Gun violence in schools has actually gone down since 1992, while violence in general has gone up in schools! If a majority of the school shooters were on (or had abruptly stopped taking) anti-depressants then it stands to reason that most of the other violence in schools may be related to these drugs as well! I have read a lot about the Oregon shootings and how Kip Kinkle had been on prozac. I had heard that, but now a Vermont Outdoors writer has said that "Just about every massacre that occurred anywhere in the U.S. and Canada over the last decade has involved an individual using a prescription drug called Prozac or one of its relatives."
As has already been well reported, the shooter at Virginia Tech had been taking anti-depressants. He had been interviewed by police twice in the previous two years for apparently harrassing young women on campus, as was referred for a psychiatric evaluation which in turn led to the prescription.
Although Tom Cruise has been almost literal run out of Hollywood on a rail, for his comments against the over dependance of anti-depressants by doctors, it's high time that we stop the train and take a serious look at these problems, and the deadly backlash they seem to be creating.
Many have pointed out how deeply felt this tragedy has become to the people of America, while noting that we seem unable to have a similar outpouring of simpathy for all those American families who've lost children to the Iraq War even when were talking about 100 Times as many people. We're losing as many of our sons and daughters in Iraq as we lost on Tuesday every ten days. The Iraq people are losing that many people Every. Single. Day.
CBS News: “A parked car bomb detonated in a crowd of workers at a Shiite marketplace in Baghdad on Wednesday, killing at least 82 people, police and hospital officials said. The attack was one of four bombings in Baghdad on Wednesday afternoon, which killed at least 127 people in total, officials said.”
That death toll eventually rose to 157.
I understand, as many of us should, that their is a known risk in going into war, the risk of being killed, maimed and permenently injured is well known to our troops and their families - hence they are far better prepared for the worst if it should happen than the Virginia Tech students and families. But there is another risk and danger that is often overlooked, that of becoming mentally injured by the stress that soldiers have to endure. The fact is that repeated deployments and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, as well as the prescription of anti-depressants to active duty soldiers, are leading our troops into record breaking levels of suicide.
Twenty-two U.S. troops committed suicide in Iraq last year, accounting for nearly one in five of all non-combat deaths and the highest suicide rate since the war started, the newspaper said.
Some service members who committed suicide in 2004 and 2005 were kept on duty despite clear signs of mental distress, sometimes after being prescribed antidepressants with little or no mental health counseling or monitoring, the Courant reported. Those findings conflict with regulations adopted last year by the Army that caution against the use of antidepressants for "extended deployments."
"I can't imagine something more irresponsible than putting a soldier suffering from stress on (antidepressants), when you know these drugs can cause people to become suicidal and homicidal," said Vera Sharav, president of the Alliance for Human Research Protection, a New York-based advocacy group. "You're creating chemically activated time bombs."
What's going to happen when these troops finally do come home damaged and drug-addled with Luvox and Proloft? I'm sorry but I for one have to again state what I was screaming back in 1999 which might not seem quite so obvious: What we've just witnessed in Blacksburg is NOT GOING TO BE THE LAST MASSACRE WE'RE GOING TO EXPERIENCE over the next few years.
Watching 10,000 students all shouting "HOKIES!" together was truly moving. Yet, I can't help what might happen if we could put together a similar vigil for those who've needlessly died in Iraq, and for those who've yet to succumb to the sucking chest wound that needless and unneccesary War has left on our nation's integrity, common sense, good name and youth.
Vyan
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