Brain Altering Drugs: The Drug-Induced Suicide of Robin Williams Two Years Later
And the Perils of Being a Drugged-up Insomniac Celebrity
One of Hemingway’s wartime duties was to retrieve the
mutilated bodies of living and dead humans and the body parts of the
dead ones from the Italian sector of the WWI battle zone. In more modern
times his MOS (military occupational specialty) might have been called
Grave’s Registration, a job that – in the Vietnam War – had one of the
highest incidences of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) that arose in
that war’s aftermath.
Hemingway, just like many of the combat-induced PTSD
victims of every war, was likely haunted for the rest of his life by the
horrific images of the wounded and dead, so there was no question that
he had what was later to be understood as combat-induced PTSD with
depression, panic attacks, nightmares, auditory and/or visual
hallucinations and insomnia.
Unfortunately for Papa, the psychiatrists at the Mayo
Clinic were unaware of the reality of the PTSD phenomenon. They
mistakenly thought that he had a mental illness (depression) of unknown
etiology. (The diagnosis of PTSD wasn’t validated by the American
Psychiatric Association as a Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM)
diagnosis until 1980.)
Hemingway, a legendary chronic alcoholic who consumed
large volumes of hard liquor daily, had also been wounded by shrapnel in
WWI so he probably also had physical pain issues. Therefore, like many
other soldier-victims of combat-induced PTSD he used alcohol to
self-medicate his physical pain as well as his psychic pain, anxiety,
insomnia, nightmares, failed marriages and the financial stresses
related to the alimony payments to his ex-wives.
Following his Mayo Clinic misadventure, Hemingway
rapidly came to understand that his latest ECT “treatments” had erased
his memory and creativity, and, because those realities were essential
for him to continue his writing career, thus feeling that he no longer
had a reason for living and ended his life. There is no record of what
psychiatric drugs he had been prescribed over the years, but ECT is
typically only attempted after all drug options had failed.
The Parallel Paths of Artistic Geniuses Like Hemingway and Williams (and Michael Jackson and Prince)
53 years (July 1, 2014) after Hemingway’s self-inflicted
death, another American icon, actor and comedian Robin Williams,
entered the Hazelden psychiatric facility and addiction treatment center
– also in my home state of Minnesota. He was treated with an cocktail
of drugs for a month and, shortly after his discharge, committed suicide
by hanging (August 11, 2014). The cocktail of newly prescribed
brain-altering drugs surely was a major factor in his becoming
increasingly depressed, losing appetite, losing weight and withdrawing
from his loved ones.
His discharge medications, which included the
antidepressant drug Remeron, the anti-psychotic drug Seroquel (probably
prescribed off-label for his insomnia) and an unknown anti-Parkinsonian
drug caused him to be somnolent, despondent, despairing and increasingly
depressed.
Remeron, it should be emphasized, is well-known to cause
suicidal thinking (and attempts) and carries the Food and Drug
Administration’s “Black box” warning for suicidality. After he returned
home, he was said to have slept in his darkened bedroom, up to 20 hours a
day, in a probably drug-induced stupor.
Remeron, it is helpful to remind readers, was one of the
two psych meds (the other was the anti-psychotic drug Haldol) that the
infamous Andrea Yates was taking before she irrationally drowned her
five children – including her 6 month-old baby Mary – in the family
bathtub. The devoutly religious Texas mother was convicted of first
degree murder and sentenced to life imprisonment but – at re-trial – had
her conviction changed to “not guilty by reason of insanity” (rather
than “not guilty by reason of the intoxicating, insanity-inducing and
homicidal effects of psychiatric medications!”). She is now spending the
rest of her life in a psychiatric facility, no longer a threat to
children.
Robin Williams was said to have been diagnosed with
Parkinson’s Disease while at Hazelden. The symptoms of Parkinson’s
Disease are well known to be caused by antipsychotic drugs. Children who
have been given anti-psychotic drugs (most commonly foster care
children) are now coming down with Parkinson’s Disease, an illness
totally unheard of prior to the formation of the subspecialty of
Pediatric Psychiatry.
