HE LIED, 150 DIED

I am not against the manufacture and sale of psychotropic drugs. These medications have helped millions of people deal successfully with mental disorders ranging from mild depression to severe psychoses such as schizophrenia. What I am against is the increasingly wholesale prescription of these drugs to those under the age of 25, when the brain is still maturing. This must be done very carefully to insure these young patients are, per a Food and Drug Administration warning, regularly monitored for behavioral changes by both the attending physician AND caregiver(s) of the patient.

What do I mean by “wholesale prescription?” Here’s an example. The granddaddy of anti-depressants on the market today is Prozac, a product of Eli Lilly. It first came on the market in 1989. In 2010, 24 MILLION prescriptions for Prozac and its generic cousin (fluoxetine) were written just in the U.S. alone. Wow, from zero to 24 million in just 21 years. And Prozac is no longer the most prescribed anti-depressant; it is #3. The #1 and #2 spots are held by Zoloft/generic and Celexa/generic, respectively. Do you think that these potentially dangerous, to those under 25, psychotropic drugs are being over prescribed? I do. And they are wrecking havoc both here and abroad.

Andreas Lubitz was born in Germany on December 18, 1987 and died by suicide on March 24, 2015. In 2009, at the age of 21, he was diagnosed with severe depressive disorder and treated with psychotherapy to include taking two powerful anti-depressant drugs, Mirtazapine and Cipralex (aka Lexapro). Both of these drugs qualify for the following warning by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, quoted verbatim from its website:

[5/2/2007] “The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) today proposed that makers of all antidepressant medications update the existing black box warning on their products’ labeling to include warnings about increased risks of suicidal thinking and behavior, known as suicidality, in young adults ages 18 to 24.” Note: Within months, this proposal became a mandatory warning.

By now, you may be asking yourself (or may already know), “Where have I heard the name Andreas Lubitz before?” He was the co-pilot of Germanwings Flight 9525 and deliberately crashed the Airbus A320 into a French mountainside, killing himself and all of the other 149 passengers and crew members on board. Since the crash occurred on French territory and it has been conclusively determined that the act was a deliberate crime, a prosecutor named Brice Robin from Marseille was appointed to investigate.

Thus far, Mr. Robin has released the following information related to his investigation:

—-Lubitz saw 41 different doctors in past 5 years.

—-He was STILL taking Mirtazapine and doubled his dosage to “help him sleep” and “keep him from going blind.” This information comes from a March 10, 2015 email Lubitz sent to one of his doctors, just two weeks prior to the crash, in which he informed the doctor that he had doubled his dosage.

—-He had 7 medical appointments in the month prior to the crash, including 3 with psychiatrists, and had taken 8 sick days in that month.

—-At least one of his doctors felt Lubitz was unstable and unfit to fly but was afraid to report it due to strict medical secrecy requirements in Germany, which can send doctors to prison if they share information unless there is clear evidence a person intends to commit a crime or harm themselves. Lubitz specifically told his doctors not to share his medical information.

—-To some extent, Lubitz’ ex-girlfriend and his mother knew of his fear of losing his vision and took him to some of his medical appointments. What either knew about his behavior is so far unknown.

All commercial and military pilots are supposed to be physically and mentally healthy and are required to take annual exams to certify those requirements. Lubitz deliberately used German law to hide his unstable and deteriorating mental health. Just as he did in 2010 when he lied on a U.S. Federal Aviation Administration questionnaire if he had ever been treated for mental health issues. He checked the “no” block on this question, and it was later changed to “yes” when Lubitz, after being challenged by the FAA, provided the FAA with a letter from his German doctor that he was completely cured of his bout with severe depression in 2009. The letter was recently published in an article in the New York Times.

Now, let’s get to the root cause of this tragedy. The drugs. Not the German medical laws which helped Lubitz conceal his mental condition, not the 41 (!!!!) different doctors with whom Lubitz saw, and not the Lufthansa cockpit security rules which allowed Lubitz to lock out the aircraft commander and leave him in sole control of the airplane. No. These are contributing factors, of course, but I submit it was the psychotropic drugs which initially set and CONTINUED TO SET Andreas Lubitz onto his path of mass homicide.

Let’s consider this research I conducted on Mirtazapine, which Lubitz started taking in 2009 and was still taking at the time he crashed the aircraft. Aside from the fact that he was first on the drug at age 21, an age the FDA warns can cause thoughts of suicide, it has other effects. From drugs.com and WebMD.com, we find this “call the doctor immediately” side effect of Mirtazapine: blurred vision, tunnel vision, eye pain or swelling, or seeing halos around lights. Then there’s these common side effects – vision changes and trouble sleeping.

What? Are you kidding me? Lubitz was taking a drug that was not only unsuccessfully treating his depression but also possibly, and I emphasize possibly, creating the vision and sleeping disorders he was complaining about and might have deepened his depression. And his deluded self-prescribed solution for his vision issues and insomnia was to double the amount of a drug which might have created these side effects in the first place. He lied, 150 died.

Side note. Mirtazapine is manufactured under the Sandoz brand, a Swiss company owned by Novartis AG, also Swiss. Sandoz is the company that discovered LSD in 1938 and brought it to market in 1947, where it was legally prescribed and sold in the U.S. until October 1968, when possession of LSD became illegal. Too late. Charles Manson and his LSD-fueled band of murderers terrorized the LA metro area in 1969.

