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| How antidepressants led a On the night of August 15/16 2009, Shane Clancy stabbed his friend, Sebastian Creane, to death in Bray, Co Wicklow, seriously injured his ex-girlfriend and almost killed his victim's brother. He then stabbed himself to death. He had been taking SSRI antidepressants. Police said he may have been 'overdosing'. In any case, he had been prescribed the drugs by a GP rather than a psychiatrist, after presenting with the symptoms of sadness and a broken heart after breaking up with his girlfriend. These drugs are dangerous, and they don't work. Their use has become widespread, and prescribing is uncontrolled and unmonitored, as Ali Bracken demonstrated by going undercover as a 'depressed patient' in the weeks that followed. Clancy (22) started taking medication a week before he murdered Sebastian Creane and stabbed his former girlfriend Jennifer Hannigan before killing himself. Clancy had told friends that he did not like the way the drugs made him feel and gardaí believe that he may have been misusing the medication by taking more than the recommended dosage. Dr Corry, who has a private practice in Dublin, said that the side affects of antidepressants can be severe when people initially take them. "In the first three to seven days [on antidepressants], people can feel totally out of character and worse than before. Side effects can be patients wanting to self-harm, commit suicide and harm others," he added.
"Antidepressants inhibit oxytocin, which is basically the self-love hormone. It results in an emotional numbing. People can be feeling no pain but not feeling alive either." This would not be the first case of homicide under the influence of SSRIs or SSRNIs, the modern classes of antidepressants which cost the Irish taxpayer €54 million in 2008. The shooters in the infamous Columbine High School massacre in the USA were taking SSRIs, and there are many other documented examples of of 'out of character' violence and murder, often of close family or loved ones, sometimes of work colleagues, often followed by the suicide of the perpetrator. Nonetheless, following Dr Corry's statement and Ali Bracken's exposure of how easy it is to persuade doctors to prescribe SSRIs, the usual crew of defenders of these drugs took to the airwaves and print media to decry the notion that they are implicated in this tragedy. Read our full coverage of this important and tragic sequence of events here
Michael Corry and Nuria O'Mahony on Prime Time Nuria O'Mahony, the Cork nurse and mental health campaigner whose husband killed himself while on GlaxoSmithKline's SSRI Seroxat, and Dr Michael Corry were interviewed about the dangers of SSRIs for a Prime Time programme on 8 September.
Tribune coverage lays bare The Sunday Tribune has done a great service by taking this tragedy so seriously and investigating the role of antidepressants in the double deaths of murder victim Sebastian Creane and his killer, Shane Clancy. Crime reporter Ali Bracken went undercover, detailing symptoms of mild depression to five doctors. Four prescribed her SSRIs, though she was a new patient and clinical guidelines state that these drugs should not be prescribed as a first resort for mild depression, where counselling is the appropriate first step. And on the front page of the Sunday Tribune on 4 October, Bracken reported that Shane Clancy was given a three-week supply of antidepressant medication by a pharmacy on the day before the tragic events, despite his doctor instructing he should only be supplied one week's dosage at a time because of a previous overdose. "I think every parent should ask their GP where they stand on antidepressants and in what circumstances they would prescribe them to their children. We all need to look at the relationship between doctors and pharmaceutical companies. Shane put a high dosage of chemicals into his body and I've no doubt he reacted to that. Some people take antidepressants and they don't agree with them. The consequences of that can be horrific."
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Seroxat to blame for baby's heartdefects, says US jury A family has been awarded $2.5m (€1.7m) in damages after a jury in Philadelphia decided that the British-made antidepressant Seroxat was responsible for their three-year-old son's heart defects. Senate hears condemnation of 'brutal' shock therapy
The other is Section 59, dealing with ECT. The Bill would ban the use of ECT without the consent of the patient concerned. At present, electric shock treatment is widely used on involuntary patients in mental hospitals in Ireland. The debate was adjourned without a vote, so the Bill lives to be debated further following the investigations proposed by several senators and accepted by the proposers. Now, then, is the time to write to senators and TDs demanding that they support this Bill. You can download e-mail addresses for both Dail deputies and Senators here A number of anti-ECT campaigners from around the country attended the debate, joined in a welcome act of solidarity by Professor Ivor Browne, retired Professor of Psychiatry at UCD and formerly Chief Psychiatrist of the Dublin and Eastern health region. The group included John McCarthy of Mad Pride Ireland who contested the last general election as an independent candidate representing mental health service users, Drs Michael Corry and Aine Tubridy, and authors Mary and Jim Maddock of MindFreedom Ireland. The entire debate, well worth reading, is available on the Oireachtas Eireann website here. Download the Bill here
The Final Solution: Electro Convulsive Therapy (ECT) is the deliberate administration of electric shocks to the brain. This is how it was described by the British Department of Health in 2007: "ECT is carried out under general anaesthetic, and a strong muscle relaxant is administered to patients to prevent the violent muscle spasms that the treatment would otherwise cause. The patient is strapped on their back to a flat table which, in the event of a patient vomiting, can be spun upside down.
ECT being administered
"In the presence of an anaesthetist and psychiatrist, electrodes are attached to the patients' head and the electrical voltage is administered until the psychiatrist observes the patients' toe twitch. This is a sign that the patient, despite the relaxant drugs, is convulsing. Up to 400 volts are used."
Corry slams ECT 'cover-up' by mental health agenciesIn a hard-hitting article in the Irish Medical Times, Dr Michael Corry analyses the cover-up of ECT by both the Mental Health Commission and the Inspector of Mental Health Services. Read it here
A neuroscientist's view on the effects of electro-shock Eminent neuroscientist Professor Peter Sterling is not the only brain expert to oppose the use of ECT; many neurosurgeons, neuroscientists, and neuro-biologists have condemned ECT as dangerous and irrational. But Sterling manages to sum up the case in four brief pages, well supported with references to other practitioners. Download his paper here |
