Mass Shootings and Pharmaceutical Drugs, Is There a Connection?

This article first appeared in New Dawn Magazine Issue 166 January - February  2018. © Brett Lothian. All Pictures used are free use.

Mass Shootings and Pharmaceutical Drugs, Is There a Connection?

With the recent mass shooting at the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, Texas, in early November, that resulted in the deaths of 26 people, with a further 20 being injured, once more in America and across the world, the gun control debate has come to the forefront of people’s minds. Unfortunately there is one aspect of the debate that has thus far been vastly under reported, the link between these tragedies and pharmaceutical psychotropic drugs.

A classmate of Devin Kelley, the Texas shooter told Fox News that Kelley had a history of mental illness, and had been on psychiatric medication for a period of time. “His parents had him on high doses of ‘psych’ meds from 6th to 9th grade, the time I knew him,” said the student, who only wished to be identified as Reid. In 2012 Kelley had briefly escaped from a mental health facility in Santa Teresa, New Mexico, according to a Texas police report. Police found Kelley in El Paso and turned him over to New Mexico police to return him to the facility, according to the police report and whilst it has not yet been confirmed, we can safely assume that he was likely “medicated” during this period of time.

Nearly every mass shooting incident in the last twenty years, and multiple other instances of suicide and isolated shootings all share one thing in common, and it’s not the weapons used. The overwhelming evidence points to the signal largest common factor in all of these incidents is the fact that all of the perpetrators were either actively taking powerful pharmaceutical psychotropic drugs or had been at some point in the immediate past before they committed their crimes.

There has been an enduring controversy over whether psychiatric medications can trigger violent actions toward others. A review of the FDA's Adverse Event Reporting System by Thomas Moore, Joseph Glenmullen and Curt Furberg, which was published by PLoS One, found that such "adverse events" are indeed associated with antidepressants and several other types of pharmaceutical psychotropic medications.

To do their study, Moore and his collaborators extracted all serious events reports from the FDA's database from 2004 through September 2009, and then identified 484 drugs that had triggered at least 200 case reports of serious adverse events (of any type) during that 69-month period. They then investigated to see if any of these 484 drugs had a "disproportionate" association with violence. They identified 31 such drugs, out of the 484, that met this criteria.

The 31 "suspect" drugs accounted for 1527 of the 1937 case reports of violence toward others in the FDA database for that 69-month period. Antidepressants were responsible for 572 case reports of violence toward others; ADHD drugs for 108; and the hypnotic/sedatives for 97. Of the 1937 total case reports of violence toward others, there were 387 cases of homicide, 404 physical assaults, 27 cases of physical abuse, 896 reports of homicidal ideation, and 223 cases of "violence related symptoms." The adverse events reported to the FDA during this period are known to represent but a tiny fraction of all such adverse events.

In response to the latest mass shooting President Trump has been reported as saying that this “isn’t a gun situation” but rather a “mental health problem.” And he is partly correct, unfortunately the real truth isn’t that this is just a mental health problem, but a pharmaceutical drug problem.

It has been suggested by numerous researchers that these pharmaceutical psychotropic drugs may play a role in creating “Manchurian Candidate” type assassins just waiting to be “triggered” into perpetrating mass shooting events, designed to shape public opinion in aiding the destruction of America’s second amendment, which protects their right to bare arms. Whether this is true or not I cannot say, but with America’s history of mind control programs and false flag attacks, it cannot be ruled out.

References:

Texas church shooting: Gunman Devin Kelley escaped mental hospital in 2012.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-11-08/texas-shooting-gunman-devin-kelley-escaped-mental-hospital-2012/9128674

Here's What We Know About Texas Church Shooter Devin Kelley. By Tyler Durden

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-11-06/heres-what-we-know-about-texas-church-shooter-devin-kelley

Every Mass Shooting Shares One Thing In Common & It’s NOT Weapons. By Dan Roberts

https://www.ammoland.com/2013/04/every-mass-shooting-in-the-last-20-years-shares-psychotropic-drugs/

Psychiatric Drugs and Violence: A Review of FDA Data Finds a Link. By Robert Whitaker

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/mad-in-america/201101/psychiatric-drugs-and-violence-review-fda-data-finds-link