Warning: Medication Madness!

Dr. Peter R. Breggin is one of the few trained psychiatrists in the world who understands the danger of psychotropic drugs.  A psychiatrist who has not read Dr. Breggin’s works cannot claim to be truly educated in his profession. Decades of clinical experience, court appearances and research paved the way for the publication of his landmark book Medication Madness in 2008, and since that time there has been more than ample evidence to corroborate his findings.

Whereas Dr. Breggin’s earlier masterpiece Toxic Psychiatry focused mainly on general history and research, with occasional anecdotal support for his conclusions, Medication Madness elaborates upon specific case studies of those who were driven to madness, violence, suicide and murder by psychotropic drugs.

Even though Dr. Breggin firmly believes in individual responsibility and accountability, he could not ignore the overwhelming scientific evidence that psychotropic drugs cause many people to lose their reason and judgment.  In Medication Madness, Dr. Breggin examines dozens of cases in which normal, healthy individuals were transformed into raving lunatics and dangerous psychopaths by psychotropic drugs.  These are true stories of people whose prescriptions, even in small doses, drove them to commit horrendous crimes. Sadly, the perpetrators of these crimes were often completely unaware of their actions.

A gentle family man and faithful parishioner was prescribed Paxil and was subsequently incarcerated for assaulting and nearly killing a cop.  A shy little girl who loved her horse and her family was prescribed Prozac, and soon thereafter threatened to murder her mother with a knife.  A successful doctor prescribed himself Prozac, then Paxil.  He was prescribed Luvox by another doctor, and was soon found assaulting a colleague with a tack hammer.  Klonopin and Strattera had even more devastating effects.  Another man, happily married and with no prior history whatsoever of emotional disturbance, was prescribed Zoloft, and only a week later he almost threw his wife off of a bridge.  The stories continue:  A mother who began taking Lexapro, Zoloft, Remeron and Klonopin shot her ten-year-old son and nearly beat her sixteen-year-old daughter to death with a baseball bat.  A happy and sociable young high school student committed suicide after being drugged for a diagnosis of “ADHD.”  Other culprits of these types of tragedies, just to name a few, include Xanax, Risperdal, Effexor, Ritalin, Halcion, Ambien, Ativan, Valium, Adderall, Dexedrine, Concerta, and Zyprexa.

In these heart-rending accounts, Dr. Breggin details how innocent patients were spellbound by the prescription drugs, and how some parents were even forced to “medicate” their children.  In many of the stories, the individual in question became all but unrecognizable to their friends and family members because of the effects of the drugs.  Toward the end of the book, Dr. Breggin calls for drug companies to be held accountable for these tragedies while declaring the truth behind the marketing myths that are so prevalent in psychiatry.  He also sets forth safe and effective methods for withdrawing from psychotropic drugs, since such withdrawals can be just as dangerous, and sometimes more dangerous, than the initial consumption of the drugs.

Like Toxic Psychiatry, Medication Madness exposes the dangers of psychotropic drugs, but it does so through more intimate glimpses into the lives of real people whose lives were destroyed by psychiatry.  These stories may sound like medical anomalies or rare instances of extreme reactions to “medication,” but such stories are more common, and more widespread than we would wish to acknowledge.  In the span of less than a year, the author of this article has been privy to several violent attacks that were directly related to psychotropic drugging, as well as two deaths that were caused by prescription drugs.  Furthermore, on almost a daily basis, the author of the present article reads of, or hears reported of newly prescribed psychotropic drugs, or pleas for help to withdraw from such drugs.  This is truly a plague of epic proportions that is growing rapidly and leaving destruction in its wake.  Consider yourself warned.

If you or someone you know is taking psychotropic drugs, I encourage you to read this book, or any of Dr. Peter Breggin’s work (or Robert Whitaker‘s work), before continuing.  I conclude with the same warning with which Dr. Breggin prefaces his book:

“Psychiatric Drugs can be spellbinding, insidiously compromising your mind and emotions before you realize what is happening to you.  They can make you feel sad, agitated, or fearful.  They can make you think you’re doing better when you’re doing worse.  In the extreme, some can drive you toward mania or depression, and compel you to act in violent or self-destructive ways that would ordinarily appall you. / It can be both dangerous to start psychiatric drugs and dangerous to stop them.  Medication withdrawal should be done gradually with support of friends and family, and with experienced clinical supervision.”