Although this article is not completely political, it will give you an idea about what the MSM is not reporting about prescription drugs. The prescription drug advertising in the MSM is excessive and hardly a day goes by when one does not see or hear a commercial about drugs. The advertising dollars spent by these drug companies are out of control and are a major source of revenue for the MSM. The drug companies have become "pill pushers" and for economic reasons, the MSM does little or no investigation of drug companies. This article is a result of my own research with information easily obtained on the Internet and I am not a scientist or a physician.
Over the last 10 years there have been lots of reports about teenage suicides in conjunction with SSRI anti-depressants such as Prozac and Zoloft. SSRI is the acronym for selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor. What this really means is that these drugs increase the level of a neuro-transmitter called seretonin in the brain synapses. The advantage of SSRIs is that they have fewer side effects than prior anti-depressants. Although drug companies have a mild warning against drinking alcohol with SSRIs, I think they are intentionally withholding how serious alcohol consumption is while taking these drugs. And adolescents are prime candidates for using excessive alcohol and the prescribing physicians may unwitting be part of the problem. Most physicians who prescribe SSRIs do not know that alcohol also increases the level of serotonin in the brain which may cause essentially too much seretonin in the brain. This is called the "serotonin syndrome " which can be very dangerous physically and mentally.
One of the reasons most people feel good when they drink is because serotonin levels increase dramatically with alcohol consumption. This is the same phenomenum that occurs with the the illegal drug called "ecstacy." However, one of the problems with too much serotonin in the brain is that it may cause manic and dangerous behavior. That is one of the symptoms of the "seretonin syndrome". It is a dirty little secret the drug companies probably know about and are not telling patients and their doctors. The warning labels have a mild warning against alcohol consumption for SSRIs. It is my belief that the consumption of excess alcohol is very dangerous in SSRI drugs and the drug companies do not want possible users to have to make a choice between alcohol and a useful drug. Many people who are depressed use alcohol frequently and given the choice would probably not take an SSRI drug if they had to give up alcohol. Therefore, the mild alcohol warning for SSRIs is in my opinion another dangerous omission by the pharmaceutical companies to sustain their multi-billion dollar SSRI business. Please read the reports below written in the 1990s and come to your own conclusions. The FDA is not doing their job in monitoring the dangerous interactions of SSRIs, alcohol, and other drugs.
Excerpt from and article by
David M. Lovinger, Ph.D.
Department of Molecular
Physiology and Biophysics
Vanderbilt University
School of Medicine
Nashville, TN 37232-0615
Serotonin is an important brain chemical that acts as a neurotransmitter
to communicate information among nerve cells. Serotonin's actions have
been linked to alcohol's effects on the brain and to alcohol abuse.
Alcoholics and experimental animals that consume large quantities of
alcohol show evidence of differences in brain serotonin levels compared
with nonalcoholics. Both short- and long-term alcohol exposures also
affect the serotonin receptors that convert the chemical signal produced
by serotonin into functional changes in the signal-receiving cell.
Drugs that act on these receptors alter alcohol consumption in both
humans and animals. Serotonin, along with other neurotransmitters,
also may contribute to alcohol's intoxicating and rewarding effects,
and abnormalities in the brain's serotonin system appear to play an
important role in the brain processes underlying alcohol abuse.
Excerpt from an article about:
THE SEROTONIN SYNDROME
"The serotonin syndrome is a hypersotonergic state which is a very dangerous and a potentially fatal side effect of serotonergic enhancing drugs which can have multiple psychiatric and non-psychiatric symptoms. It is a condition which has been on the rise since the 1960's when we began using more and more drugs which directly affect serotonin. This is a toxic condition which requires heightened clinical awareness in order to prevent, recognize, and treat the condition promptly. Promptness is vital because, as we just mentioned, the serotonin syndrome can be fatal and death from this side effect can come very rapidly. This syndrome is a toxic hyperserotonergic state whose rate of incidence is unknown, but is on the rise. The suspected cause of that increase is the introduction of the new selective serotonergic enhancing agents in clinical practice - the SSRIs. This disorder, brought on by excessive levels of serotonin, is difficult to distinguish from the neuroleptic malignant syndrome because the symptoms are so similar. The neuroleptic malignant syndrome is a serious condition brought on by the use of the neuroleptic drugs.
"The symptoms of the serotonin syndrome are: euphoria, drowsiness, sustained rapid eye movement, overreaction of the reflexes, rapid muscle contraction and relaxation in the ankle causing abnormal movements of the foot, clumsiness, restlessness, feeling drunk and dizzy, muscle contraction and relaxation in the jaw, sweating, intoxication, muscle twitching, rigidity, high body temperature, mental status changes were frequent (including confusion and hypomania), shivering, diarrhea, loss of consciousness and death. (The Serotonin Syndrome, AM J PSYCHIATRY, June 1991)