring; however, is with an EKG.
“There are generally no external clues, so outside of testing, you would have no way of knowing that you’ve been affected,” Stevenson writes.
Researchers, in their report, were specific about the risk of sudden death associated with Celexa; the larger the dose, the greater the risk. Also, they noted that the Food and Drug Administration has said, “Citalopram causes dose-dependent QT interval prolongation. Citalopram should no longer be prescribed at doses greater than 40 mg per day.”
That claim is supported in Medscape’s drug reference for citalopram. “Doses above 40 mg/day are not recommended because of risk for QT prolongation without additional benefit for treating depression,” says the reference.
In performing their study, researchers examined 38,397 adults who were either taking an antidepressant or methadone at some time between February 1990 and August 2011, a period of more than two decades. Antidepressants taken during that period by the patients involved in the study include citalopram (Celexa), escitalopram (Lexapro), fluoxetine (Prozac), paroxetine (Paxil), sertraline (Zoloft), amitriptyline, bupropion (Zyban), duloxetine (Cymbalta), mirtazapine (Remeron), nortriptyline, and venlafaxine (Effexor).
Each participant received an EKG 14-90 days after they had taken their prescribed medication. Researchers found that all antidepressants affect the A-T interval in some manner, though methadone affected it more significantly by a great amount.
In one drug, however - bupropion (Zyban) - had the opposite effect. The Q-T interval was shortened. But a shorter Q-T interval, by comparison, can also cause heart arrhythmias and fainting, conditions which can also lead to sudden death.
Earlier research found a similar connection
The worst antidepressants - those which lengthened the Q-T interval the most, on average - were citalopram (Celexa), escitalopram (Lexapro), and amitriptyline, researchers said. Overall, one in five subjects taking these drugs experienced abnormal EKGs, and specifically longer Q-T intervals. Researchers said the clinical significance of these findings; however, is as yet unknown.
Writes Stevenson:
We do know that an extended QT interval can result in sudden death. In reality, this doesn’t happen often - though no one can quantify the frequency of death. So, it seems that the only ethical approach is to inform people of the potential risk of sudden death by taking these drugs.
But we already know that genuine informed consent almost never happens. People are routinely told that the risk is minimal and the specifics are not stated. Ultimately, though, the only one who lives the results are the person inside your own skin.
Earlier research also found that antidepressants caused a lengthening of the Q-T interval. In 2004, Dr. Dan M. Roden, of the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, writing in The New England Journal of Medicine, said that, in the previous decade, “the single most common cause of the withdrawal or restriction of the use of drugs that have already been marketed has been the prolongation of the QT interval,” which can be “fatal.”
Sources:
http://reference.medscape.com/drug/celexa-citalopram-342958
http://www.courses.ahc.umn.edu
http://www.naturalnews.com/040433_antidepressants_sudden_death_drug_list.html#ixzz2U2PsKXPP
BREAKING ~ Glenn Beck: Major cover-up of Boston suspect from prominent Saudi family by Obama Administration From “The Glenn Beck Program” (Monday, April 22, 2013 edition)
I think most Americans don’t know what to think, I think this is driving a lot of people over the edge. Take a look at this! MCB
Terrorism. Chaos. Fear of the future. In the age of Obama, America is undergoing a “fundamental transformation” – that much everyone knows.
But what few seem to realize about this transformation is that the sheer stress of living in today’s America is driving tens of millions to the point of illness, depression and self-destruction. Consider the following trends:
Suicide has surpassed car crashes as the leading cause of injury death for Americans. Even more disturbing, in the world’s greatest military, more U.S. soldiers died last year by suicide than in combat;
Fully one-third of the nation’s employees suffer chronic debilitating stress, and more than half of all “millennials” (18 to 33 year olds) experience a level of stress that keeps them awake at night, including large numbers diagnosed with depression or anxiety disorder.
