Sunday, April 26, 2009

7-year-old suicide victim took psychiatric drugs

The human mind is like a computer with feelings.

BASIC programmers know of the POKE command. One misstep with a POKE, and that could be the end of your machine.

POKE commands literally change a computer's memory. Psychiatric drugs do the same to a person's brain.

In fact, psychiatric drugs are worse. Experienced programmers know what POKE commands are safe to use, and which memory cells can be reset. By contrast, the cells of a human brain cannot be reset to what they were before the drugging.

This month, a 7-year-old boy in Florida committed suicide by hanging. It turns out that only weeks before this tragedy, he had been prescribed a powerful psychiatric drug - one that had been linked by the FDA to suicide in children.

In total, he had been prescribed 4 different psychiatric drugs. Three of them (Lexapro, Zyprexa, and Symbyax) weren't even approved for children - yet they are commonly prescribed to children anyway. The other drug he took was the ADHD medication Vyvanse.

Once he had this cocktail in his system, he had no chance. None. That is, unless he stopped taking these drugs. Even then, it would have taken years to recover, and parts of his mind would have been permanently lost. But he died before he was taken off the drugs.

While the boy wasn't taking the drugs, he got good grades. Problems appeared only while the druggings were taking place.

This sad story follows the 2005 passage of a state law designed to curb the use of psychiatric drugs in foster children. This law followed the discovery that 1 in 4 foster kids in Florida were being drugged with dangerous psychotropic toxins. Many feel that the law is being ignored outright - mostly by judges who order the kids drugged, against the wishes of adults who care for them.

Will this story lead to a movement against druggings? Unfortunately, that seems doubtful. Stories like this are usually swept under the rug as quickly as they appear. I'm afraid this won't be the last story like this before people finally take notice.

(Source: http://www.sun-sentinel.com/community/news/margate/sfl-boy-suicide-psychiatric-drugs-bn042209,0,2251150.story)

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