The Secrets of NIMH (and Hazelden)
30 years ago or so a cartoon movie was released about
lab rats that were trying to escape extermination by the National
Institute of Mental Health. The movie was titled “The Secret of NIMH”. I
tried to watch it a few years ago and was disappointed to discover that
it really didn’t expose any of the real secrets of NIMH, its American
Psychiatric Association foundations or the psychopharmaceutical
industry’s unholy alliance with NIMH. I understand that a remake of the
film is planned. I hope some of the real secrets will be revealed in the
new film.
Robin Williams left no suicide note, and so far Hazelden
is mum on what happened behind closed doors during that fateful – and
failed – month-long stay.
“What Brain-Altering Drugs was Williams or Michael Jackson or Prince On?”
Williams’ legendary cocaine and amphetamine use are
certainly factors to consider as contributing causes for his suicide,
for such drugs are notoriously toxic to mitochondria and brain cells.
What is also deserving of consideration is the fact that when patients
abruptly quit taking an antipsychotic drug, withdrawal symptoms can
occur – even if the drug was first prescribed for non-psychotic issues
like insomnia. Those withdrawal symptoms can include irrational
thinking, loss of impulse control, psychoses, hallucinations, insomnia
and mania, any of which can lead a physician to falsely diagnose
schizophrenia or so-called bipolar disorder or any number of mental
disorders “of unknown cause”.
Some of Williams’ closest friends are logically
wondering about what was the effect of the newly prescribed drugs that
may have motivated Williams to so illogically kill himself. Hollywood
journalists swarmed all over the tragic event two years ago, but
characteristically avoided even speculating about the possibility of
psychiatric drug-induced suicide, the most logical explanation for the
series of events, especially for any thinking person who knows anything
about the connections between psychiatric prescription drugs and
suidicality, homicidality, aggression, violence, dementia, and
irrational thinking and actions (whether while taking the drugs or
withdrawing from them).
Such informed people have already asked themselves the
question: “I wonder what psych drugs Robin (or Hemingway or Michael
Jackson or Prince) was taking?” Tragically, the media has been totally
unhelpful in discussing that important question or in offering any
answers to the question. Iatrogenic (doctor-caused or prescription
drug-induced) causes of morbidity and mortality are apparently not to be
discussed in polite company.
It is important to point out that a bottle of Seroquel
with 8 pills missing was found in Williams’ bedroom and drug toxicity
testing revealed Remeron in Williams’ bloodstream at autopsy. The
coroner emphasized that the dose of the legally-prescribed drug was at
“therapeutic levels”, which is, of course, totally unhelpful
information, given the fact that the undesired effects of a drug have no
correlation to dosage.
The Taboo Reality: Psych Drugs Can Cause Suicidality
There have been millions of words written about how much
everybody was shocked by Williams’ suicide. There have been thousands
of flowers placed at any number of temporary shrines “honoring” his
legacy. There have been thousands of comments on the internet from
amateur arm-chair psychologists spouting obsolete clichés about suicide,
mental illness, drug abuse, alcoholism, cocaine addiction, and how
wonderful psychoactive prescription drugs have been.
And
there have been hundreds of dis-informational essays and website
commentaries written by professional arm-chair psychiatrists who have
financial or career conflicts of interest with Big Pharma, Big
Psychiatry, Big Medicine and the rehab industries. Most of those
commentaries distract readers from making the connections between
suicidality and psych drugs. Some of the comments I have read have
preemptively tried to discredit those who are publicly making those
connections.
Whenever unexpected suicides or accidental drug overdose
deaths occur among heavily drugged-up military veterans, active duty
soldiers, Hollywood celebrities or other groups of individuals, I search
the media – usually in vain – for information that identifies the drugs
that are usually involved in such cases. But revealing the drug names,
dosages, length of usage or who prescribed them seems to be a taboo
subject. One has to read between the lines or wait until the information
gets revealed at www.ssristories.org
(a Big Pharma whistle-blowing website that should be mandatory reading
for everybody who prescribes or consumes psychiatric drugs).
Patient confidentiality is usually the reason given for
the cover-ups – and why important potentially teachable moments about
these iatrogenic (drug-induced or vaccine-induced) tragedies are
averted.
Big Pharma, the AMA, the APA, the AAP, the AAFP, the
CDC, the FDA, the NIH, the NIMH, Wall Street and most of the patient or
disease advocacy groups that sponsor the annual fund-raising and very
futile “searches for the cure” all understand that the hidden epidemic
of iatrogenic illnesses must be de-emphasized. And, simultaneously, the
altruistic whistle-blowers among us will be black-listed, denigrated and
labeled as nuisance conspiracy theorists.
