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Quebec City mosque shooter was taking Paroxetine at the time of the murders


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This CBC article, entitled "Quebec City mosque shooter set off by Canada's open stance on refugees", reveals that the 28-year-old was taking Paroxetine when he entered a mosque, killed six men and injured many others. This is the first time I've seen such a detail. I'm not aware of any connection that has been made between the medication and the actions of this man thus far, but based on other incidents that have been discussed around here, it does beg the question, "Was the medication a factor?"

 

See the following excerpt:

 

The morning after the attack was supposed to be Bissonnette's first day back at his job, at Héma-Québec, where he looked for potential donors for the organization, which manages the province's blood supply.

 

Three weeks earlier, Bissonnette received a medical note granting him leave from work because of an anxiety disorder.

 

He was prescribed Paroxetine, he said, to replace the Fluvoxamine pills he was taking, which he didn't think were strong enough.

 

"I couldn't go on, with my job and my studies," he said.

 

Bissonnette had several suicidal episodes since high school, he said, but never told anyone.

 

"I always dealt with my own problems," he said, explaining that he didn't want to worry his parents.

 

 

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/quebec-city-mosque-shooting-bisonnette-sentencing-1.4618414 

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He was also drinking alcohol. According to the article, he started drinking around noon that day, and the attack took place in the evening.

 

I'm finding the whole thing quite chilling. Paxil is what that other Canadian gentleman (David Carmichael) was on when he killed his son. He was considered "Not Criminally Responsible" for his crime, although they apparently didn't say the medication was the cause of his actions. They blamed it on mental illness. During interviews, though, he certainly says that he believes the Paxil was the cause of that mental illness at the time of the murder.

 

I wonder if anyone will connect those dots in this case, i.e. medication/alcohol and the Quebec City mosque murders. I wonder if he was under the care of a psychiatrist or other specialist. If he'd been having such intense fears about terrorist attacks in Canada, was he sharing those thoughts with a mental health specialist?

 

 

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So, in the French language newspaper, Le Devoir, the headline of this March 31, 2018 article reads "Can the remedy cause harm?" (or thereabouts). The whole article looks at the possible implication of Paxil  in the Quebec City mosque shooting.

 

"Le remède peut-il être la cause du mal?"

 

https://www.ledevoir.com/societe/524158/les-risques-que-posent-les-antidepresseurs 

 

And this March 30, 2018 article from Quebec's La Presse, also looks at the same issue:

 

"Bissonnette prenait un antidépresseur lié à des cas de meurtres et de tueries"

 

(Translation: "Bissonnette was taking an antidepressant that's associated with some cases of murder")

 

http://www.lapresse.ca/actualites/justice-et-affaires-criminelles/proces/201803/29/01-5159294-bissonnette-prenait-un-antidepresseur-lie-a-des-cas-de-meurtres-et-de-tueries.php 

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Lapis, thanks again for your articles.

 

The two you mention, while distressing, do not surprise me. Peter Breggin in one of his books (sorry I forget which one) mentioned a case of a man who, after taking Zoloft for three days, hanged himself. And he was certainly not mentally ill -- just a little depressed. Breggin often testified against the FDA in court, and this was one of the cases in which he was an expert witness.

 

What we do NOT know about these drugs and how they act on the brain is chilling.

 

There's a thread on here in which folks are espousing the wonders of anti-depressants, how well they work, and how people might need to be on them for life. It's pretty sickening. I would point people to these posts (I have been posting on the thread to no avail) but I would be wasting my time.

 

I once took Zoloft (before I read Breggin's book) and it made me into a near-zombie. After 3 doses I didn't care about anything. I almost missed a very important appointment because it suddenly didn't seem so important. And years earlier I took Prozac which made me psychotic. I believed there were creatures in the trees outside our house -- perhaps from another planet.  :idiot:

 

There are dangerous drugs, and it saddens and concerns me that primary care doctors are doing the prescribing now.

 

Thanks again for your informative articles. I look forward to them! I forward them to the Psychiatric Nurse Practitioner who prescribed my Ativan for me.  ;) She has quite a large drug-prescribing practice. Maybe one of the articles will resonate with her.

 

Hope you are doing well.

 

Katz

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Wow Lapis!  They went further than most with that, putting the two together.  Finally.  Has the universe shifted a bit in the last few days/weeks or is it just me?  The headlines, these articles, the show...

 

Thank you so much for translating that.

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Thanks for your thoughtful response, oregonkatz.

