It’s interesting to see how the media has repeatedly attempted to nonsensically blame guns for school shootings while ignoring the fact that most of the shooters have been mentally unstable and on antidepressants. But the truth usually comes out eventually, and in this case, it’s ugly:
Antidepressants can raise the risk of suicide, the biggest ever review has found, as pharmaceutical companies were accused of failing to report side-effects and even deaths linked to the drugs.
An analysis of 70 trials of the most common antidepressants – involving more than 18,000 people – found they doubled the risk of suicide and aggressive behaviour in under 18s. Although a similarly stark link was not seen in adults, the authors said misreporting of trial data could have led to a ‘serious under-estimation of the harms.’
For years families have claimed that antidepressant medication drove their loved ones to commit suicide, but have been continually dismissed by medical companies and doctors who claimed a link was unproven.
The review – the biggest oif its kind into the effects of the drugs – was carried out by the Nordic Cochrane Centre and analysed by University College London (UCL) who today endorse the findings in an editorial in the British Medical Journal (BMJ).
After comparing clinical trial information to actual patient reports the scientists found pharmaceutical companies had regularly misclassified deaths and suicidal events in people taking anti-depressants to “favour their products”.
“It is absolutely horrendous that they have such disregard for human lives.” Professor Peter Gotzsche, Nordic Cochrane Centre
Yes, it is. And to think that some people think that we should defer to scientists and allow them to run society as they think it should be ordered when they are observably some of the most coldly self-serving people on the planet.
Needless to say, this isn’t the only “unproven link” that will be proven one day, or the only one that will show the average grant-chasing scientist to be less trustworthy than your average used car salesman. I mean, look at this!
So far this month there have been at least 35 inquests with deaths linked to antidepressants. Last year there were more than 450. “I can say, hand on heart, that I don’t remember reading a report of an inquest where a suicide verdict was applied to a child who had never been on any psychiatric medication,” he said.