A new BBC Panorama TV documentary on SSRI induced violence and other harm.

[Seriouslyscared]

Just to say that for those of us in the UK there is a new one hour BBC Panorama TV documentary airing this Wednesday the 26th of July 2017 on BBC1 at 9PM. This could well end up on YouTube afterwards as well, if the past Panorama's on what they called "The Seroxat Scandal" are anything to go by. There was also an accompanying article in The Sunday Times today on Sunday the 23rd of July 2017. The program is advertised as focusing on the violence that SSRI's can induce amongst other things, focusing on one of the recent mass shootings in the US, perpetrated by somebody who'd just been prescribed an SSRI, if I followed/can remember the TV advert correctly.

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08zjyp1

[Distraut]

An article on this topic appeared in the Daily Mail today:

 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-4726134/Can-pills-depression-turn-killer.html

 

 

[peng]

The BBC tv "Panorama" report is by our own Shelley Joffre, a straightforward, unhysterical reporter (normally..................we shall see).

She was on BBC Scotland for decades and is now appearing on the main UK network.

 

Professor David Healy also appears.  (Irish psychiatrist and historian.  He of the quote "The seratonin theory of depression is comparable to the masturbatory theory of insanity.").

A couple of months ago, my GP claimed never to have heard of him. Some of us on here will have.  His evidence was not called.

 

How would one feel 3 or 4 weeks after jumping off 150mg of an SSRI to zero?  Shudder to think, but I do not know Zoloft.

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-40719685

[powerback]

On ‎24‎/‎07‎/‎2017 at 1:22 AM, Seriouslyscared said:

Just to say that for those of us in the UK there is a new one hour BBC Panorama TV documentary airing this Wednesday the 26th of July 2017 on BBC1 at 9PM. This could well end up on YouTube afterwards as well, if the past Panorama's on what they called "The Seroxat Scandal" are anything to go by. There was also an accompanying article in The Sunday Times today on Sunday the 23rd of July 2017. The program is advertised as focusing on the violence that SSRI's can induce amongst other things, focusing on one of the recent mass shootings in the US, perpetrated by somebody who'd just been prescribed an SSRI, if I followed/can remember the TV advert correctly.

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08zjyp1

Thanks for the heads up ,I just looked at the description that is given about the programme and it says "the rare but possibly devastating side affects of antidepressants ". i believe its not even as rare as they will claim .its  a good start for primetime TV to show it ,but the bigger picture is too devastating to be known i reckon  .

anyone with sensitive triggers mite not want to watch it though ,hopefully my mother wont watch it ,she's suffered enough watching me be ripped apart by these drugs .i wont be telling her its on .

thanks again SS for the heads up

PB

[powerback]

5  minutes in and all I see coming from this is total discrimination of people on meds .there is a huge amount of other things going on in someone's brain to want to kill people

[DaddyCee]

I was astounded that the America law enforcement didn't even consider the likelihood that prescribed medication had a huge part to play in this sad and tragic act. The dose was high and to suddenly stop i.e. Cold Turkey; that would have an enormous adverse effect not too say that James Holmes was suffering from adverse reaction in the first place and this was definitely compounded by the fact that the dose was doubled twice.

 

I liked the fact that the Panorama researchers could work on a time line and could see that a pattern formed and it seemed that James Holmes deteriorated pretty quickly when starting the prescription for Sertraline.

 

Lessons must be learned that these medications are truly powerful and mind altering substances and that the practice of increasing doses often makes the primary issues worse.

 

I don't see that any changes to the way that these meds are dished out in the UK will come from this programme, but I do hope that it raises public awareness. I find it very sad that 40M prescriptions for Antidepressants were issued in the UK last year alone.  That averages out at 3.3M people on these damn things.  If as the authorities say only a small percentage of users have psychotic issues, then that number from 3.3M would still be a fair amount, wouldn't you say?

 

Namaste,

DC.