 

I think there many different ideas about these meds and how dangerous they are. I'm just making my way through the many French language articles from Quebec that asked the direct question, "Could Paxil have been a major factor in these murders?" The experts weighed in, and many did point to the literature and history as support for the idea that yes, the medication has been linked to other murders and acts of violence in the past so it may have played a role here. They all say it's rare, but there's definitely research to show that there are examples of murders, suicides and violence seen in people taking Paxil and other SSRIs.

 

Quite chilling.

 

Obviously, some find the medications helpful, and while I, myself, had very bad experiences with SSRIs, I would not tell others not to take them. It's up to individuals to make informed decisions in cooperation with their doctors.

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benzohno, there are MANY French language articles connecting the dots on this one. I wonder why it's the first I've heard of it in English! I don't regularly listen to or read the French language media these days, but I'm going to read a few more of the articles I've come across to see what they're saying.
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There are MANY in French huh?  Fantastic.  That was a couple weeks ago it came out in French.  Why can't/won't English-speaking Canadian news put it together.  They come close, I see, in your link below.  Gotta be politically correct, culturally sensitive, can't think outside the box. can't expend the emotional energy......They can't be that obtuse.  I'm sure they've seen the French headlines.  Still, those French articles, that's a first for Canada I think.  It's good the CBC mentions the Paxil.  Some people will put it together for themselves.
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Here's yet one more article, plus an 18-minute radio interview -- including a discussion with a psychiatrist -- on the topic of the medication and its possible role in the murderer's mindset and actions at the time. They make a point of asking "Who was following his treatment?," especially based on the fact that the medication had been prescribed just before the attacks took place. Apparently, Bissonnette is now taking Effexor.

 

"Affaire Bissonnette : un médicament qui pousse au meurtre ?"

 

Translation: "The Bissonnette Case: A medication that pushes towards murder?"

 

http://fm93.com/nouvelles/faits-divers/95338 

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There are MANY in French huh?  Fantastic.  That was a couple weeks ago it came out in French.  Why can't/won't English-speaking Canadian news put it together.  They come close, I see, in your link below.  Gotta be politically correct, culturally sensitive, can't think outside the box. can't expend the emotional energy......They can't be that obtuse.  I'm sure they've seen the French headlines.  Still, those French articles, that's a first for Canada I think.  It's good the CBC mentions the Paxil.  Some people will put it together for themselves.

 

I have no idea, benzohno. I haven't checked other sources, e.g. Globe, National Post, or English-language media in Quebec. Maybe it's there. But I've now read quite a few French-language articles on the topic, so it's definitely out there.

 

The shooter has pleaded guilty, so it will be up to the judge to determine what role his mental state played in the whole thing. It doesn't seem that his lawyer mentioned the medication as a causal factor, but others are clearly wondering how it fits in. Let's see whether the judge takes that into consideration in the sentencing. Bissonnette could actually be given 150 years behind bars, i.e. six successive life terms in prison, for the six murders.

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Okay, here's the Globe and Mail and National Post (English-language national newspapers in Canada) articles on Bissonnette. There's a short mention of the medication in both articles, but that's it.

 

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-mosque-shooter-told-police-he-was-motivated-by-canadas-immigration/ 

 

http://nationalpost.com/news/canada/gunman-says-he-went-to-quebec-mosque-in-2017-to-protect-family-from-terrorists 

 

Similar thing in the Toronto Star:

 

https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2018/04/13/gunman-in-quebec-city-mosque-shooting-told-police-he-didnt-do-anything-wrong.html 

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I know Lapis, no need to even try to answer my rhetorical questions.  Just thinking/ranting out loud again.  6 life sentences, 150 years?  Ugh.  I'm not gonna lie.  To me, he is a victim.  And now he's on Effexor?  After everything, the least they could have done was give him a genetic test beforehand.  I doubt that happened.

 

It's not like this for everyone, but I know what these drugs can do to a person's mind, personality, behaviour.  I was not myself on AD's and benzos.  I'm still not myself mentally, emotionally or physically, but it gets better. 

 

Thank you for all the links!  You are a detective today! I've forwarded all of them (except the last three) to Julie at ssristories.org  She always considers leads on stories.  I'm  sure this one will be posted there soon.

 

Edit:  Oops, his story is there.  I didn't look well the first time.  They have three old articles from early last year that mention "antidepressants" or "a drug" and alcohol, not Paxil.  A connection was not suggested or questioned in the French or English articles at that time.

