Antidepressants / SSRIs The Facts
Citizens Commission on Human Rights Birmingham with the facts about Antidepressants / SSRIs
(PRWEB) August 26, 2005
I am writing in response to local stories in the press concerning the untimely and tragic deaths of persons prescribed anti-depressants or SSRIs.
The organization that I represent, the Citizens Commission on Human Rights Bhm (CCHR), has investigated not only the suicidal ideation associated with anti-depressants, but also the senseless violence perpetrated by those taking these prescribed drugs, I offer these facts to consider:
A 1998 British report revealed that at least 5% of SSRI (Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitor antidepressant) patients suffered "commonly recognized" side effects that included agitation, anxiety and nervousness.
In 1995, nine Australian Psychiatrists reported that patients had slashed themselves or become preoccupied with violence while taking SSRI's.
In The Lancet, the British medical journal, Dr. Miki Bloch reported on patients who became suicidal and homicidal after stopping an antidepressant, with one man having thoughts of harming "his own children".
In the 80s and 90s, antidepressants were marketed as “a designer medical bullet” with the claim that they were virtually free of side effects. Fourteen years later, the public was finally warned that neurological disorders, including disfiguring facial and body tics were potential effects, and that the drugs cause suicidal and violent behavior.
A further FDA (Food and Drug Administration) Public Health Advisory on the use of antidepressant drugs was released on 1 July 2005. The Advisory said, "Adults whose symptoms worsen while being treated with antidepressants, including an increase in suicidal thinking or behavior, should be evaluated by their health care professional."
In a recent interview Bob Whitaker, author of Mad In America: Bad Science, Bad Medicine, and the Enduring Mistreatment of the Mentally Ill stated that, “Stephen Hyman, a well-known neuroscientist and the former director of the National Institute of Mental Health, wrote a paper in 1996 that looked at how psychiatric drugs affect the brain. He he notes that the brain, in response to this drug from the outside, alters its normal functions and goes through a series of compensatory adaptations.
If you give someone an antidepressant, and that tries to keep serotonin levels too high in the brain, it does exactly the opposite. It stops producing as much serotonin as it normally does and it reduces the number of serotonin receptors in the brain. So someone who is on an antidepressant, after a time ends up with an abnormally low level of serotonin receptors in the brain. And here's what Hyman concluded about this: After these changes happened, the patient's brain is functioning in a way that is "qualitatively as well as quantitatively different from the normal state."
So what Stephen Hyman, former head of the NIMH, has done is present a paradigm for how these drugs affect the brain that shows that they're inducing a pathological state”
Ultimately antidepressants are not the answer to the riddles of a mentally troubled individual and in the final analysis can often contribute or even worsen an individuals state of mind.
Chris Wrapson (Volunteer)
Media Relations Officer
Citizens Commission on Human Rights Birmingham
Chris@cchr. org. uk or info@cchr. org. uk
07793 285 784 or 0121 523 8185
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