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The History of Antipsychotics / Antidepressants
By Diana Chan R.Ph, BCNSP
Researched by Pastor Gary boyd
May 15th 2023


In an article from Debate And Share in 2020 Diana Chan R.Ph, BCNSP wrote “The History of Antipsychotics / Antidepressants.” In it the writer surmises If you have read the laundry list of all the modern-day pharmaceuticals for mental disorder, you will realize that the saga of the antipsychotics began in the 1950s, when the first drugs in this class, including chlorpromazine (Thorazine) and haloperidol (Haldol), were introduced. These products offered the ability to control symptoms of severe psychiatric disorders, such as schizophrenia, pharmacologically. Previously, patients had been treated with either long-term institutionalization, including frequent use of physical restraints or invasive surgery, such as lobotomy, with devastating effects

Second generation antipsychotics (SGA) aka Atypical antipsychotics (AAP) appeared on the US market in 1989 starting with the arrival of the clozapine for schizophrenia, hailed as “breakthrough treatment”. We now have 11 SGAs.

However, they are no longer regarded as “breakthrough treatment” due to undesirable side effects that can affect many organ systems. We currently have 7 classes and around 50 anti-psychotic drugs in the psychiatric armamentarium and the list continues to grow with every passing month.

Now all the antipsychotics/antidepressants carry a “black box warning”, which means an adverse reaction to the drug may lead to death or serious injury (which can mean suicide or homicide). The question we must ask ourselves: Is it a co-incidence that mass shooting started to escalate starting in 1980s with all these antipsychotics/antidepressants flooding the market?

In 2003, Eli Lilly settled a case brought by the parents of a South Carolina teen who hanged himself just three weeks after he began taking the Prozac. All cases (too many to list here) against Eli Lily were settled out of court.

Lawsuits involving other SSRI side effects and injuries have been filed against the makers of Prozac, Zoloft and Paxil, based on allegations of design defect, failure to warn, breach of implied warranty and negligence, among other causes of action. There are claims still pending in the federal court system. GlaxoSmithKline, the maker of Paxil ultimately agreed to resolve more than 800 lawsuits regarding Paxil-related birth defects in 2010 after being ordered to pay a $2.5 million verdict in 2009. Each plaintiff secured roughly $1.2 million in the staggering $1.14 billion accord. The London-based manufacturer also settled Paxil cases involving suicide and attempted suicide to the tune of $390 million.

Atypical antipsychotics (such as Abilify, Geodon, Risperdal, Seroquel, Symbyax, Zyprexa and others), are a class of drugs used in the treatment of schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. The safety of antipsychotic drugs and the unlawful drug marketing tactics by drug manufacturers, (such as promoting “off-label” uses that have not been approved by FDA, hiding or downplaying known risks and allegation of paying indirect bribes to prescribing physicians) have generated many sentinel events that continues to grab headlines. The marketing of these drugs to medically vulnerable groups, like the very young and the very old has the tendency to cause powerful adverse reactions.

Lawsuits of the atypical anti-psychotic medications have resulted in some of the largest settlements ever seen in pharmaceutical litigation. Pfizer holds the uncertain record of paying $2.3 billion, including $1.3 billion as a criminal fine, in 2009 involving Geodon and other drugs.

The same year, Eli Lilly paid a $1.4-billion settlement for a suit involving Zyprexa, including a $515 million criminal assessment. Bristol-Myers Squibb paid $515 million in 2007 to settle charges concerning the promotion of Abilify. Novartis agreed in 2010 to pay $422.5 million in an enforcement action involving the epilepsy drug oxcarbazepine (Trileptal, Novartis). Also, in 2010, AstraZeneca paid $520 million to settle charges related to the marketing of Seroquel.

You might ask: Why were all the lawsuits settled out of court? The answer is simple and easy to understand. When a case is settled out of court, the drug manufacturers averted the guilty verdict and the general public will not hear about it in the main stream media. This allows the drug involved in the lawsuit to stay on the market and continues to make billions from unwitting consumers. It might sound very expansive to settle these lawsuits, but settlements represent only a fraction of the revenues that have been generated from these drugs. For example, AstraZeneca made $21.6 billion from Seroquel between 1997 and 2009. Its $520 million payment is only 2.4% of that sum.

If drug manufacturers do not settle, that would be equivalent to killing the goose that lays the golden eggs for them. So, it is better to share some of the golden eggs with the victims than to have the goose killed.

