posted March 07, 2008 09:05 PM         

There were rumors in the office today that the boy who killed himself was on anti-depressants (see article here: http://www.naturalnews.com/022743.html ) and he may have picked out her truck because of its size and weight and the probability that his vehicle would be completely destroyed

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Blaine teen kills self, badly injures other driver

Star Tribune
Home | Local + Metro
Last update: March 7, 2008 - 5:20 PM

A Blaine High School sophomore wrote a suicide note, got behind the wheel of a car and crashed head-on into an oncoming SUV in Blaine.

Now the 16-year-old boy is dead and the other driver, a 38-year-old woman, is hospitalized in serious condition, authorities said Friday.

The collision happened shortly after 4:30 Thursday afternoon on Main Street, east of Lexington Avenue, a largely remote stretch of road, said Anoka County Sheriff's Capt. James Stuart.

Authorities said the boy, of Ham Lake, may have intentionally driven his Dodge Intrepid into oncoming traffic on the 55 mile-per-hour stretch of roadway and caused the head-on collision, picking out the woman and her SUV at random. He had left a suicide note at his home, Stuart said.

The woman, of Lino Lakes, couldn't be interviewed yet, authorities said. She suffered broken legs and other broken bones, but her injuries appeared to be non-life threatening, Sheriff's Sgt. Paul Lenzmeier said. She was extricated from her vehicle and taken to Hennepin County Medical Center.

Identities of the drivers have yet to be released.

The boy was described as a "good school citizen" who was active in football and baseball at Blaine High, said Anoka-Hennepin School District spokeswoman Mary Olson.

Both Stuart and Lenzmeier said they've never seen such a suicide before. Often, people who commit suicide in vehicles hit stationary objects such as bridge abutments or drive off dead-end roads. They don't typically put someone else in such danger, Lenzmeier said.

"There's huge repercussions on that. I don't know. I don't know the mindset of this young individual," Lenzmeier said.

"You never know, you're driving down the road at 4:30 in the afternoon, probably heading home, a lot of things on your mind -- what you're going to cook for dinner and what not -- and you have a car that, at 55 miles an hour, you don't have a whole lot of time to react."

It's different than someone slowly drifting across the center line accidentally, he said: "If it was an intentional act, she really didn't have a chance."

posted March 09, 2008 10:42 AM         

There's this going on too:

NaturalNews.com printable article
Originally published March 6 2008
MOTHERS Act Seeks to Drug Expectant Mothers with Antidepressants to "Treat" Postpartum Depression
by Mike Adams

(NaturalNews) A new law being considered in the U.S. Congress would attempt to prevent postpartum depression in new moms by drugging them with SSRI antidepressant drugs while they're still pregnant. This legislation is being aggressively pushed by pro-pharma front groups in an effort to expand the customer base for SSRI drugs by targeting pregnant women as new "customers" for the chemicals. It's an example of the latest insanity from Big Pharma, whose drugs are already killing over 100,000 Americans each year while inciting violence and suicides in teens. Every single shooting massacre we've seen in the last ten years has been carried out by a person taking SSRI antidepressant drugs. The mainstream media pays no attention to this link, and the FDA ignores the reports in order to keep these drugs on the market.

SSRI drugs have never been approved for use on newborns, yet this new MOTHERS Act will effectively drug unborn babies and newborns with drugs like Prozac. This will certainly have an impact on their developing brains, and the bulk of the research available today shows that the impact will be negative. Will these children be more prone to violent thoughts and behavior? Will they contemplate suicide at younger ages? And what will be the impact of the drugs on the mother?

For one mother who was drugged with antidepressants -- Amy Philo -- the drugs caused her to experience thoughts of violence against her own newborn babies. After taking antidepressants prescribed by her doctor, she had visions of killing them (and herself). Upon returning to her doctor, Amy was told to increase the dosage! Eventually, Amy realized the drugs were wrecking her own brain chemistry, and she stopped taking the pills entirely, causing the thoughts of violence and suicide to subside.