Shocking new research from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows that one in five of all high-school-aged children in the United States has been diagnosed with ADHD, and likewise a large new study of New York City residents shows, sadly, that one in five preteens – children aged six to 12 – have been medically diagnosed with either ADHD, anxiety, depression or bipolar disorder;
(CAV News) - Looks like the first hearing for the Newtown task force brought in a few ideas for safety in schools. First: Ramp up security. Second: Arm police officers. Third: Which was the focus to this article, bring in mental health services and screenings.
As you will read below, a lot of the speakers at this meeting want to profile, however, they aren’t calling it that. It’s assessing behavior patterns.
So, if the these clowns get their wish, basically they’ll add more shrinks into schools, diagnose and misdiagnosed more youngsters, and probably ignore one of the most crucial problems of all, prescribe them what they don’t need, psychotropic drugs.
If we want to get serious about the safety of our children, don’t you think a good start would be individually? Parents need to educate themselves better, without government and health industry interference, about the side effects of psychotropic drugs. Federal and state employees don’t want to deal with individuals, they don’t like hyper children, and certainly love funding. So why not hand out some drugs? Mold your children right to the floor at the wishes of a shrink and the pressure coming from state and federal government above.
Meanwhile, little Tommy, and his little head, is about to explode. He sniffles, he winces, shakes out of control, and throws little withdrawal fits when red and blue pill isn’t in his system. Sounds perfect.
Just a thought: Ever notice what happens to mental health patients at wards when they are off their drugs? They go nuts.
Here’s the full story from Hartford Courant:
For weeks, talk about making schools safer has focused on panic buttons, door buzzer systems, bulletproof glass and armed police officers, but at the first legislative hearing on the subject Friday, the need for better mental health services for youngsters took center stage.
“I don’t want this subcommittee to come to the conclusion that the magic bullet is an armed police officer,” said Lara Herscovitch, deputy director of the Connecticut Juvenile Justice Alliance. “There are other professionals that can do this prevention work.”
Herscovitch said she thinks the “limited resources” would be better spent on increasing the numbers of school social workers and psychologists who can help “kids with the root cause” of troubling behaviors.
A number of speakers did call for a greater police presence and other security improvements. But, like Herscovitch, many of those testifying — and legislators on the hearing panel — spoke of their concern for the school climate and the need to identify students who need help early on.
The hearing was held by the school security subcommittee of the legislature’s Bipartisan Task Force on Gun Violence Prevention and Children’s Safety and attracted a wide range of speakers, from educators to police officers, social workers, psychologists and others. The task force is charged with developing recommendations in response to the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Newtown, where a gunman, Adam Lanza, killed 20 first-graders and six educators before killing himself.
At one point in Friday’s hearing, Sen. Beth Bye, D-West Hartford, asked a panel of educators, if an emergency occurs, “Do we have a mental health professional at the ready?”
Joseph Cirasuolo, executive director of the Connecticut Association of Public School Superintendents, said that very few mental health professionals are available to respond to an emergency situation. “If they are in the building,” they might be able to help out “tangentially,” Cirasuolo said, but most are involved with special education. “Resources have not been there to do what you are talking about,” Cirasuolo told Bye.
Senate President Pro Tempore Donald Williams, D-Brooklyn, also expressed concern about behavioral and mental health issues.
“I’m very interested in what we can do to help the next generation of students identify problems early on,” he said. “I’m a big believer in early identification and prevention.”
Williams said he knows that school psychologists are “severely overburdened” and suggested that it might help if schools had a “dean of students” who would address disciplinary issues and children acting out and relieve administrators of some of that burden.
Rep. Mitch Bolinsky, a Republican from Newtown, echoed the importance of finding a way to get the proper help when a child or youth is having a problem.
“Profiling is obviously a terrible word, but 25 or 30 years ago, we walked away … from the business of mental health care and drove it into the community and did not fund initiatives,” Bolinsky said. He said this has led particularly to having “young men with violent tendencies that have manifested and are among us.”