Let’s move on to the latest mass murder, the Charleston SC killer of 9 African Americans on June 17th by 21 year old male Dylann Storm Roof. Roof was arrested in February 2015 for possession of suboxone, a drug used to treat heroin addiction. Here are the psychiatric side effects of this powerful opioid:

Common (1% to 10%): Anxiety, depression, nervousness, abnormal thinking
Uncommon (0.1% to 1%): Abnormal dreams, agitation, apathy, depersonalization, drug dependence, euphoric mood, hostility

It gets worse. While a few media outlets have briefly mentioned Roof’s arrest with suboxone, most of the media is focused instead on angles such as gun control, the Confederate Flag, racial hatred, and an act of terrorism. You have to dig more deeply to find this as reported in The Daily Beast and International Business Times on June 18, 2015.

(quote) Roof was a student at White Knoll High School in Lexington. His classmates said he was a drug user. “He used drugs heavily, a lot,” said John Mullins, who attended the same high school as Roof, told the Daily Beast. “It was obviously harder than marijuana. He was like a pill popper, from what I understood. Like Xanax and stuff like that.” (unquote) I noted that John Mullins was widely quoted in other major media outlets such as the LA Times and Fox News. What these media outlets did NOT include in publishing comments by John Mullins is the one I just posted from The Daily Beast. I wonder why? Could huge advertising revenue from the drug companies play a part in the media’s lack of or delayed reporting on the drug angle? I think it does.

Here’s the scoop from drugs.com on Xanax, a prescription psychotropic drug commonly found and sold on the black market because it is so over prescribed and readily available. “Xanax belongs to a group of drugs called benzodiazepines. It works by slowing down the movement of chemicals in the brain that may become unbalanced. This results in a reduction in nervous tension (anxiety). Do not drink alcohol while taking Xanax. This medication can increase the effects of alcohol. It is dangerous to try and purchase Xanax on the Internet. Samples of Xanax purchased on the Internet have been found to contain haloperidol (Haldol), a potent antipsychotic drug with dangerous side effects.”

Then there’s these side effects of Xanax from RxList.com:

“Call your doctor at once if you have a serious side effect such as:

•depressed mood, thoughts of suicide or hurting yourself, unusual risk-taking behavior, decreased inhibitions, no fear of danger;
•confusion, hyperactivity, agitation, hostility, hallucinations”

As yet, we don’t know what other drugs, legal or illegal, this pill-popping killer may have been taking, and we may never know if his lawyer is successful in keeping his medical records from being released publically. But it is worth noting that he started his drug habits at a very early age, probably around 15 or 16 or even earlier, given that he dropped out of high school in the 10th grade and his drug addiction was known to classmates before he dropped out.

Lubitz and Roof join a long list of young mass killers on psychotropic drugs: Columbine High School killer Eric Harris (Luvox; the medical records of co-killer Dylan Klebold have been sealed); Aurora movie theater killer James Holmes (clonazepam and generic Zoloft); Sandy Hook Elementary School killer Adam Lanza (Fanapt – a powerful anti-psychotic drug that was initially not approved by the FDA because it induced the type of behavior it was supposed to treat); Seattle shooter Aaron Ybarra (Prozac and Risperdal); Santa Barbara shooter Eliot Rodger (Xanax). If you want more detailed information about the strong, as in nearly 100% correlation between psychotropic drugs, particularly anti-depressants, and deadly violence, go to SSRIstories.org.

As a start, I have the initial suggestions to help with addressing this seemingly endless string of random violence that has hit our nation from coast-to-coast.

First, we must get a handle of how many prescriptions for psychotropic drugs are being written for patients UNDER THE AGE OF 25. I have yet to find the answer, at least through Internet searches, and I don’t think there is an answer. But the solution may be simple. DEA has a database which tracks controlled substances, ranging from Schedule I (illegal drugs such as heroin and LSD) to Schedule V (such as prescription cough medicine with codeine). Very few psychotropic drugs, Xanax is one of them, are tracked through this database as a controlled substance. Therefore, the answer is …………

ALL PSYCHOTROPIC, BOTH ANTI-DEPRESSANT AND ANTI-PSYCHOTIC, DRUG PRESCRIPTIONS WRITTEN FOR PATIENTS UNDER THE AGE OF 25 WILL BE REPORTED AS A CONTROLLED SUBSTANCE.

Expect a political push back on this proposal from not only privacy advocate groups, but two unlikely sources: the Veterans Administration, whose doctors routinely over prescribe anti-depressants for young veterans diagnosed with PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder), and universities, which respond to students who complain of stress and anxiety (finals week, etc) with anti-depressant drug prescriptions.

Secondly, as I mentioned at the outset, the FDA warning for psychotropic drugs contains this statement that “(Prescribing anti-depressants) must be done very carefully to insure these young patients are regularly monitored for behavioral changes by both the attending physicians AND caregiver(s) of the patients.” Thus, I propose that the attending physician DOCUMENTS that he or she has reviewed the patient’s caregiver structure to insure that at least someone is available to accomplish this task. I realize that the mental health industry will strongly oppose this move, but let’s get it out there and see what happens.

I’ll close with this quote from the National Institute for Mental Health, “A number of psychiatric conditions, such as schizophrenia and depression, are thought to be associated with brain dysfunctions, although the nature of such brain anomalies is not well understood.”

Reflect on that for a moment. “Thought to be” means “we don’t know for sure.” “Not well understood” means “we need more information.” Think about that when physicians routinely prescribe psychotropic drugs to treat mental disorders in young patients and how badly it can go wrong, as it has time and time again.