The corporate entities mentioned above also know how
useful it is if patients (rather than the system) are blamed for causing
their own health problems. Typical examples include: “you eat too
much”, “you don’t exercise enough”, “you smoke too much”, “you don’t eat
right”, “your family history is bad”, “you don’t take your meds
correctly”, “you don’t come in for your screening tests or routine exams
often enough”, “you don’t get all the vaccinations like you are told to
do”, etc).
Highly unlikely “genetic” causes are energetically
promoted as preferable root causes of totally preventable iatrogenic
illnesses (because inherited disorders are not preventable and are also
untreatable). This reality ensures that researchers can annually demand
billions of dollars for research while at the same time short-changing
and discrediting simple, cheap, do-it-yourself prevention that doesn’t
need a doctor.
The confidence of the American public in Big Pharma’s
drug and vaccine promotions must not be disturbed. Wall Street’s rigged
stock market does not permit the publication of any information that
could destroy investor confidence in the pharmaceutical or vaccine
corporation’s highly profitable products, even if the science behind the
drugs and vaccines is bogus and the unaffordable products are
dangerous.
The beauty of an unbiased public inquest, which I
advocated for in this column two years ago, should have been done in the
case of Robin Williams and all the school shooters, would be the
subpoena power of a grand jury to open up the previously secretive
medical records and force testimony from Williams’ treatment team. The
public could finally hear information that could make comprehensible the
mysterious death of yet another high profile suicide victim and start
the process of actually positively America’s suicide and violence
epidemics.
An inquest would likely reveal that Robin Williams did
not have a “mental illness of unknown cause” or “bipolar disorder of
unknown cause” or “depression of unknown cause” or “suicidality of
unknown cause”. An inquest would obtain testimony from feared
whistle-blower experts in the fields of medicine, psychiatry and
psychopharmaceuticals such as Peter Breggin, MD, Joseph Glenmullen, MD,
Grace Jackson, MD, David Healey, MD, Russell Blaylock, MD, Fred
Baughmann, MD and other well-informed medical specialists who don’t own
stock in Big Pharma corporations and who know very well how dangerous
their drugs can be.
Robin Williams did not have a Mental Illness of Unknown Etiology
Just knowing a little about the life and times of Robin
Williams and others on the long list of celebrity victims of psychiatric
drugs (like Michael Jackson and Prince both of whom “died too soon”)
would easily disprove most of the unscientific theories about their
deaths that have widely published online.
Why did many of us psych drug sceptics and psychiatric
survivors want an inquest in Robin Williams’ suicide? We wanted to know
the names of the ingredients in the cocktail of drugs that had been
tried on him (and the dosages and length of time they were taken). We
wanted to know what side effects he had from the drugs and what his
responses were. We wanted to know what was the reasoning behind the
decision to prescribe unproven combinations of powerful drugs on someone
whose brain was already compromised by the past use of known
brain-damaging drugs.
And we wanted to know, for the sake of past and future
victims of these neurotoxic substances, if the prescribing practitioners
informed Williams about the dangers of those treatments, particularly
the black box suicide warnings for Remeron.
Stress-induced and Drug-induced Mental Ill Health Doesn’t Mean One is Mentally Ill
Robin Williams gained fame and fortune as a comic actor,
starting with what was to become his trade mark manic acting style
(stimulant drug-induced mania?) on “Mork and Mindy”. As have many other
famous persons that attained sudden fame and fortune, Williams spent his
millions lavishly and – in retrospect – often foolishly. After his
third marriage he found that he could no longer afford his Hollywood
lifestyle.
But long before his two divorces and the serious
financial difficulties caused him to decompensate and again fall off the
sobriety wagon, Robin Williams had lived in the fast lane, working long
exhausting days and weeks and partying long exhausting nights with the
help of stimulant drugs like the dependency-inducing drug cocaine (that
overcomes sleepiness and fatigue) and artificial sleep-inducing
tranquilizers whose mechanism of action resembles long-acting alcohol.