Now, Amy is leading a campaign to stop the MOTHERS Act. She's posted a heart-wrenching 5-minute video on YouTube that tells her story (with pictures of her babies, too!): http://youtube.com/watch?v=LQW23XCmOCw

A local news station also covered her story, and that report can be viewed here: http://youtube.com/watch?v=W4B8I_8wz6I

An article explaining more about the effort to stop the MOTHERS Act is found here: http://birthfriend.wordpress.com/2008/0...

As you'll learn from these videos and articles, the real purpose of the MOTHERS Act is to drug the mothers. Thus, it should really be called the Drug the MOTHERS Act! It's being pushed by drug companies, of course, and backed by psychiatrists and corrupt government officials who have close ties to the pharmaceutical industry. The whole point of this act is not to protect mothers from depression, but to recruit mothers as patients and, by doing so, also expose newborns to psychiatric drugs that will destroy their normal brain function and turn them into lifelong customers requiring ongoing chemical treatment.

We must stop the MOTHERS Act. It is a dangerous law created for marketing purposes, not medical purposes. Treating pregnant women with antidepressant drugs (and thereby exposing their unborn babies to those drugs) is one of the most outrageous pro-pharma ideas to come along in many years. It's not enough to drug the teenagers and children with these dangerous pharmaceuticals, now Big Pharma wants to start drugging children before they're even born!

If this law is passed and implemented, I fear for the future of our babies. Imbalanced by these dangerous pharmaceuticals, mothers are likely to commit acts of extreme violence against their children. Then they will be thrown into the prison system, of course, where they will be drugged with yet more psychiatric drugs (generating yet more profits for Big Pharma). Their children, meanwhile, will be taken away by Child Protective Services and treated with psychiatric drugs under the care of a "psychiatric doctors" who, of course, will poison that child's brain with a never-ending regimen of Big Pharma's chemicals. Do you see the scam here? By "screening" pregnant women for depression, they can create TWO new patients for psychiatric drugs, even though a family is destroyed in the process.

This is precisely the aim of Big Pharma: Sell more drugs, create more markets, and earn more profits regardless of the cost in human suffering. Big Pharma has zero concern for families and zero compassion for human beings. It only seeks to poison the minds of the people through television advertising and psychiatric drugs, all while maximizing its own profits.

What you can do to stop the MOTHERS Act
We must work together to stop this dangerous act that would recruit mothers to be treated with dangerous psychiatric drugs (while exposing their unborn babies to those same drugs).

Sign the petition: http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/stop-t...

Also, see Unite For Life at: http://uniteforlife.org/MOTHERSact.htm#...

By the way, this is not an article about pro-life vs. pro-choice on the issue of unborn babies, and I use the term "unborn babies" in a purely humanitarian sense, because a child that's in the womb and about to be born is clearly an "unborn baby" whose health must be protected. I am opposed to the drugging of mothers during any trimester. Pharmaceuticals simply do not belong in expectant mothers. Those pharmaceuticals pass straight through to the blood of the fetus. Regardless of whether you're pro-life or pro-choice on the issue of abortion, I hope you agree that pregnant women should not be drugged with antidepressants!

Press release from UNITE / CHAADA
UNITE / CHAADA / ICFDA / COPES Foundation Objection to the Proposed MOTHERS Act - Bill before Senate Puts Young Children and Mothers in Serious Danger

To the HELP Committee of the United States Senate:

For years, the March of Dimes has warned not to use meds while pregnant. Why now encourage mothers to take drugs?

Please register this extreme objection to the proposed MOTHERS Act (S. 1375) which is now before you in committee. It is my earnest hope that you will immediately defeat this bill in committee. The bill has been brought to you under the guise of ensuring safety or support for new mothers; however, nothing could be further from the truth.

The bill was originally proposed in response to the death by suicide of Melanie Stokes, a pharmaceutical rep. who took her own life by leaping from a balcony several stories off of the ground. Contrary to popular understanding it was not post-partum depression that killed Melanie, but the numerous antidepressant drugs she was taking, which the FDA confirmed double the suicide risk.