[Lyssa]

Just wondering if this is worth watching. Did anyone manage to watch it all the way through ? Like Powerback says, I'm a bit worried about it being a trigger. Especially after watching previous BBC documentaries on this recently.

[powerback]

2 minutes ago, Lyssa said:

Just wondering if this is worth watching. Did anyone manage to watch it all the way through ? Like Powerback says, I'm a bit worried about it being a trigger. Especially after watching previous BBC documentaries on this recently.

without question, don't watch it if your easily triggered at the moment ,save yourself the anxiety .I couldn't help but watch it

[Lyssa]

3 minutes ago, powerback said:

without question, don't watch it if your easily triggered at the moment ,save yourself the anxiety .I couldn't help but watch it

Thanks for the reply . I'll avoid it for the moment then.

[powerback]

8 minutes ago, DaddyCee said:

I was astounded that the America law enforcement didn't even consider the likelihood that prescribed medication had a huge part to play in this sad and tragic act. The dose was high and to suddenly stop i.e. Cold Turkey; that would have an enormous adverse effect not too say that James Holmes was suffering from adverse reaction in the first place and this was definitely compounded by the fact that the dose was doubled twice.

 

I liked the fact that the Panorama researchers could work on a time line and could see that a pattern formed and it seemed that James Holmes deteriorated pretty quickly when starting the prescription for Sertraline.

 

Lessons must be learned that these medications are truly powerful and mind altering substances and that the practice of increasing doses often makes the primary issues worse.

 

I don't see that any changes to the way that these meds are dished out in the UK will come from this programme, but I do hope that it raises public awareness. I find it very sad that 40M prescriptions for Antidepressants were issued in the UK last year alone.  That averages out at 3.3M people on these damn things.  If as the authorities say only a small percentage of users have psychotic issues, then that number from 3.3M would still be a fair amount, wouldn't you say?

 

Namaste,

DC.

of course there wont be changes DC most of the people that prescribe these drugs are ignorant .

Panorama have a lesser agenda that the lawyers so they can give an  unbiased theory .

He had previous unsettling and unnerving thoughts before the meds but without question these drugs scrambled he's brain .

most of us on this site have done more to understand the brain than the  "physiatrists "that dish these meds out .

By the sounds of it ,the prescribing of these drugs will get a lot worse ,that's very scary indeed .

With the percentage that go on to commit murder or assaults ,how many thousands are driven by suttle little changes directly attributed to the meds .

everyone on this site spreading the message through our journey and stories will do more to keep people away from this medication than these programmes but its a good start .

[peng]

Interesting and very surprising that the flamboyant, pretentious, old git psychiatrist & "expert", with the grey hair in cute little ponytail, and bow tie, thought that being off the drug for "so long" meant it could not be blamed for any role in the violence.

 

Prejudiced, moi?  You bet.

 

Possibly a hired gun.  Mind you, despite my earlier views elsewhere on this forum, we have them in the UK, too, it would appear.

[powerback]

2 hours ago, peng said:

Interesting and very surprising that the flamboyant, pretentious, old git psychiatrist & "expert", with the grey hair in cute little ponytail, and bow tie, thought that being off the drug for "so long" meant it could not be blamed for any role in the violence.

 

Prejudiced, moi?  You bet.

 

Possibly a hired gun.  Mind you, despite my earlier views elsewhere on this forum, we have them in the UK, too, it would appear.

good point about the psychiatrist peng ,its utterly ridiculous from our point of view from  being on the meds .we have experience of being on them and the affects .I'm finished ever listening to a psychiatrist ,no different than a chemist .worse actually because they claim to know what they talk about .

