Navy Yard Shooter on Psych Drugs
We now know that Aaron Alexis, the 34-year-old man accused of killing 12 people in a gun rampage at the Washington Navy Yard September 16, was taking psychiatric drugs known to cause violence and suicide.
The New York Times reported that Alexis had been prescribed Trazodone (brand name Desyrel), an antidepressant that carries an FDA black box warning for suicide, and is documented to cause mania and violent behavior.
Lawmakers and other government and military officials refuse to give credence to evidence showing that psychiatric drugs cause violence, ensuring that mass shootings will continue.
You can help by contacting your local, state and federal officials and asking them to investigate the connection between violence and psychiatric drugs. You might also consider contacting the Naval Criminal Investigative Service to express your opinion.
The FDA’s MedWatch system reveals that between 2004-2011, there were 14,656 reports of psychiatric drugs causing violent side effects. You can read FDA information about Trazodone here. The FDA admits that less than 1 percent of all serious events are ever reported, so the actual number of harmful side effects is most certainly higher.
Psychiatrists, in both their research for drug manufacturers and in their public statements, cover up the very serious risks of psychotropic drugs. This is misleading to the FDA and it is lying to patients. It places millions of people at risk when psychiatrists prescribe dangerous, suicide-inducing drugs for subjective disorders that cannot be medically proven. The FDA should not be approving drugs for any condition in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders until these “disorders” can be substantiated by some form of blood test, x-ray or other physical test — which they can’t.
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