Sadly, campus violence is becoming so common now that when I initially heard about the shootings at NIU yesterday, I figured that the shooter would fit the usual profile. He’d be some quiet, withdrawn person who was probably off his meds…blah blah blah… Now it appears that Steven Kazmierczak was anything but that. While the story is that he had stopped taking his meds, he was otherwise a pretty normal and engaging guy according to those who knew him. [more from NYT]
Many of the medications prescribed to treat mental disorders come with suicide warnings. I’m told that the critical times tend to be either going on the medication initially or coming off of it. For now, I’ll assume that the vast majority of people taking these drugs are better off with them than without. But what if a “normal” person were taking this stuff? Generally in the US any drug must go through a battery of clinical trials before being approved for a particular use by the FDA. But these trials don’t always include testing the drug’s effects on normal controls, sometimes for ethical reasons. And it is no secret that billions of dollars hang in the balance depending on whether or not the drug is approved. This is a strong disincentive to doing any more testing than necessary to win FDA approval.
Without more information, this is pure speculation. But I just wonder if Kazmierczak, and obviously his victims, would have been better off without the meds in the first place.