[mammaP]

I watched it and most of the 'experts' didn't have a clue. I was even disappointed with Healey who said that the majority of people are helped by SSRIs and he prescribes them but a MINORITY have adverse effects that lead to suicide or violence. The ones they talk about are just the tip of the iceberg. How many doctors report these side effects that patients complain about, or even take them seriously? We see so many here who have not been listened to and there must be many thousands out there with the same adverse effects who think it is their 'illness'.  It was a good documentary that really did delve deep and left us in no doubt it was the SSRI that tipped him over the edge but I wish they had an interview with Breggin on there too. 

[powerback]

I wonder if there is any serious unbiased  study's out there that's not connected to governments and big pharma ,how could they even be funded .

I doubt even the W.H.O isn't affected .

the only way it will ever change is if the tax man is being affected because so many people going on disability because of the drugs .but then again could you imagine the tax bill coming from the industry .

these drugs are here for ever ,and the only way to save and stop more suffering is some kind of genetic test to see how compatible ones system is to the drugs ,

we can never know the seriousness of these drugs ,with the way society is set up with shame and embarrassment ,discrimination ,ignorance .

it brings serious responsibility to all of us that want to get off and function normally off these drugs to show the powers that be it can be done and most of all our peers that are in the same boat

 

 

[nz11]

I'm pretty much video-ed and audio-ed out these days but I listened to it as well

I totally agree with MammaP.

Those experts were  sickening in their ignorance. Same old  'oh it cant be due to the drug he hadn't taken it for three weeks'

This is 2017 and to hear such stupiditiy is despairing.

I am also disappointed with the comment 'many people are helped ' and to allow  pharma  lies to be broadcast that 'millions have been helped' was very sad. The truth is millions have not been helped ,millions have got addicted and cannot stop and they and their doctors have no idea how to stop.

I was also disappointed that SJ ended the whole thing with  the 'many have been helped' line. She of all people has known as far back as 2001 that many have been harmed not helped.

 

[Lyssa]

My mother watched it and has told me that one of the 'experts' claimed that antidepressants are very effective for 99.9% of the people who take them (although she was worried that she'd misheard what he'd said because it sounds so unbelievable). Surely that percentage is completely incorrect ? Just wondering why he was allowed to quote that as a fact when it seems very far removed from the truth

[powerback]

5 minutes ago, Lyssa said:

My mum watched it and has told me that one of the 'experts' claimed that antidepressants are very effective for 99.9% of the people who take them (although she was worried that she'd misheard what he'd said because it sounds so unbelievable). Surely that percentage is completely incorrect ? Just wondering why he was allowed to quote that as a fact when it seems very far removed from the truth

don't put yourself into that 1% lyssa ,its a far higher percentage of people affected negatively  than they claim.

the simple fact is it would be bad for business to tell the truth .

you'll have to watch a lot more than that programme to get a clearer picture .

be very mindful when things like this make you anxious .

recovery is first .

PB

[Lyssa]

6 minutes ago, powerback said:

don't put yourself into that 1% lyssa ,its a far higher percentage of people affected negatively  than they claim.

the simple fact is it would be bad for business to tell the truth .

you'll have to watch a lot more than that programme to get a clearer picture .

be very mindful when things like this make you anxious .

recovery is first .

PB

Thanks Powerback. You're completely right. I guess these things shouldn't be surprising anymore considering everything we know. It's just upsetting when you hear something untrue being presented as fact. 

[Shep]

For those who aren't able to access the video that the OP posted because you are outside of the UK, this is now available on YouTube for everyone to see:

 

Panorama, A Prescription for Murder - video 58 minutes

[Shep]

Just like others posting on this thread, I also was not impressed. For a journalist who spent a year researching this program, I am utterly disappointed. As someone battling severe depersonalization and derealization, along with cognitive impairment, due to withdrawal, I did a much better job of researching and finding information, as do many people on these withdrawal forums. After all, we are looking for information to save our lives.

 

So what did this program do wrong? What was left out? Like others have mentioned, nothing on the rising disability rate, not much in the way of statistics relating to withdrawal and to efficacy, etc. 