Bolinsky said he has had high school students identify students who concern them, but he said: “We don’t have school counselors that focus directly on mental health. Instead we intervene by emergency only.”
He asked how it is possible to identify students who may have problems, while protecting their privacy and avoiding “possible stigmatization.”
“I don’t think that Mr. Lanza was a secret,” Bolinsky said. “There were many people that knew of him as a threat, and yet he was in a position to do the unspeakable.”
University of Connecticut Police Chief Barbara O’Connor told Bolinsky that the universities have “struggled with that exact issue.” She said UConn has a “threat assessment team” that considers a student’s behaviors. “It’s not profiling,” she said, “What we need to do is focus on behaviors.”
She said the threat assessment team includes mental health professionals, administrators and law enforcement representatives and, without violating a students’ privacy, she said the team assesses how a student is doing, if he or she is getting mental health services.
O’Connor said she thinks an approach that involves a coordinated team is one that might work in the community. Often she said, people “have the information, they just don’t know where to go with it.”
The committee also heard from Thomas Kuroski, president of the Newtown Federation of Teachers, who said that with “the loss of the precious lives of the students, colleagues and friends who perished that day, we also lost our sense of security.”
Kuroski said it is important that decisions around school safety involve teachers, parents, school administrators, elected officials and students. “If educators have a voice, we feel safer and more confident in our ability to teach, nurture and protect out students,” he said.
Better Locks, Alarms
Others suggested installing betters locks, lighting, alarm systems and video surveillance cameras, and increasing the number of school resource officers.
Waterford Police Officer First Class Steven Whitehead, a school resource officer, stressed the importance of communication, particularly between school psychologists and social workers, and police officers and school staff.
A student’s privacy must be protected, “but when safety is an issue,” Whitehead said, such communication would help. He also said it would help to have police officers stationed not only in high schools — where most school resource officers are located — but in elementary schools so that children can learn to be comfortable with them.
“We work hand-in-hand with the schools to make sure the kids are safe and comfortable in their learning environment,” Whitehead said after testifying.
Danbury Mayor Mark Boughton said if he had to choose between sinking resources into beefing up mental health services at schools or adding armed guards, he would choose the former.
Boughton said behavioral health care for children is particularly helpful when it starts when they are young. However, he said, parents would most likely prefer to fund more police officers in schools if given the same choice, because they are more visible.
I’m done being nice.
And I’m doubly-done with the damned leftists in this country performing the moral equivalent ofritual human sacrifice of children to advance their gun-control agenda.
That’s what I charge they’re doing.
And I’m going to back it up with mathematics, using just one of the common psychotropic medications used commonly today — Paxil.
This is from the prescribing information for Paxil:
Clinical Worsening and Suicide Risk:
Patients with major depressive disorder (MDD), both adult and pediatric, may experience worsening of their depression and/or the emergence of suicidal ideation and behavior (suicidality) or unusual changes in behavior, whether or not they are taking antidepressant medications, and this risk may persist until significant remission occurs. Suicide is a known risk of depression and certain other psychiatricdisorders, and these disorders themselves are the strongest predictors of suicide. There has been a long-standing concern, however, that antidepressants may have a role in inducing worsening of depressionand the emergence of suicidality in certain patients during the early phases of treatment. Pooled analyses of short-term placebo-controlledtrials of antidepressant drugs (SSRIs and others) showed that these drugs increase the risk of suicidal thinking and behavior (suicidality) in children, adolescents, and young adults (ages 18-24) with majordepressive disorder (MDD) and other psychiatric disorders. Short-term studies did not show an increase in the risk of suicidality with antidepressants compared to placebo in adults beyond age 24; there was a reduction with antidepressants compared to placebo in adults aged 65 and older.
