When a high school or college student starts shooting, questions about his psychiatric history and medications usually follow.
The speculation sensationalizes the issues, obscuring the facts that many of these young people have serious mental illnesses that may not have been properly treated, said Dr. Jack Vaeth, psychiatrist with Sheppard Pratt Health Systems in Baltimore.
“Up to 70 percent of people on these drugs end up taking themselves off their own medication,” he said. “They don?t usually call their doctors for help when they have symptoms. They wait till they?re really in a pickle.”
Northern Illinois University shooter Steven Kazmierczak reportedly was taking a combination of Xanax, used to treat anxiety, and Ambien, a sleep aid, as well as the antidepressant Prozac. His girlfriend, Jessica Baty, said he had stopped taking Prozac three weeks before killing five students and himself at the DeKalb, Ill., campus on Valentine?s Day.
Vaeth said the drugs or their withdrawal symptoms should not be overemphasized.
In the case of Prozac, the drug has an extremely long half-life in the system, he said. Patients would not feel disabling withdrawal symptoms because the drug naturally tapers itself out of the body. “At worst,” he said, “you feel like you have a bad case of the flu.”
On the other hand, the FDA issued a warning in 2004 that 4 percent of those taking antidepressants, including Prozac, may experience suicidal thoughts as a side effect.
But someone who stops medication might slip back into symptoms of depression, he said, and that in itself can be deadly, he said, because of the risk of suicide.
Anywhere from 2 percent of people treated for depression, to 6 percent of those hospitalized for depression end up dying by suicide, according to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.
Xanax, on the other hand, has a shorter half-life ? about four hours, Vaeth said ? and can be addictive over time.
The biggest side effect of Ambien is people often do things at night they can?t remember, Vaeth said.
Others have argued that antidepressants can have serious withdrawal symptoms.
The Citizens Commission on Human rights, an anti-psychiatry organization with roots in Scientology, tracks teen shooters and their mental states. CCHR reported 11 shooters in the past 10 years were either on psychoactive drugs or had recently quit taking them.
Harvard psychiatrist Dr. Joseph Glenmullen cautions that the symptoms of antidepressant withdrawal can include suicidal feelings, impulsivity, aggression, anxiety, depression, crying spells, insomnia, dizziness, vertigo, nausea, vomiting, headaches, tremors and electric “zap” sensations in the brain.
“When patients stop antidepressants cold turkey, the symptoms can be so severe that they are debilitating; the patients cannot get out of bed or work,” Glenmullen said.