We have spent billions of tax payers’ money each year on mental health, with most of that money gone to the coffers of the pharmaceutical companies and yet mental health continues to deteriorate and mass shooting continues to rise.

Why aren’t politicians talking about the link between antipsychotics and mass shooting and why aren’t some of these dangerous antipsychotics taken off the market?

The answer is pretty simple and obvious. Big pharmaceutical companies have deep pockets and therefore have huge lobbing power and influence on the policy making process in our government.

There are a group of people who argue that there is no link between mass shooting and the side effects of antipsychotic drugs because there are millions of people taking the antipsychotic drugs and not all of them turn into mass shooters. And they also argue that there are no clinical studies that prove these drugs would turn people into murderers. That argument does not prove that some people, especially young people, will not be converted to murderer due to the side effects, especially when they are suffering from serotonin syndrome. These effects are similar to the symptoms of people under the influence of methamphetamine.

Wonder why there is no clinical studies that prove antipsychotic drugs would turn people into murderers.

I would like to point out, first of all, that the clinical studies done before FDA approval are usually very short term, sometimes just months if they were approved through Fast Track. Secondly, will anyone conduct a clinical study using healthy volunteers, making them take the drug for years to find out how many of them will turn out to be murderer? Will you volunteer to be that guinea pig if you know that is goal of the study?

The sad truth is that all consumers became unwitting volunteers in the post marketing study (Phase 4 study) of a new drug. All those adverse drugs reports from consumers, which can result in lawsuits, are the proof of the dangerous side effects a new drug in a long-term study. FDA continues to add warnings of additional side effects according to the post marketing study.

Conclusion on Antipsychotic Drugs-The Ignored Link to Mass Shootings

I found it hard to believe that the politicians are debating if gun control alone or management of mental disorder alone can fix the mass shooting problem we have in this country. If you examine the causes of all the mass shootings that happened in the last 40 years, you should realize that the causes are multifaceted and therefore, we need a multifaceted approach to solve the problem.

Wonder why most of the mass shooters are young people?

Most of the mass shooters are young male and most of them are on some sort of antipsychotic drugs. What that means is these young people started out having mental illness/depression either because they were born into dysfunctional families or they were offspring of women who might have been addicted to illicit drugs or addicting prescription drugs which predispose these young people to psychological problems. For children given Ritalin/Adderall due to the diagnosis of ADHD, very likely, they will grow up as drug addicts.

When young people do not receive the love they need growing up due to environmental factors, such as living in dysfunctional households, experiencing bullying in school or workplace, being discriminated due to race or social status, they eventually grow up to be young adults feeling hopeless and carrying a lot of anger inside. They are waiting for opportunity to unload this anger to get even with society as a whole or whoever they perceive as having created their pain and suffering. They do not care who they kill to get even, especially if the drugs they are taking have turned them into zombies-creatures with no feeling or empathy for others. After reading about all the antipsychotics side effects and the warnings in the black box, you should realize that our researchers have admitted and warned: “Antidepressant medicines may increase suicidal thoughts or actions in some children, teenagers, or young adults within the first few months of treatment”.

Putting these young people, who already have suicidal thoughts, on these drugs would push them over the edge. Mass shooting is a form of suicide in addition to revenge because the mass shooter usually killed himself at the end or getting killed by police. Have you ever heard of “suicide by cop“? It is a term used by law enforcement officers to describe an incident in which a suicidal individual intentionally engages in life-threatening and criminal behavior with a lethal weapon or what appears to be a lethal weapon toward law enforcement officers or civilians to specifically provoke officers to shoot the suicidal individual in self-defense or to protect civilians.

There is a chain that ties mental disorder- antipsychotics, guns and mass shooting together. My argument is that we need to break this chain in more than one place. We not only need to take care of these disadvantaged youngsters by helping their families, giving them and their family members psychotherapy instead of drugs, assisting schools with means other than just drugging them. We also need to have ways to prevent these potential mass shooters to have access to firearms with mass destructive power. What is “Second Amendment of the United States Constitution” good for except making money for the gun manufacturers, if our children have to go to school in fear of getting shot, parents have to worry if they will see their children alive at the end of the day or people have to worry about surviving participation in social events? Our elected politicians are elected by people to serve and protect us all. We need to break the third hook of the chain!