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Do they have any English-language articles that question the role of the Paxil/paroxetine? I didn't come across any, although my eyeballs are now wrecked for the night so I can't check anything else.
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On ssristories regarding this case?  No.  The articles at that time, Feb. 2017ish say "antidepressants" or "drugs", not Paxil.  Is that what you mean?  I just edited my last post to say that, while you were posting above.  :)

 

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It's quite the divide, then. The French-language media was asking direct questions regarding the possible role of the medication in the murders, but the English-language media that we've looked at hasn't. We may be missing something, so I don't want to go too far on that, but it's certainly something to look at.

 

Anyway, from what I can tell, this young man was dealing with anxiety and depression, and it's not at all clear whether he was getting any help with those things at all. Giving someone medication without offering counselling or asking about his well-being is beyond my comprehension.

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Yup, agree and agree again.

 

Here's a link to the story/articles on ssristories:

 

https://ssristories.org/attentat-a-quebec-laccuse-etait-traite-pour-anxiete-et-avait-des-problemes-dalcool-actualite-le-journal-de-quebec/

 

I'm not good for reading today.  There is a recent English article there, dated March 29, 2018, mentioning "a drug" that was prescribed, that's all:

 

‘ I WAS BATTLING A DEMON’: MOSQUE SHOOTER GUILTY — (National Post)

 

A search warrant made public Wednesday shed light on Bissonnette’s state of mind and hinted at a possible motive. Manon Marchand told police her son, a Université Laval student, was “very anxious and unstable” and had recently been prescribed a drug used to treat depression, obsessions, compulsions, panic disorder and anxiety, according to the warrant, part of which had been under a publication ban.

 

This part is so sad:

Pleading for forgiveness, Alexandre Bissonnette told a hushed Quebec courtroom that he doesn’t know why he fatally shot six Muslim men as they prayed in a Quebec City mosque last year.

“Despite what has been said about me, I am neither a terrorist nor an Islamophobe,” he told the court. “Rather, I am someone who was overcome by fear, by negative thoughts and by desperation.”

 

“It’s as though I was battling a demon that finished by winning out,” he said.

 

“I would like to ask you to forgive me for all the wrongs that I have done but I know what I did is unforgivable,” he said.

 

Bissonnette said he thinks every moment of the day about “the lives I destroyed, the immense pain that I caused to so many people, including members of my own family.”

 

Bissonnette had pleaded not guilty on Monday, the first day of what was to be a two-month trial. But hours later, he told the judge he wanted to plead guilty.

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[f1...]

I once took Zoloft (before I read Breggin's book) and it made me into a near-zombie. After 3 doses I didn't care about anything. I almost missed a very important appointment because it suddenly didn't seem so important. And years earlier I took Prozac which made me psychotic. I believed there were creatures in the trees outside our house -- perhaps from another planet.  :idiot:

 

Hey miss, do you also take cancer drugs for kicks knowing well you do not need them?

 

Why did you at all try psychiatric drugs? Our brains are black boxes in the middle of god-knows-where and our only connection to each other is through sensory perception. Thus there is absolutely no way for a doctor to tell if your mind is depressed because your mind, unlike your brain, is locked in that black box. The doctor will "trust" you when you say you are depressed. It does not help that "we do NOT know about these drugs and how they act on the brain" because that makes it even more difficult to guess what happens to the mind when something happens in the brain. But looking at you, and knowing that you took an aggregate of six to ten doses of an SSRI in your long life and still survived, makes me doubt if you were ever depressed!

 

Are you familiar with member Groovejuice? He hasn't logged in in a year. He is actually TRD. He finds it difficult to just cope. The smallest things are too overwhelming for him. He lives with untreated depression. I hope he does.

 

If you tell me that you have lived with untreated depression because you had a reaction to antidepressants, and you understood that you were having a reaction by taking just three doses of zoloft, then I will say you do not know what "reaction" means in medical parlance. The efficacy of these drugs cannot be assessed till after two weeks of trial. Reactions can be assessed within two days of trial but "creatures in tree -- psychotic!" is not a listed reaction (except on BB!). Go ahead wikipedia the list of reactions.

 

The least you can do in the circumstances is avoid educating(?) people who cannot live because they are depressed or because they have cancer, about the uselessness of drugs used to treat those conditions.

 

There are dangerous drugs, and it saddens and concerns me that primary care doctors are doing the prescribing now.