That’s a problem. What’s worse is this:
The following symptoms, anxiety, agitation, panic attacks, insomnia, irritability, hostility, aggressiveness, impulsivity, akathisia (psychomotor restlessness), hypomania, and mania, have been reported in adult and pediatric patients being treated with antidepressants for majordepressive disorder as well as for other indications, both psychiatric and nonpsychiatric. Although a causal link between the emergence of such symptoms and either the worsening of depression and/or the emergence of suicidal impulses has not been established, there is concern that such symptoms may represent precursors to emerging suicidality.
And it doesn’t end there:
Screening Patients for Bipolar Disorder
A major depressive episode may be the initial presentation of bipolar disorder. It is generally believed (though not established in controlledtrials) that treating such an episode with an antidepressant alone may increase the likelihood of precipitation of a mixed/manic episode in patients at risk for bipolar disorder.
Now let’s be frank: Mixed manic states are mental states during which all sorts of really ugly things happen, including panic attacks, agitation, impulsiveness, paranoia and rage — all at extreme levels.
In other words, if you miss someone being bipolar and give them this drug you may precipitate a full-on Hulk-style “rage monster” sort of attack!
How often does something like this happen?
Activation of Mania/Hypomania:
During premarketing testing, hypomania or mania occurred in approximately 1.0% of unipolar patients treated with PAXIL compared to 1.1% of active-control and 0.3% of placebo-treated unipolar patients. In a subset of patients classified as bipolar, the rate of manic episodes was 2.2% for PAXIL and 11.6% for the combined active-control groups. As with all drugs effective in the treatment of major depressive disorder, PAXIL should be used cautiously in patients with a history of mania.
So if you miss a bi-polar person in your “analysis” before prescribing, it’s more than doubly-likely that they will have a “rage-monster” episode than if not.
So let’s assume we’re not talking about bi-polar people — that is, let’s make the assumption that we properly screen for each person and perfectly identify all bi-polar people before we prescribe.
What is the expected number of people who will undergo some sort of manic episode, which includes the subset that will turn into rage-monsters and shoot up schools, movie theaters and other public places?
Answer: About 0.7% more that can be charged to the drug (the risk if you do nothing is 0.3%.)
Other similar drugs have similar risk profiles; Paxil is not particularly-remarkable in this regard.
I note, and you should note, that 0.7% is a pretty low risk! That is, 993 people out of 1000 can get a perfectly good outcome from the drug (or at least no harm) but that other 7 in 1000 have an outcome ranging from bad to catastrophically-bad.
Now let’s assume for the sake of argument that we are 99% effective in physician monitoring of these patients. That is, we’re able to somehow confirm that they take the drug exactly as prescribed (no more or less), and we have enough time and physician resources to evaluate them on a regular and continuing basis. This, incidentally, is a fantasy-land level of performance; no profession could possibly meet that standard of care, but we’ll use it to make the point.
But this level of performance, which we can never meet, would provide that of the rage monsters we potentially create with these drugs we catch 99% of them before the episode escalates into something “bad.”
That’s 1% of 0.7%, incidentally, or 0.007% of the total users who (1) have the bad reaction and then (2) we fail to detect via monitoring. In other words, those are the people who shoot up the schools, movie theaters and US Representatives.
The last figures I have are that in 2005 27 million people in the United States, or close to 1 in 10 of all persons, are on some sort of antidepressant carrying these risks.
So if 0.7% of 27 million people have a manic episode caused by these drugs – that is, under perfect conditions where we catch every single bipolar individual first and never prescribe to any of them we will have 189,000 persons in a year who have a manic reaction to these drugs.
That’s horrifying.
But what’s worse is that if we assume 99% effective surveillance by the medicalprofession — that is, 99% of the time the doctor intercepts the person with themanic episode and modifies or terminates their use of the drug before something bad happens….
WE CREATE AND THEN FAIL TO DETECT, WITH NEARLY PERFECT PERFORMANCE (that we will never achieve) 1,890 RAGE MONSTERS EVERY YEAR WHO ARE MENTALLY CAPABLE OF COMMITTING A MASS HOMICIDE.