 

What I know now comes from:  Robert Whitaker's statistics on the growing disability rate for people on psych drugs, Dr. Giovanna Fava's research on oppositional tolerance (i.e. tardive dysphoria and how antidepressants make transient depression chronic), Dr. Irving Kirsch's writings on SSRIs being no more relevant than a placebo, reading hundreds of case histories on withdrawal support forums describing the sheer nightmare of withdrawal syndrome, the billions of dollars in judgements the Department of Justice has obtained from pharmaceutical companies for civil and criminal lawsuits, the connection of psychiatry to the criminal justice system, and from my own tragic misdiagnosis of manic-depression and schizoaffective disorder at 17 after an exposure to imipramine, which led to 30 years of massive polydrugging. These things I already knew.

 

But if I didn't know about such things, that documentary would not have convinced me of much. When you pit one so-called "expert" against another, it always ends up with the viewer walking away confused and misinformed, especially when the statistics on the rise of disability and the rate of the mentally ill being incarcerated are left out. We are left with the knowledge that "some" people "may" have adverse reactions, but "most" people will be "happy and functional" on these drugs. 

 

That "expert" who said antidepressants help 99.9% of people?!  Hardly. Even the pharma-friendly research on PubMed paints a different story:

 

         Depression: How effective are antidepressants?

 

• Without antidepressants: About 20 to 40 out of 100 people who took a placebo noticed an improvement in their symptoms within six to eight weeks.
• With antidepressants: About 40 to 60 out of 100 people who took an antidepressant noticed an improvement in their symptoms within six to eight weeks.

According to that study, only 20% noticed an improvement over placebo. 

 

Again, this is a short-term study and doesn't even look at tardive dysphoria and the withdrawal syndrome, including PSSD which has ruined millions of marriages and broken up millions of homes. Effective? No. Profitable? Yes. 

 

However, this video IS the start of a conversation, especially since this is now coming out of the BBC and not some shady Scientology documentary. For that, I'll give it some props. But they need to do better. A LOT better. Journalists need to seek out questions about the rising disability rate and high rates of mass incarceration for mental illness and then call out these experts on such issues. These are the relevant questions when dealing with the issue of drug efficacy, safety, and violence. The reason Whitaker is so effective as a journalist is he's able to make these kinds of connections and then follow through with them. 

 

So until journalists learn how to anything but pit one expert against another in hopes that the truth will somehow weasel out, we are left in the dark ages. This is one reason it took decades for people (even doctors) to connect second-hand cigarette smoke to cancer and why tens of millions of people still don't believe in climate change.

 

The chemical imbalance theory is dead. Can't we bury it already? It's time to move onto solving the reason human beings suffer - trauma, poor nutrition, toxic chemical exposure, under-funded and over-crowded schools, lack of exercise, loneliness, income inequality, etc.  

Edited July 29, 2017 by Shep

[JanCarol]

Dang, I'm sorry to hear this came down on the side of "shut up and take your 'meds'"

[Shep]

Worse than that, JC - I'm on David Healy's twitter feed (and a few others) and it's been non-stop about how this documentary is perpetuating the stigma that the mentally ill are violent. Talk about circular reasoning and not sticking to the topic. 

 

There's also the concern that people will see this documentary and stop taking their meds and have to suffer from debilitating depression and possibly end up as suicides. 

 

And it gets worse. A lot of the internet media involves journalists who are on the drugs, like this one from the Huffington Post UK:

 

‘A Prescription For Murder’ Left Me Sad, Angry And With Very Little Respect For Panorama

 

To quote the author of the article:  "I have successfully stopped two SSRI medications successfully without any problems, and I have just finished coming off a high dose of an SNRI drug successfully with some inconvenient withdrawal symptoms, but my mood has maintained, and I have not suffered any emotional or psychological side effects to date."

 

I'm not sure I'd use the word "successfully" to describe going off one AD and ending up on another. And he sure isn't clued in on delayed withdrawal.