Sedative drugs artificially counter the drug-induced mania and
drug-induced insomnia that predictably results from psycho-stimulants
like cocaine, nicotine, caffeine, Ritalin, Strattera, Prozac, Paxil,
Zoloft, Celexa, Wellbutrin, Provigil, amphetamines, etc, etc).
Williams had acknowledged that he was addicted to both
cocaine and alcohol when his famous comedian buddy John Belushi died of
an accidental drug overdose shortly after they had snorted cocaine
together (March 4, 1962). Shortly after Belushi’s overdose death,
Williams quit both drugs cold turkey, and he remained sober and
cocaine-free for the next 20 years. There is no public information about
his use of addictive prescription drugs, but it is well-known that many
Hollywood personalities like him have close relationships with both
prescription-writing physicians and illicit drug pushers, many of whom
make house calls.
However, Williams relapsed in 2006 and started abusing
drugs and alcohol again, eventually being admitted to a Hazelden drug
rehab facility in Oregon. After “taking the cure” he continued his
exhausting career making movies, doing comedy tours and engaging in
personal appearances in order to “pay the bills and support my family”.
After two expensive divorces, huge indebtedness and an
impending bankruptcy, Williams was forced, in September of 2013, to sell
both his $35,000,000 home and his even more expensive ranch in Napa
Valley. He moved into a more modest, more affordable home in the San
Francisco area, where he lived until his death.
But despite solving his near-bankruptcy situation (which
would make any sane person temporarily depressed), Williams continued
having a hard time paying the bills and making the alimony payments, so
he was forced to go back to making movies (which he despised doing
because of the rigorous schedule and being away from his family for
extended periods of time). And he hated the fact that he was being
financially forced to sign a contract to do a “Mrs. Doubtfire” sequel
later in 2014.
For regular income, he took a job doing a TV comedy
series called “The Crazy Ones”, but the pressures of working so hard got
him drinking again, even using alcohol on the set, which he had never
done before. He was making $165,000 per episode and was counting on
continuing the series beyond the first season in order to have a steady
income.
So when CBS cancelled the show in May 2014, humiliation,
sadness, anxiety and insomnia naturally set in, and he decided to go
for professional help at the Minnesota Hazelden addiction facility,
spending the month of July 2014 as an patient there. The public deserves
to know what really happened inside that facility.
We certainly deserve to know the full story. There are
many painful lessons that can be learned. Those who think that we can’t
handle the truth are wrong.
The psychiatric drug-taking public deserves to know what
were the offending drugs that contributed to his pain, anguish,
sadness, nervousness, insomnia, sleep deprivation, hopelessness and the
seemingly irrational decision to kill himself.
And the family, friends and fans of Robin Williams
certainly deserve to know the essential facts of the case which, if not
accomplished, will otherwise just result in a blind continuation of
America’s “mysterious” iatrogenic suicide, violence and dementia
epidemics. Ignorance of the well-hidden truths will just allow the
continuation of Big Pharma’s ill-gotten gains and the fact that it has
been deceiving the medical profession for so long – and destroying the
memory, creativity, brains and lives of millions of our patients
simultaneously.
For more information on the above very serious issues, check out these websites: www.ssristories.com, www.madinamerica.com, www.mindfreedom.org">http://rxisk.org/www.mindfreedom.org, www.breggin.com, www.cchrint.org, www.drugawareness.org, www.psychrights.org, www.quitpaxil.org, www.endofshock.com.
Appendix A
Drug-Induced Mental and/or Neurological Ill Health
It needs to be mentioned that all the so-called
“atypical” antipsychotic drugs (like Seroquel, Risperdal, Abilify,
Geodon, Zyprexa, Clozaril, Fanapt, Invega, Saphris, etc) can also cause
diabetes, obesity, hyperlipidemia, liver cell necrosis, and the
metabolic syndrome, as well as neurologic movement disorders that mimic
(or actually cause) Parkinson’s and Lewy Body disorder (the latter
diagnosis of which Williams’ autopsy findings revealed). But it is
important to point out that, contrary to what Robin Williams widow has
recently proposed, Lewy Bodies in the brain DO NOT cause suicidality.