We’re surprised that there are a few of these a year, when we create more than 5 of them each and every day with near-perfect performance — and likely several times that many given the real-world monitoring that can actually be achieved?
We create these Zombies.
We prescribe the drugs to them.
We do this knowing that the risk exists and that at least one subset of that risk is materially higher for those under the age of 25 who are consuming these drugs.
In point of fact, most of the rage monsters who have committed these crimes are under the age of 25 and either using or having recently terminated the use of these drugs.
Again I reproduce the information directly from the maker of Paxil:
There has been a long-standing concern, however, that antidepressants may have a role in inducing worsening of depressionand the emergence of suicidality in certain patients during the early phases of treatment. Pooled analyses of short-term placebo-controlledtrials of antidepressant drugs (SSRIs and others) showed that these drugs increase the risk of suicidal thinking and behavior (suicidality) in children, adolescents, and young adults (ages 18-24) with majordepressive disorder (MDD) and other psychiatric disorders. Short-term studies did notshow an increase in the risk of suicidality with antidepressants compared to placebo in adults beyond age 24;
Something changes around the age of 24 with these drugs and their interaction with the human mind. We don’t know exactly what it is, but we know that it happens. We also know that these substances have a low but present risk of inducing mania, including rage.
Utterly nobody is bringing this element to the table in debate, but we must, as the rise of these incidents isdirectly correlated to the gross increase in the number of people, including most-especially young people, taking these drugs. The number of users doubled from 1996 – 2005.
If you want to address a problem you must look at the data and follow it where it leads.
Where it leads is into a horrifying mess of prescription psychotropic drug use among our youth and the rare but catastrophic side effects they sometimes produce.
I have friends who have versions of the problem in their families among older individuals; members of the family who doctor-shop for prescription on top of prescription and are mentally questionable to start with. We’re supposed to have some sort of reasonable check and balance on this and indeed Florida claims to have clamped down on the “pill mills” but I can tell you right now that this is utter and complete crap. There is nothing preventing people from going to 10 different doctors until they find three or four that will write scripts and then abusing the drugs — and when they run out “early” calling up for a refill — and getting it. It happens every damned day and if other family members try to intervene, including getting the physicians or the law involved (prescription fraud is supposed to be illegal!) they’re blown off!
It’s true that most of the crazy people in the world aren’t violent, and that being crazy, standing alone, is perfectly legal. It’s also true that nearly all of the people who take these drugs won’t become violent — that’s a side effect that only bites a small percentage of the people who take the drug.
But the risk of turning people into rage monsters and suicidal maniacs appears to be mostly confined to those under the age of 24 according to the drug companies own information and this information is strongly correlated with the actual real-world data on these incidents.
We must have a discussion about this as a society. We might decide that out of the 27 million or more Americans taking these drugs that enough get benefit that we are willing to accept the occasional school or movie theater shooting gallery as the price of prescribing these drugs to those under the age of 24.
If so then we need to be honest about the trade-off we have made as a society and shut the hell up instead of dancing in the blood of dead children to score political points and destroy The Constitution.
But if not, and you can count my vote among the “No” votes in this regard, then we must ban these substances from those under the age of 24 until we understand what’s different among that age group that alters the risk unless and except those persons are under continual professional supervision such as inpatient hospitalization.
Yeah, I understand this will cut into the profits of the big drug companies and thus is “unacceptable” to many political folks, not to mention that the media won’t even talk about the subject due to the advertising they run on their networks on a daily basis for this drug or that.
But unless we want to keep burying kids we had damned well better have that debate.
Mr. Biden, Mr. Obama and the rest on both the left and right who are refusing to go where the data leads are all practicing the moral equivalent of ritual child sacrifice, fueling the pyre under the bodies of our kids with the Bill of Rights.
Stand up America and say in a loud voice: ENOUGH!