 

When journalists are indoctrinated, they cannot be impartial. And with so many people on psychiatric drugs, finding a journalist who isn't on one or close to someone who is (and is also indoctrinated), it's hard to find good reporting. I am becoming more and more convinced that medication spell binding is real. 

 

I had expected more of the BBC, especially since they had already done an investigation connecting seroxat (Paxil).

 

For anyone who hasn't already seen it the BBC's older documentary on seroxat, it's on YouTube:

 

Panorama: The Secrets of Seroxat - video 50 minutes

 

 

Edited July 29, 2017 by Shep

[JanCarol]

Yes, I saw the Secrets of Seroxat when it came out - it was on AussieBC.  That was my first awareness that what the Scientologists had been saying for decades (by then) had basis in reality.

 

Yes, medication spellbinding is real.

 

I watched this new BBC thing - and here's my take.  While it's not perfect - it is the FIRST TIME that we've had a MAINSTREAM media outlet even CONSIDER the possibility that these drugs cause violence.

 

The presenter came down on the side that the drugs caused the problem.  The doctors who pooh-pooh'd the theory were all Americans.  The ones who advised caution were all from the UK.  I think my main objection was that they called it a "rare" reaction.

 

I put a bunch of comments in the YouTube comment section.  For what it's worth.  YouTube comments are usually a place of brawling, but I tried.

 

I will read the HuffPost article you posted.  Thanks for all that you do.

[JanCarol]

Reading the HuffPost article - 

 

Thinking about the program - 

 

The "insanity plea" was rejected by the courts

and yet the doctors insist it was his "mental health" that made him do it.

 

Psychiatrists have too much power.

[peng]

Nice posts, JanCarol, and I saw yours on the latest MIA topic, too.  Well done on all counts.

 

Journalists are mainly journalists, they are not even up to the mark as scientific researchers, or scientists, as was I.  Having seen her on our programs since she started decades ago, Shelley Joffre is a lot cooler and more serious-minded about compiling her reports than the drama queens we see from time to time on the international media.  Spare us from them.

 

Our middle child (42) has been a journalist since before he left uni.  He has just been given a job in Barcelona with a world famous financial news organisation.  He listened to me when I droned on about scientific subjects and we exchange emails about all sorts, particularly climate change, but maybe just about our football team.  

 

He would be the first to agree that a journalist given a year to study that massively controversial and most technical story could not shape it into a form that critics on here would all be happy with.

So it was far from perfect.  The BBC and Panorama are not perfect, but they are a lot better than countless other similar organisations.

We who can think for ourselves (yes?) as victims of these drugs will have found plenty to not be happy about, but at least one more reasonable portrayal of the epidemic has been or still can be seen by millions more and has to be viewd as a positive.

[Seriouslyscared]

Interesting to read this thread about the documentary. I'm in far to bad a way to watch something like this at the moment, it would just trigger me. Something else seemingly inconsequential has just shattered the first break (dare I say window) that I'd had in nine months. Hopefully I can do so in the future along with reading the literature on this subject matter as well.

[peng]

Yes, good choice to avoid, Ss.

Hope you can improve soon.  Thinking of you.

Best wishes.

[Shep]

There's a discussion about the documentary in the British Medical Journal (BMJ):

 

Antidepressants and murder: case not closed

 

Here are the "rapid responses":

 

Antidepressants and murder: case not closed - rapid responses comments

 

Dr. David Healy's comment is here and I'll list it below, as he raises some good points. 

 

Quote

 

04 August 2017

David Healy

professor of psychiatry

 

Bangor University

Hergest Unit, Ysbyty Gwynedd

 

Dr Adshead misses the point behind this program. This was not a program attempting to prove antidepressants can cause homicide. This has already been conceded by prosecutors, regulators and company personnel. As early as 1982, Pfizer personnel had noted that this class of drug (SSRI) were known to cause these reactions.

