Our friend Sara Bostock was over for dinner last night, and the topic of the role of anti-depressants in rampage killings, like the recent tragedy in Illinois, came up. Sara, who lost a daughter to suicide shortly after she began taking an anti-depressant, is a founder of ssristories.com which collates public accounts of killings and other events in which anti-depressants may have been involved.
Sara believes the treatment histories and possibly other health records of rampage killers who are also suicides should be made public so that researchers can look for possible links between the use of the drugs and rampage behavior. Spouse Linda wasn’t so sure: she fears making an exception for some health records would be a slippery slope opening the way for more and more private records to be revealed.
I mention this because Sara is quoted in a story this morning in the New York Times, arguing for better access to information about rampage killers and their treatment histories. Sara has also testified before Congress on anti-depressants…
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I agree, there should be a much more open line of comunication between those in charge of the rampage killer information and scientists. I don’t think that anti-depressants should be prescribed to young adults. The negative link between the two is already well known however the FDA continues to allow doctors to prescribe potentially fatal medication.
It seems to me that much more is not being said by the administrators and the school board. What other incidents have occurred at the high school? Recently, about 4-6 weeks ago, a group of teens coordinated attempted suicides in which they took pills and other items. They were taken to various hospitals in the area. No school official has said anything about this.
The culture at the high school is one of violence-numerous fights, kids being thrown through windows, and kids being taken to hopsitals almost daily. The records bear this out; the horribly corrupt Schenectady Police Department will not make public this data because it shows that the City of Schenectady is out of control on many levels.
In fact, the idiot mayor, Brian Stratton, son of the great Congressman Sam Stratton, is worrying about adding to his $30,000 plus raise with a $3,000 proposed raise for himself and using 3.5 million federal stimulus dollars to fix a skylight in Schenectady’s City Hall, rather than correcting the drainage problems on Guilderland Avenue in Bellvue nearest Cleveland and Harrison Streets. This is a broken city and those in power need to go because they are self-serving and do not see the big picture.