Nobody is suggesting that new moms do not ever experience mood swings, depression, or even psychotic episodes. The more important issue is what the effect of this bill will be and why nobody is addressing potential methods of prevention. Everyone knows how many young moms experience gestational diabetes, but who is addressing the even higher rate of gestational hypoglycemia, which often initially manifests as depression? This is a physical condition that is treated with diet and is exacerbated by antidepressants (which list hypoglycemia as a side effect).

To simply screen women for post-partum mood disorders and ensure that they get "treatment," we would be setting families up for the expectation of tragedy and increasing the chances of that actually happening when we refer them to medical "professionals" who are oblivious to the negative mind-altering effects of psychiatric drugs. A popular opinion among medical caregivers these days is that "post-partum mood disorders" must be a sign of an underlying biochemical imbalance and would be corrected with drugs.

Current drugs used on post-partum women include SSRIs, atypical antidepressants, and even antipsychotic drugs. These pose a significant risk to the immediate safety and health of women as well as their children and families. SSRIs carry a black box warning for suicide and the most popular one, Effexor (the same medication Andrea Yates was taking when she drowned her 5 children), has the words “homicidal ideation” listed as a side effect. Nearly every recent case of infanticide which has made news can be clearly linked back to a psychiatric drug. These drugs endanger babies and mothers.

Additionally, the drugs can be extremely addictive and also pose a risk to nurslings or babies exposed in subsequent pregnancies. Some babies have died from SIDS linked to exposure from pregnancy or nursing; others have experienced coma, seizures, GI bleeding, heart defects, lung problems, and many babies died before reaching full term or soon after birth.

The bill does not address the fact that studies show that biological agents (antidepressants for example) cited in the bill and already prescribed to pregnant women can cause congenital heart birth defects where children have had to undergo open-heart surgeries to correct this. Also, some babies are being born with organs outside their bodies, requiring immediate surgery.

In closing I want to re-emphasize the total lack of any real answer to post-partum depression posed by this bill. If we can prevent post-partum depression or support moms through it, or offer proven SAFE and EFFECTIVE natural alternatives to dangerous drugs, then we should. However we should never, ever become party to a pharmaceutical campaign to push drugs on the public. We will set ourselves up for disaster if we allow an invasion into the privacy of every family in the country and suggest to our most vulnerable citizens that they might be mentally ill.

We must do everything in our power to protect innocent children, and giving their mothers addictive drugs which pose a significant risk of causing suicide and violence does not protect anyone. It does cause the child to become addicted while still in the womb and sets up drug dependence which can be lifelong.

We still have no idea what effect most drugs have on developing brains. It might take decades for the impact on the developing brain to become apparent.

For information on the research pertaining to the risks of antidepressants and other treatments for new moms and their babies, details about the Melanie Stokes case (or you can read the letter by Dr. Ann Blake Tracy at http://uniteforlife.org/MOTHERSact.htm#...), as well as information on prevention strategies and safe, effective treatments for post-partum mood disorders, please contact us.

Sincerely,

Amy Philo
Founder, www.uniteforlife.org
Co-Founder, www.chaada.org

Camille Milke
Founder, www.copesfoundation.com
New Mexico State Director of the ICFDA http://www.drugawareness.org/home.html
Mother of a victim of psychiatric drug-induced suicide and grandmother to a now motherless child

Dr. Ann Blake Tracy
Executive Director of the ICFDA http://www.drugawareness.org/home.html
Author of Prozac: Pancaea or Pandora? Our Serotonin Nightmare

------------------
The truth is ... everything counts. Everything. Everything we do and everything we say. Everything helps or hurts; everything adds to or takes away from someone else. ~ Countee Cullen

posted March 09, 2008 12:05 PM         

Your feelings, and question, aren't inappropriate at all
As one of the sherriffs in the article said, people who commit suicide by vehicle usually crash into things like bridge abutments. But the boy who ran into her was barely more than a child, and teenagers can be enormously self-centered, not thinking about the welfare of others. And a quote from the site of a mom who lost her daughter to SSRI-induced suicide: "Suicide is not Chosen; it happens when pain exceeds the resources for coping with pain."

