Common antidepressants ‘linked to at least 28 murders in the UK’, investigation reveals
BRITAIN’S most popular anti-depressants have been linked with at least 28 murders, an investigation reveals.
It also uncovered a further 32 reports of users suffering from murderous thoughts since the 1980s.
NHS medics dole out more than 40 million prescriptions for SSRIs (Selective Serotonin Re-Uptake Inhibitors) annually.
The common anti-depressants are considered safe for the vast majority of patients.
But there have been reports linking them to psychosis, violence and in extreme cases, murder.
Experts warn in rare circumstances, the pills can trigger dangerous mood swings.
Using Freedom of Information laws, BBC Panorama found 28 cases where the drugs have been implicated in a murder and 32 where users complained of murderous thoughts.
The claims were made to the UK drugs watchdog, the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, under its Yellow Card scheme.
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Professor Peter Tyrer, a psychiatrist at Imperial College London, said: “You can never be quite certain with a rare side-effect whether it’s linked to a drug or not because it could be related to other things.
“But it’s happened just too frequently with this class of drug to make it random.”
However, other UK experts dismiss claims the pills trigger violence.
Professor Wendy Burn, President of The Royal College of Psychiatrists, said more Brits are taking antidepressants because of better awareness of mental illness.
She said: “For many, these drugs have had a beneficial effect on mood and have helped reduce suicidal thoughts or self-harm.
“In all treatments – from cancer to heart disease - medicines which do good can also do harm. This applies in psychiatry.”
She warned against patients abruptly stopping their drugs and said concerned Brits should speak to their GP.
Around one in 14 adults take antidepressants.
Professor Carmine Pariante, from the King’s College London’s Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience, said: “There is no good evidence that antidepressants increase the risk of violent behaviour, and the extremely rare cases that are cited in support of this theory could be explained by chance.
“Antidepressants are prescribed relatively widely, and so by chance someone on antidepressants will commit a violent act.”
SSRIs boost levels of the “happiness hormone” serotonin in the brain, lifting people’s mood.
Popular brand names include Prozac and Seroxat.
The programme focuses on the Batman cinema killer James Holmes, who murdered 12 people and injured 70 at a Colorado screening in 2012.
He had been taking sertraline, an SSRI, for anxiety and obsessive thoughts.
Psychiatrist Professor David Healy, who was an adviser to Holmes’s defence team, said: “I believe if he hadn’t taken the sertraline he wouldn’t have murdered anyone.”
*Panorama: A Prescription for Murder? BBC One, Wednesday 26 July, 8pm