Chris Kyle dead.

[bwaites]

Bill, I just can't accept the analogy or your 100% confidence in meds.

I CERTAINLY am not 100% confident in psychiatric medications. I have never said I am, that would be in direct contradiction to anything I have actually said. I have said that blaming the meds is akin to blaming the gun. These people are ON the meds BECAUSE they already exhibit these tendencies. NOBODY puts healthy people on these meds for treatment! Perhaps my attitude is best explained by this statement; "Every medication I prescribe is a poison that I use in very small amounts for its beneficial side effects." When those side effects outweigh the benefit, then I would never subscribe to the use of those meds.

My brother had a break down while enrolled in Rice University in the late 60's. He was in Navy ROTC. Everything seemed normal, and then a break down within days of a ROTC "party". There was a suspicion that he was a casualty of the CIAs LSD program (MKUltra). I haven't found any evidence it was conducted at Rice University or not...

I do know that on some of the meds, he was fine. On some meds, he was an absolute menace.

Of course, and we don't always know which med will cause which side effect. That's a big piece of the art associated with the "Healing Arts".

I'm sure you don't intend to omit, but not everyone reacts the same to all of the meds. Some people will have adverse side effects to include undesired behaviors and/or a lack of ability to process right from wrong.

I'm not suggesting that all meds are EVIL...I get that some people need to be on meds. But I firmly believe that our society is over medicated and over vaccinated

Certainly, some people have untoward side effects. Unfortunately, our mental health system is not well equipped for that monitoring. Insurance won't pay for daily counseling and medication adjustment visits, and people won't even follow up when insurance WOULD pay!

I agree our mental health system is broke...I'll thank the ACLU for that one (patients rights). Sure, reform was needed but we ended up with no mental health institutions to speak of when we really needed to fix the abuses.

You can't ignore that the overwhelming majority of "mass murder" shootings were perpetrated teenagers or young adults who were on psychotropic meds...that has to be a huge RED FLAG.

Nope, and I don't, but once again, you must accept that these guys may very well have acted out regardless of the meds, because they have given some indication that they were in trouble to start with, thus the medications were started!


I'm with LRRPF52...I don't fully trust the "double blind" studies. I've done Operations Research...data can be manipulated.

What do you trust? At some point you have to say, this will most likely work, and we have to try it.

OK, I'm going to give you a case:

Lets say you have a soldier or Marine, recently discharged. Beautiful new wife, well set up 25 year old who got out 18 months ago after 2 tours in Afghanistan.

He was diagnosed with PTSD before discharge, after having multiple TBI's (Traumatic Brain Injuries for the uninitiated) secondary to multiple IED explosions in close proximity, (One IED where his vehicle was destroyed and two buddies killed, another a week later where an airstrike dropped 200 yards short of the designated grid, within 15 yards of his patrol.) He had other IED's go off in close proximity, but those two blasts were within a week of each other.

He doesn't feel like he has PTSD, but he admits he can't sleep at night consistently, has severe headaches and has horrible, indescribable dreams. His wife is a gem, and she says he has never once been threatening, nor has she ever felt he was threatening. He says he doesn't want to hurt himself of anyone he knows. He served as a Marine, followed orders and did his best to be a good Marine. Talking with him is really a pleasure.

But he is obviously disturbed by the sleep issues, headaches, and dreams. Most of his problem is probably TBI induced, and you can't yet make a PTSD diagnosis, though the military and VA system is convinced he has PTSD. They put him on meds, which didn't help with his sleep or headaches and didn't stop the dreams. He was released from care without any meds, which is fine, because it makes the job of evaluation easier, you don't have to worry about the meds complicating your evaluation.

IF the military, with literally THOUSANDS of veterans with the diagnosis can't figure out this PTSD and mental health issue, with essentially unlimited funds compared to the rest of health care, why would anyone else have a remote chance?

Meds aren't THE answer, the answer is way more complicated than a pill. But the meds aren't the issue, either. Just like guns don't kill people, meds don't either. The pathology has to be there to even consider starting someone on meds. Our theoretical soldier/Marine above doesn't have that pathology, at least from what is stated above. BUT....what if he did? Are you willing to do nothing, knowing that there may very well be a time bomb ticking?