GG ~

You and I are on the same wavelength I posted that article on the "Mothers Act" by Mike Adams (along with my rant) in H&H and GU yesterday.....
http://www.linda-goodman.com/ubb/Forum16/HTML/003859.html

Here's a related subject in the news this morning:

Reliance on antipsychotics, especially at nursing homes, is under fire.
By WARREN WOLFE, Star Tribune
Last update: March 9, 2008 - 9:52 AM

It's hard to believe when you meet the vibrant 94-year-old Meta Miller today. But then her daughter Carol Johnson begins describing just how bad it got as she struggled to manage her mom's dementia at home for seven weeks before Thanksgiving in 2006.

"She would roam the house all night with her cane, talking to imaginary people, knocking things down, yelling at me, accusing me of horrible things -- my own mom," Johnson recalled with tears. "And it just got worse when she went to the first nursing home. That's when she started screaming."

To cope, thousands of nursing homes nationwide are doing what a hospice program and then a nursing home did for Miller: using powerful antipsychotic drugs to quiet disruptive people with dementia -- at times a step that's easier and cheaper than taking staff time to fix the problem.

The practice is alarming Medicaid officials. Last year, they ordered state nursing home inspectors to crack down on it.

Of the state's 398 nursing homes, 38 percent were cited last year for using such medications inappropriately, up from 27 percent in 2006.

So dangerous are the drugs that the Food and Drug Administration requires some to carry a "black box warning" that they heighten risk of death for older patients, a warning that it might extend to all antipsychotic drugs. They also increase the risk of confusion and falling.

The drugs often are prescribed whether the resident is psychotic or not.

In Minnesota, antipsychotic drugs are given routinely to 32 percent of Minnesota nursing home residents with dementia and behavior problems -- and to 15 percent of residents who don't have that diagnosis, the state Department of Health reported.

Antipsychotic drugs have become the No. 1 drug paid for by Medicaid, which regulates and pays for most nursing home care. They are prescribed for about 30 percent of all nursing home residents.

Coping with combative, irrational and sometimes violent behavior of confused people with dementia is among the most difficult situations for nursing homes and families.

Sometimes the drug treatment helps, said Dr. Robert Sonntag, an aging specialist with HealthPartners' division of geriatric services. He works in 16 nursing homes, including Beverly LivingCenter-Hopkins, where he is medical director and Meta Miller's physician.

"But sometimes, as with Mrs. Miller, it makes people worse -- either more agitated or drugged into a stupor, much more likely to fall and break a hip," Sonntag said.

A rush to use drugs

It's easy to understand why an aide might want a resident drugged after being bitten, scratched or bludgeoned -- or seeing another resident attacked.

"You might use antipsychotics to treat schizophrenia or paranoia in older people. But you use the lowest effective dose, monitor closely for side effects and you start planning to reduce the dosage or stop it," Sonntag said.

"You don't use antipsychotics just for Alzheimer's, and you never, ever drug a patient to just make life easier for the staff or the family," he said. "It's the team approach -- doc, nurse practitioner, staff, family, maybe a psychologist -- to make this work."

Unless the resident is combative because of a mental illness such as paranoia, there's almost always a better way to control disruptive behavior in someone with dementia than with drugs, said John Brose, a Minneapolis psychologist who consults at more than 100 nursing homes, including Hopkins.

"Usually, that person is trying to communicate something -- I'm too cold, too hot, constipated, frightened, tired, thirsty," he said. "Figure that out, then deal with the real problem."

He counsels staff members to back off for a time or try to distract residents with their favorite foods, music, photos, conversation or activities while identifying and removing the real problem.

With Miller -- no longer in hospice care -- it now appears her combativeness and agitation may have been caused primarily by modest dementia, pain in her swollen legs from congestive heart failure, severe deafness and constipation.

It was the growing use of antipsychotic drugs that prompted last year's order by Medicaid officials that state nursing home inspectors get tough on use of unnecessary or inappropriate medications -- a violation of federal rules.

Last year the state offered training on the issue to nursing home workers and inspectors.

"I've had more distress calls from nursing homes about that rule than anything else," said Darrell Shreve, director of regulation and research at the Minnesota Health and Housing Alliance, a nursing home trade group.

Use of antipsychotic drugs in the elderly extends far beyond nursing homes.