 

Yes, cancer drugs and psychiatric drugs are dangerous. But they beat the cancer and depression. They suppress a few good things too as a side effect. If you take these drugs without having the diseases they are intended to treat, then they will do you only bad.

 

I had actually thought this was obvious? Am I wrong?

 

 

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[f1...]

 

Ya man, this is in consonance with the study I did last week. Dr Peter Breggin was kind enough to lace my study with his sagacious comments (which are also appended) -

 

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Object - To study the effect of paroxetine on the adult population of Ibiza.

 

Method -  A statistical regression analysis was done on the data collected.

 

Results - of 560 subjects studied, 119 were found to be on paroxetine therapy for the last six months from the date of commencement of this study. Of this study population, 84 were residents of the town mental asylum, 11 were in-residency treatment for psychosis in town hospitals and 24 were working population. 180 adults, who were on other psychiatric drugs were excluded from the study. 26 residents of the mental asylum, who were on paroxetine and were part of this study, had also been on trial for criminal behaviour that included homicide, with the rest having no criminal record. The remaining 261 adults, who were not on paroxetine or any other psychiatric drug therapy, were control population.

 

Conclusion - This is the first study that finds a direct correlation between adult psychosis and schizophrenia and regular consumption of paroxetine.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Dr Peter Breggin comments - This study confirms my observations that administration of paroxetine in humans causes patterns of psychotic thoughts and behavior in them that might result in harm to self and society. In my opinion these drugs serve the only purpose of enriching the coffers of pharmaceutical companies by putting adults of Ibiza in a permanent state of stupor.

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Hi Kpin,

Do you have the link to the study you just posted? I'd be interested in seeing the abstract and/or full study.

 

Thank you!

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benzohno, thanks so much for posting the article from SSRI Stories. Very interesting, but also very concerning. The fact that he was able to purchase a gun and that his deteriorating mental state wasn't reported by anyone is alarming. There were opportunities to prevent this terrible act from happening, and they appear to have been missed. I hadn't looked at this story in detail before. A very sad story from every angle.  :(
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You're welcome Lapis.  I wasn't familiar with any of this, until you started the thread, so thank you.  Yes, very sad.
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I once took Zoloft (before I read Breggin's book) and it made me into a near-zombie. After 3 doses I didn't care about anything. I almost missed a very important appointment because it suddenly didn't seem so important. And years earlier I took Prozac which made me psychotic. I believed there were creatures in the trees outside our house -- perhaps from another planet.  :idiot:

 

Hey miss, do you also take cancer drugs for kicks knowing well you do not need them?

 

Why did you at all try psychiatric drugs? Our brains are black boxes in the middle of god-knows-where and our only connection to each other is through sensory perception. Thus there is absolutely no way for a doctor to tell if your mind is depressed because your mind, unlike your brain, is locked in that black box. The doctor will "trust" you when you say you are depressed. It does not help that "we do NOT know about these drugs and how they act on the brain" because that makes it even more difficult to guess what happens to the mind when something happens in the brain. But looking at you, and knowing that you took an aggregate of six to ten doses of an SSRI in your long life and still survived, makes me doubt if you were ever depressed!

 

Are you familiar with member Groovejuice? He hasn't logged in in a year. He is actually TRD. He finds it difficult to just cope. The smallest things are too overwhelming for him. He lives with untreated depression. I hope he does.

 

If you tell me that you have lived with untreated depression because you had a reaction to antidepressants, and you understood that you were having a reaction by taking just three doses of zoloft, then I will say you do not know what "reaction" means in medical parlance. The efficacy of these drugs cannot be assessed till after two weeks of trial. Reactions can be assessed within two days of trial but "creatures in tree -- psychotic!" is not a listed reaction (except on BB!). Go ahead wikipedia the list of reactions.

 

The least you can do in the circumstances is avoid educating(?) people who cannot live because they are depressed or because they have cancer, about the uselessness of drugs used to treat those conditions.

 

There are dangerous drugs, and it saddens and concerns me that primary care doctors are doing the prescribing now.

 

Yes, cancer drugs and psychiatric drugs are dangerous. But they beat the cancer and depression. They suppress a few good things too as a side effect. If you take these drugs without having the diseases they are intended to treat, then they will do you only bad.

 

I had actually thought this was obvious? Am I wrong?

 

Kpin99,

 

These remarks are your opinion, as well as unnecessarily and pointedly personal and rather judgmental, not to mention off-topic and borderline disrespectful.  We are all here to support and/or be supported. Please frame your responses as such.

 

Thank you,

Challis

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