 

Nor was it about whether sertraline caused James Holmes to commit murder. Having spent time with the man, my view is that it did, and more could have been done to persuade viewers of this.

 

The key issue was this. If it has been conceded this drug can cause events like this, and if a case could be made that it did so in this instance, why did Holmes' legal team not run it?

 

The answer in part lies in the fact that academic literature on SSRIs is almost entirely ghost-written and there is no access to the data generated by the RCTs of these drugs. The BMJ and other journals play a part in this situation. This means that to acquit Holmes. a lawyer has to persuade a jury that most academics and journals are guilty of failing to adhere to the norms of science.

 

Holmes was in a Guildford Four quandary. Paraphrasing Lord Denning in that case " If his [their] story is right, it is such an appalling vista it cannot be. Wrongfully convicted prisoners should stay in jail rather than be freed and risk a loss of public confidence in the law".

 

Holmes had a public defender. If he had been wealthy enough to afford a lawyer who relished the challenge, or if the crime was less horrific, things might have been different. The rest of us who end up on the wrong end of one of the close to 100 drugs, including respiratory, skin and cardiac drugs, that prosecutors or companies have indicated can cause violence risk ending up in the same legal quandary Holmes was/is in.

 

There have been a lot of comments, coordinated by the Science Media Centre, that this program cast aspersions on a useful group of drugs. We need to find some balance between raising alarms about a drug and ensuring we do not compromise an innocent person's right to a fair trial.

 

Competing interests: Involvement in the Panorama programme

 

 

 

 

 

Edited August 7, 2017 by Shep
fixed formatting problems with quote

[Shep]

Rxisk.org just tweeted a new article on the documentary:

 

Prescription for Murder ABCD

[Distraut]

Another good article appearing on AntiDepAware on this important documentary here:

 

The Great Myth Buster

[Dan998]

I watched this and it was mostly waffle apart from a small section towards the end of the documentary where they eluded to the fact that he had not renewed his prescription for nearly a month and was probably suffering from acute withdrawal. More sensationalist journalism that totally missed the point.

[Shep]

I posted a series of videos with Dr. Loren Mosher in conversation with Robert Whitaker over on my own thread, but I think this video also belongs on this thread. The video below was uploaded on 2006, but it was originally video taped in 2003. So the link between SSRI induced shootings has been known for a really long time by researchers and academics who came from mainstream medicine. 

 

Dr. Loren Mosher was once was chief of the Center for Studies of Schizophrenia at the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) but his work was de-funded due to his research in finding non-drug treatments for schizophrenia which are by far more effective, but not nearly as profitable. 

 

Psych Drug Pusher/Users, Antidepressants, & School Shooters video (8 minutes)

 

As Dr. Mosher states in the video:  "Every time I read of a multi-person shooting, I always presume that person had just started a SSRI or had just stopped." 

 

Now he's wrong in thinking that doctors would stop prescribing the drugs from his vantage point in 2003, but that doesn't negate the truth of what he's saying about the drugs, but rather, shows how powerful big pharma really is and how utterly corrupt the American Psychiatric Association is. 

 

Dr. Mosher summed up his thoughts on mainstream psychiatry here where he refers to the American Psychiatric Association as the American Psychopharmacological Association. 

 

Dr. Loren Mosher - Letter of Resignation from the American Psychiatric Association

 

Edited November 24, 2017 by Shep

[nz11]

Wow Shep you post some great stuff just read that resignation letter from Mosher. What I find so tragic is that that letter was written in 1998 ! I looked at the date after I read it I thought I was reading something recent. 

I just cant understand why no one is listening to the truth.

Actually Mosher alludes to this

"The fact that there is no evidence confirming the brain disease attribution is, at this point, irrelevant. What we are dealing with here is fashion, politics and MONEY. This level of intellectual /scientific dishonesty is just too egregious for me to continue to support by my membership."

 

I think I need to save your post in my intro.

nz11