Rather, the brain lesions of neuro-degenerative
disorders such as Parkinson’s (and probably also the equally microscopic
Lewy Body lesions that can’t be diagnosed prior to autopsy) are
commonly caused by neurotoxins such as petrochemical solvents (such as
toluene, trichlorethylene and benzene), poisons (such as carbon monoxide
and cyanide), insecticides (such as Rotenone), herbicides (such as
Paraquat), fungicides (such as Maneb), metals (such as copper, mercury,
manganese and lead), and brain-altering psychiatric drugs that are
known to cause drug-induced dementia. (See the seminal work of
practicing psychiatrist Grace E. Jackson, titled “Drug-induced Dementia:
A Perfect Crime” for much more.)
Both illicit and prescription psychoactive drugs can
indeed cause the death of brain cells, at least partly because of those
synthetic drug’s mitochondrial toxicity traits. The carcasses of the
dead and dying cells can be identified as abnormal microscopic deposits
of nerve tissue such as can be found in the brain biopsies of patients
who died with Parkinson’s Disease, Dementia with Lewy Bodies or
drug-induced dementia (which is commonly mis-diagnosed as “Alzheimer’s
disease of unknown cause”).
Incidentally, drug-induced Parkinsonism can be caused by
the neurotoxic effects of the following groups of commonly prescribed
drugs: 1) “typical” antipsychotic drugs (such as Thorazine and Haldol),
2) “atypical” antipsychotics (such as Seroquel and Risperidal), 3)
pro-motility gastrointestinal drugs (such as Reglan), 4) calcium channel
blockers (such as Norvasc and Cardizem), and 5) antiepileptic drugs
(such as Valproate).
Appendix BShouldn’t There be Penalties for Pushers of Legal Brain-altering Substances?
There are penalties for bartenders who serve underage
drinkers who go on to have auto accidents while under the influence.
There are penalties for street corner drug pushers who supply their
junkies with dangerous illicit drugs, and there are penalties for the
drug lords who are at the top of the drug supply chain.
But shouldn’t there also be penalties for legal drug
pushers who are supplying medications to their addiction-prone clients
without first obtaining from them fully informed consent concerning the
dangers of the drugs? Shouldn’t there be penalties for legal drug
pushers who are prescribing dangerous brain-altering psychiatric drugs
in combinations that have never even been tested for safety, even in the
animal labs?
The very profitable industries of Big Pharma, Big
Psychiatry, Big Medicine and drug rehabilitation are all very interested
in de-emphasizing all unwelcome truths about the lethality of their
products and thus they successfully prevent them from being aired in the
mainstream media.
Thus there is a rapid disappearance of interest in the
celebrity suicides or lethal drug overdoses by the time the delayed
coroner’s report reveals what drugs were in the victim’s blood and
gastric contents. (Note that many coroners are not aware that many psych
drugs are detectable in brain tissue long after the time that they have
disappeared from the stomach and bloodstream; therefore many coroners
don’t bother to test for drugs in brain tissue samples).
If blood tests are negative for drugs, it is often
erroneously assumed by the uninformed public (and even many medical
professionals) that drugs aren’t a factor in the aberrant behavior or
death of vulnerable drug-taking humans. Drug withdrawal commonly causes
patients to become irrational, violent or suicidal – realities that can
occur at any time, even after the drug has long disappeared from the
blood.
The lessons are numerous and the teachers are available,
but they are censored-out of our corporate-dominated media system.
Those important lessons are there for anybody to learn, but we must
first overcome the powers-that-be that know they won’t profit from our
enlightenment.
Spread the word. Robin Williams, Ernest Hemingway, Michael Jackson and Prince would want us to do that.
Dr Kohls is a retired physician who practiced holistic, non-drug, mental health care for the last decade of his family practice career. He
is a past member of MindFreedom International, the International Center
for the Study of Psychiatry and Psychology and the International
Society for Traumatic Stress Studies. He now writes a weekly
column for the Reader Weekly, an alternative newsweekly published in
Duluth, Minnesota, USA. Many of Dr Kohls’ columns are archived at http://duluthreader.com/articles/categories/200_Duty_to_Warn, http://www.globalresearch.ca/authors?query=Gary+Kohls+articles&by=&p=&page_id= or at https://www.transcend.org/tms/search/?q=gary+kohls+articles
The original source of this article is Global Research
Copyright © Dr. Gary G. Kohls, Global Research, 2016
No comments:
Post a Comment