This story was originally published by the WND News Center.
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has announced that there will be launched new studies into the effects of some anti-depressant drugs, and their use by those who turn out to be killers.
The announcement comes in the aftermath of this week's mass shooting at a Catholic church and school in Minneapolis that left two dead and more than a dozen more injured.
According to a report at RedState, the investigations will look at the potential link between SSRI drugs and violent behavior.
"SSRIs, or Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors, are a class of antidepressant medications that are used to treat depression, anxiety, and other mood disorders," the report said. "They are frequently used to treat common mental health challenges, especially in younger adults seeking to transition from their God-given gender who already suffer a higher rate of depression-related issues."
The shooting attack this week, by a transgender individual, a man who claimed to identify as a woman, came "two years after another trans-involved shooting spree in Nashville," the report said. There was no immediate confirmation on any medications taken by the Minneapolis shooter.
"We're launching studies on the potential contribution of some of the SSRI drugs and some of the other psychiatric drugs that might be contributing to violence," Kennedy said. "You know, many of them on there have black box warnings that warn of suicidal ideation and homicidal ideation."
The report noted, "There are … studies that suggest a possible association between SSRI use and increased risks of violent behavior or convictions, particularly in adolescents and young adults. A large Swedish cohort study of over 850,000 individuals prescribed SSRIs between 2006 and 2009 reported a modest increase in violent crime convictions among those aged 15-24 during treatment periods. At the same time, a 2020 study in the Netherlands and the U.S. linked SSRI use to higher reports of violent crimes, with one review noting a doubling of aggression and suicidality in healthy volunteers."
It was in a column posted on WND that commentator Barbara Simpson, several years ago, commented on the shooting by Nikolas Cruz at Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, where 17 were killed.
She wrote, "We were told Nikolas was on medication. What medication? Who prescribed it? Was he being supervised? Was he under the influence at the time of the crimes? Is this important? Consider that almost all mass murders over the last years have involved the killers being on prescribed SSRI antidepressants – drugs we know can cause murderous violence in the patient. Drug companies pay out millions in lawsuits from such instances."
And she cited the research by David Kupelian of WND who found connections between drugs and killers:
Simpson wrote, "These are just a few of the horrors caused by 'medicine' that kills and destroys lives, yet we allow and encourage it."
