November 20, 1986: Rod Mathews, 14, beat a classmate to death with
a bat in the woods near his house in Canton, Massachusetts. Though Rod was
extremely bright, he was put on Ritalin when he was in third grade.
February 19, 1996: Timmy Becton, 10, grabbed his three-year-old
niece as a shield and aimed a shotgun at a sheriff’s deputy who
accompanied a truant officer to his Florida home. Becton had been taken to
a psychiatrist in January to cure his dislike of school and was put on a
psychiatric drug, Prozac. His parents said that when the dosage of the
drug was increased, Timmy had violent mood swings and that he would
"get really angry…"
May 21, 1998: Kip Kinkel, a 15-year-old at Thurston High School in
Springfield, Ore., murdered his parents and then proceeded to school where
he opened fire on students in the cafeteria, killing two and wounding 22.
Kinkel had been prescribed both Ritalin and Prozac.
April 16, 1999: Shawn Cooper, a 15-year-old-sophomore at Notus
Junior-Senior High School in Notus, Idaho, was taking Ritalin when he
fired two shotgun rounds, narrowly missing students and school staff.
April 20, 1999: Eric Harris, an 18-year-old senior at Columbine High
School, killed a dozen students and a teacher before taking his own life.
Prior to the shooting rampage, he had been under the influence of Luvox.
May 20, 1999: T.J. Solomon, a 15-year-old at Heritage High School
in Conyers, Ga., was being treated with Ritalin for depression when he
opened fire on and wounded six classmates.
AS THE USE OF PSYCHIATRIC DRUGS RISE – SO TOO DO CHILD
SUICIDES
A November 1997 medical report found: "The association between
benzodiazephine use and attempted suicide is especially high for…the
young, and for males…" In the April 1996 Australian and New
Zealand Journal of Psychiatry, a study found that "the older
tricyclic antidepressants are a significant cause of suicide" and
accounted for the majority of antidepressant deaths studied between 1986
and 1990.
A December 1996 French study entitled, "Suicide and
psychotropic drugs," established that "suicide attempts are more
frequent among patients taking antidepressants…"
In Denmark, with a huge usage of psychotropic drugs, the suicide
rate is twice the rate of that in the United States…
In the U.S., teen suicides have tripled since 1960; today,
suicide is the second leading cause of death…
In Israel, between 1981 and 1994, the estimated suicide rate for
15- to 19-year-old Jewish boys increased by about 183 percent. (Tellingly,
the suicide rate dropped 10 percent during a 1997 period when Israel’s
psychologists went on strike.)
Australia’s suicide rate increased between 1960 and 1967 when
legislation was passed to enable a person to obtain multiple prescriptions
for sedatives. When the law was modified in 1967 to restrict the practice,
there was a decrease in per capita sedative usage and a decline in suicide
rates.