In Minnesota, nearly 8 percent of people 80 and older are given antipsychotic drugs -- six times the general population -- the Minnesota Council of Health Plans reported last month.

Vicious woman to queen bee

Meta Miller threw up her hands and grinned when she spotted Sonntag.

"The year, the month and the day, that's what you asked me -- and I got them all right," she bragged recently, describing part of a memory test Sonntag gave her two days earlier.

But 15 months ago she was a wreck.

A widow living alone in her Brooklyn Center home of 52 years, Miller was falling indoors and out, leaving the stove on, forgetting to eat and losing weight. And she was entertaining invisible visitors, some sporting prom dresses.

That's when her daughter took Miller into her home. Miller's doctor approved hospice care because she appeared to be dying.

"It was bad from the start because Mom was always in charge of everything, but now was pretty confused," Johnson remembered. "Then the hospice program started giving her Haldol to calm her, and it got worse. She was vicious."

The antipsychotic drug apparently exacerbated her agitation. After weeks of staying up nights while her mother berated her, Johnson admitted Miller to a nursing home.

"They kept her on Haldol and couldn't handle her. They'd call me about Mom, and I could hear her screaming in the background. They sent her to a hospital psych ward."

After 10 days -- now on a new generation antipsychotic called Seroquel that also didn't help -- Miller was moved to the Hopkins home and met Sonntag.

"The first thing I do with new patients is look at their medications and ask why," Sonntag said.

"Most people in nursing homes are overmedicated -- heck, most older people are overmedicated -- and not just on antipsychotics," he said. "The most dangerous drug in nursing homes is Coumadin," a blood thinner to prevent strokes and heart attacks. "But the risks are huge -- bleeding, drug interactions, dizziness, loss of appetite."

He began weaning her from Seroquel and other drugs, and Miller blossomed.

"She's kind of the queen bee of the dementia unit," said nurse Joan Sang, co-director of Miller's dementia unit. "We communicate with her by writing notes. She reads the newspaper, talks to everybody and feels bad for the 'old people' who wander into her room."

More typical of Sonntag's patients is Helen Ross, 100, with advanced dementia, who had knocked down and hurt two aides and resisted help with care. He removed a range of drugs, including an antidepressant that had worsened her appetite and confusion.

"Sometimes she knows me, sometimes not, said her son, Gerald, his arm around his mother's shoulder during a visit at Camilia Rose Care Center in Coon Rapids. "Without the drugs, she's much more calm, much more stable. At this stage, that's all we can ask for."

Back at Hopkins, while watching her mother give a visitor a high-five to celebrate "a wonderful day," Johnson heaped praise on the nursing home and on Sonntag.

"She's a changed woman. We didn't know enough to question the drugs they were giving Mom before," she said. "We learned the hard way."

posted March 09, 2008 04:56 PM         

What we need are more educated psychiatrists and researchers determining exactly what illness a person has, if any, and less GP's prescribing medication when they've had maybe a 6 week rotation in psychology - that is resulting in overmedication of our society. My GP prescribed me an antidepressant once without me even asking, and giving her extremely vague details (and in fact it's not anti-depressants that I need) . That's dangerous. It happens a lot, too.

posted March 11, 2008 05:19 PM         

In almost every case, the person had either just started a new SSRI medication, or had just gotten off of them.

I'm not saying that those drugs should never be used, but anyone who gets involved with those drugs--which ARE designed to mess with the brain--needs to be closely watched. But that's not likely as many who prescribe them, take them, and the like are looking more for convenience than for real solutions.

posted March 11, 2008 05:40 PM         

Ritalin isn't an amphetamine, but it is in a similar class:

DRUG CLASS AND MECHANISM: Methylphenidate is a medication that stimulates the central nervous system (brain) in a manner that is similar to the amphetamines; however, its actions are milder than those of the amphetamines. An additional difference is that methylphenidate produces more noticeable effects on mental activities than on motor activities. Methylphenidate and amphetamines both have abuse potential. In treating children with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), methylphenidate produces a calming effect. This results in a reduction in hyperactivity and an improvement in attention span. Methylphenidate was approved by the FDA in 1955.

Update on my coworker who was injured in the crash, from her boss: