Jeff Weise and the Prozac Connection

I was watching Jim Lehrer on PBS, there was a piece on Jeff Weise and what happened in Red Lake. Most of it was what had been covered before until, the family was interviewed. Two of the Aunts stated that Jeff was not only on Prozac but the dosage had been increased before the killings.

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Then I started to think, didn't one of the Columbine shooters also have a connection to a prozac type drug? I also remembered hearing about a connection to Prozac and violent/suicidal behavior. So, you know what comes next....I started to do some research.

Eric Harris, one of the Columbine shooters was on Luvox (Fluvoxamine). The Physicians Desk Reference (PDR) records that, during controlled clinical trials of Luvox, manic reactions developed in 4 percent of children. Mania is defined as "a form of psychosis characterized by exalted feelings, delusions of grandeur & and overproduction of ideas."

Other teens on antidepressants at the time of their attacks include 15-year-old Kip Kinkel who, while on Prozac, killed his parents and then proceeded to school where he opened fire on classmates, killing two and wounding 22 others; 14-year-old Elizabeth Bush, on "antidepressants" when she wounded one student at Bishop Neumann High School in Williamsport, PA; and 18-year-old Jason Hoffman, was on Effexor when he wounded one teacher and three students at Granite Hills High School.

In April 2001, then 16-year-old Cory Baadsgaard took a rifle to Wahluke High School in Washington state and took 23 classmates and a teacher hostage. Baadsgaard was held in jail for 14 months. Based on expert testimony by psychiatrists about the adverse reactions to the drugs he was taking, he finally was released from jail under community supervision for five years. Baadsgaard has no memory of his violent actions toward his classmates, which took place exactly 21 days after he had been cold-turkeyed off Paxil and switched to a high dose of Effexor (an SSRI) to treat "situational depression."

A study recently published in the American Journal of Psychiatry revealed that Prozac can create obsessive and intense, violent suicidal thoughts in patients who take the drug. According to the study, these bizarre and extremely dangerous self-destructive thoughts occurred in 3.5 percent of persons on the drug.

On September 14, Joseph Wesbecker went into the Standard Gravure building in Louisville, Kentucky, and opened fire, killing eight former coworkers and wounding twelve others before killing himself. According to the Jefferson County Coroner, Wesbecker had a high therapeutic level of Prozac in his blood at the time of his rampage. Concerned that Prozac may have contributed to Wesbecker's rampage, the coroner asked the drug's manufacturer whether any other acts of violence connected with Prozac had been reported to the company and was told that the company had no documented reports of violence from Prozac at all.

However documents released under the Freedom of Information Act by the Food and Drug Administration show that, contrary to the denials of Eli Lilly, there had been several reports to the drug company of violence on Prozac. The documents show that these reports were all received by Lilly prior to the call which was placed by the coroner to Lilly regarding the possible role of Prozac in the Wesbecker killings.

These reports confirmed that Prozac can and does turn people hostile, aggressive and violent. Some of these reports stated, "This patient became agitated and violent after third dose of Prozac" (submitted by Lilly to the FDA in April, 1989); "'Shortly after Prozac was increased to 80 mg daily patient became extremely violent" (submitted by Lilly to the FDA in July, 1989), "This patient was reported to have become manic with prominent paranoid ideation while taking Prozac. Patient... illegally entered the house of an unknown family and required considerable restraint before being brought under control" (submitted to Lilly to the FDA in August, 1989), and "The dosage was increased to 40 mg and the patient experienced an intense homicidal rage. She made plans to kill a man from her past" (submitted by Lilly to the FDA in July, 1988).

Another report submitted to the FDA in July of 1988, more than a year prior to the Wesbecker shooting, states "This patient became very aggressive while taking Prozac; after one week on the drug he had an argument with another motorist & attempted to run over him with his car."


The jury at the inquest ruled that "the effects of the 'drugs Mr. Wesbecker was taking may have been a contributory factor" to the rampage.

Last year, the FDA issued a warning that antidepressants could increase sucidal behavior in children, included as part of that warning was this:

Pediatric patients being treated with antidepressants for any indication should be closely observed for clinical worsening, as well as agitation, irritability, suicidality, and unusual changes in behavior, especially during the initial few months of a course of drug therapy, or at times of dose changes, either increases or decreases.

FDA Warning

This isn't to say that everyone that takes one of these types of drugs is going to turn into a violent person who will kill others and possibly himself/herself. What this does do is point out that perhaps the solution for children and teenagers might not be to reach for the bottle of pills, and if it is felt that an antidepressant is necessary parents monitor much more closely reactions, especially if the dosage is changed. Much to frequently we are handing out a pill rather than figuring out if there is a better way to help children who are having a difficult time. Equally that advice would be for adults as well. While I do not buy into the theory that it is the drug alone, someone who has already been diagnosed with a problem serious enough to need this type of medication might not possess the ability to see that a drug is making them act in an out of character behavior.