The Great Pharmaceutical Phucking

The great British Empire apparently lacked the tools for effective propaganda, as Americans revolted against them for far less than we're currently being subjected to at the hands of our corporate oligarchy.

Wherever you look these days, we're being SCREWED.

A fine example is the latest school shooting in Florida.  Guns, though regularly fingered in the mass media as the culprit (how many firearm advertisements do you see on TV vs pharmaceutical ads?), have been a part of American culture from the very beginning. Events such as this school shooting are relatively recent, however. Something changed, and that is the introduction of SSRI anti-depressants and the widespread medication of America which, strangely enough, corresponds with the introduction of mass shootings.

I'm going out on a limb here, as I have with other mass shootings before the actual medication details come out, but I'm usually proven right. Here's a website that maintains a running tally of SSRI related shootings, stabbings, suicides, and other wonderful side effects. You won't hear about them on TV, because all the pharmaceutical ads don't leave enough time for the "news" anchors to discuss this fact.  I suppose it's also possible that the television networks don't want to bite the hand that feeds them (a lot!).

The recent school shooter in Florida suffered the death of his mother in November.  A sad event for sure, but one worth medicating? I'm willing to bet that his physician (likely influenced by pharmaceutical cash) thought so. Perhaps the video above should end with "Ask your doctor if Zoloft is right for you!"

The figures I've seen suggest that these medications are implicated in 95% of all school shootings.  For those who weren't interested in clicking on the link, here's a (very) brief example of the events and their associated medication:

• Eric Harris age 17 (first on Zoloft then Luvox) and Dylan Klebold aged 18 (Columbine school shooting in Littleton, Colorado), killed 12 students and 1 teacher, and wounded 23 others, before killing themselves. Klebold's medical records have never been made available to the public.
• Jeff Weise, age 16, had been prescribed 60 mg/day of Prozac (three times the average starting dose for adults!) when he shot his grandfather, his grandfather's girlfriend and many fellow students at Red Lake, Minnesota. He then shot himself. 10 dead, 12 wounded.
• Cory Baadsgaard, age 16, Wahluke (Washington state) High School, was on Paxil (which caused him to have hallucinations) when he took a rifle to his high school and held 23 classmates hostage. He has no memory of the event.
• Chris Fetters, age 13, killed his favorite aunt while taking Prozac.
• Christopher Pittman, age 12, murdered both his grandparents while taking Zoloft.
• Mathew Miller, age 13, hung himself in his bedroom closet after taking Zoloft for 6 days.
• Kip Kinkel, age 15, (on Prozac and Ritalin) shot his parents while they slept then went to school and opened fire killing 2 classmates and injuring 22 shortly after beginning Prozac treatment.
• Luke Woodham, age 16 (Prozac) killed his mother and then killed two students, wounding six others.
• A boy in Pocatello, ID (Zoloft) in 1998 had a Zoloft-induced seizure that caused an armed stand off at his school.
• Michael Carneal (Ritalin), age 14, opened fire on students at a high school prayer meeting in West Paducah, Kentucky. Three teenagers were killed, five others were wounded..
• A young man in Huntsville, Alabama (Ritalin) went psychotic chopping up his parents with an ax and also killing one sibling and almost murdering another.
• Andrew Golden, age 11, (Ritalin) and Mitchell Johnson, aged 14, (Ritalin) shot 15 people, killing four students, one teacher, and wounding 10 others.
• TJ Solomon, age 15, (Ritalin) high school student in Conyers, Georgia opened fire on and wounded six of his class mates.

I've had doctors prescribe medications for me ($400/month for a proton pump inhibitor) which I'm now certain were prescribed precisely because the doctor was receiving kickbacks. Friends in the medical field confirmed that the kickbacks are in fact real, enormous (often exceeding $100k/year per doctor), and unknown to most of the patients. Thus, your doctor has something in common with your congressional representatives.

When I later googled the doctor whom I'm speaking of, I found him as the featured speaker at numerous pharmaceutical promotion events.  Read this article, and you'll understand exactly why.  When I expressed concerns about the medication, he quickly dismissed them (they're now widely known and supported by numerous studies), and re-iterated his only concern was that I could afford the medication.

Yes, it's no secret that people with problems are being medicated, and such people would perhaps commit acts of violence with or without the medications. However, the frequency and magnitude of such acts is far greater since the introduction of these medications. There are specific side effects often noted in patients receiving SSRIs, such as a feeling of detachment from society, and the viewing of other people as objects. The Columbine shooters were noted as having drawn pictures of other students without faces -- which is apparently a common trait of people on these medications.

The great Pharmaceutical Phucking is quite real here at home. A family member recently went to fill a regular prescription. One refill is now $650! In other countries, where the government is not beholden to lobbyists, the same medication is about $25. Yes, America is truly the land of opportunity (if you're a corporate criminal or corrupt politician)!

Ever wonder why we simply can't seem to solve the "Opioid Crisis"? 

If your favorite politician has not sworn off all corporate cash (ala Bernie Sanders), they either are or will soon be corrupt, no matter how sweet and agreeable their words. Fred (corr)Upt(i)on, my own congressional representative, comes to mind, and appears to be a poster-child of pharmaceutical lobbying corruption. It should not be surprising to anyone that our government is now, demonstrably, not a democracy. Do you think that our schools are now teaching students that we're an oligarchy (which is precisely what we are, based upon scientific observation and fact)?

Pharmaceutical corporations are of course just the tip of the iceberg. Defense contractors have a long and sordid history of screwing taxpayers via our corrupt "elected" representatives. Did you ever wonder how Russia, a country with an economy the size of Spain's, has suddenly become a dire threat to the United States? Ditto for North Korea, who is clinging to their nuclear program in mortal fear. Perhaps Kim Jong Un watched the video of Ghadaffi after he decided to give up his WMD program at the US's urging.  My god -- just look at all the danger out there!  We need more F-35s, pronto!

With their trojan "populist" candidate Trump, the corporate coup is complete. Any law that keeps you healthy (environmental regulations) or safe (nuclear non-proliferation agreements), or keeps America beautiful (regulations on offshore drilling) is now being dismantled wherever it impacts the ability of corporations to rape and pillage our fellow citizens and the lands we all own.  This coup was in large part enabled by corporate democrats, who used their own illegal tactics to screw Sanders in the primary (if you voted in the open California primary, and aren't specifically registered as a democrat, your ballot was not counted!)

My ancestors revolted against the British government and their corporate accomplices over far less than you and I are now being subjected to. But then again, they didn't watch TV, which makes perfect sense.