If the media are doing their jobs we should hear these two words over the next couple of days:

[rvablue]

Larium or mefloquine.

A lot of soldiers who go overseas are on this antimalarial. After a rash of murder/suicides at Ft. Bragg a few years back, I think the government switched to an alternative, but I'm not sure.

Here's part of the warning label:

MEFLOQUINE MAY CAUSE PSYCHIATRIC SYMPTOMS IN A NUMBER OF PATIENTS, RANGING FROM ANXIETY, PARANOIA AND DEPRESSION TO HALLUCINATIONS AND PSYCHOTIC BEHAVIOR. ON OCCATIONS, THESE SYMPTOMS HAVE BEEN REPORTED TO CONTINUE LONG AFTER MEFLOQUINE HAS BEEN STOPPED. RARE CASES OF SUICIDAL IDEATION AND SUICIDE HAVE BEEN REPORTED THOUGH NO RELATIONSHIP TO DRUG ADMINISTRATION HAS BEEN CONFIRMED. TO MINIMIZE THE CHANCES OF THESE ADVERSE EVENTS, MEFLOQUINE SHOULD NOT BE TAKEN FOR PROPHYLAXIS IN PATIENTS WITH ACTIVE DEPRESSION OR WITH A RECENT HISTORY OF DEPRESSION, GENERALIZED ANXIETY DISORDER, PSYCHOSIS, OR SCHIZOPHRENIA OR OTHER MAJOR PSYCHIATRIC DISORDERS. LARIAM SHOULD BE USED WITH CAUTION IN PATIENTS WITH A PREVIOUS HISTORY OF DEPRESSION.


And that is only the beginning....read more here:

http://www.lariam-larium-side-effects.com/pages/lariam_fda_label.html

And for those of you who want to accuse me of being an apologist, I can assure you that I am horrified by this man's actions. Prayers to the families of those who were gunned down. I only wanted to share this information as it might have contributed to this, and other, tragedies.

And if anyone has got Keith or Rachel's contact info, can you pass it on. They need to hear about this.

[rvablue]

1. C'mon DU! Gimmee some love on this. It's important, factual stuff...

They just had a reporter on CNN going down the list of similar but much smaller incidents on other bases.

Soldiers going off to Afghanistan ARE ALL being put on prophylaxi. The fact that this is the warning label for the one commonly used by the U.S. government is just slightly disturbing?!?!?!?!

[Mosby]

2. It's a possibility

Neuropsychiatric Side Effects after the use of Mefloquine

This study describes neuropsychiatric side effects in patients after treatment with mefloquine. Reactions consisted mainly of seizures, acute psychoses, anxiety neurosis, and major disturbances of sleep-wake rhythm. Side effects occurred after both therapeutic and prophylactic intake and were graded from moderate to severe. In a risk analysis of neuropsychiatric side effects in Germany, it is estimated that one of 8,000 mefloquine users suffers from such reactions. The incidence calculation revealed that one of 215 therapeutic users had reactions, compared with one of 13,000 in the prophylaxis group, making the risk of neuropsychiatric reactions after mefloquine treatment 60 times higher than after prophylaxis. Therefore, certain limitations for malaria prophylaxis and treatment with mefloquine are recommended.

http://www.ajtmh.org/cgi/content/abstract/45/1/86

[Codeine]

3. The shooting was a side effect

of religion. Specifically, Islam.

Deal with it.

[Ruby the Liberal]

7. You honestly believe that this was pure muslim hate with no extenuating circumstances?

I give you Muslim 'anamalaistic reaction' as inane. 72 FWBs for eternity is a strong motivator for 'martyrdom'.

HOWEVER

We all deal with the shit sandwich we are served. Islamic belief may call for homocide, but that doesn't mean that we are not dealing with issues. It is a lesson on how we handle opposition and challenge.

[roody]

51. Thank goodness for "ignore."

[defendandprotect]

53. We've been substantially lied to about Islam . . . once again US used religion . . .

as they did in Afghanistan in creating and Arming the Taliban/Al Qaeda "in order to
bait the Russians into Afghanistan ... in hopes of giving them a Vietnam-type experience."

And again, in creating a violent Islamic scenario they've spread into the ME -- for US's
own purposes ....

Here's some info on it both issues --

Second part deals with US involvement in creating violent Islamic teachings ....



The CIA's Intervention in Afghanistan
Interview with Zbigniew Brzezinski,
President Jimmy Carter's National Security Adviser

Le Nouvel Observateur, Paris, 15-21 January 1998

Question: The former director of the CIA, Robert Gates, stated in his memoirs <"From the Shadows">, that American intelligence services began to aid the Mujahadeen in Afghanistan 6 months before the Soviet intervention. In this period you were the national security adviser to President Carter. You therefore played a role in this affair. Is that correct?

Brzezinski: Yes. According to the official version of history, CIA aid to the Mujahadeen began during 1980, that is to say, after the Soviet army invaded Afghanistan, 24 Dec 1979. But the reality, secretly guarded until now, is completely otherwise Indeed, it was July 3, 1979 that President Carter signed the first directive for secret aid to the opponents of the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul. And that very day, I wrote a note to the president in which I explained to him that in my opinion this aid was going to induce a Soviet military intervention.

Q: Despite this risk, you were an advocate of this covert action. But perhaps you yourself desired this Soviet entry into war and looked to provoke it?

B: It isn't quite that. We didn't push the Russians to intervene, but we knowingly increased the probability that they would.

Q: When the Soviets justified their intervention by asserting that they intended to fight against a secret involvement of the United States in Afghanistan, people didn't believe them. However, there was a basis of truth. You don't regret anything today?

Q: Regret what? That secret operation was an excellent idea. It had the effect of drawing the Russians into the Afghan trap and you want me to regret it? The day that the Soviets officially crossed the border, I wrote to President Carter. We now have the opportunity of giving to the USSR its Vietnam war. Indeed, for almost 10 years, Moscow had to carry on a war unsupportable by the government, a conflict that brought about the demoralization and finally the breakup of the Soviet empire.

Q: And neither do you regret having supported the Islamic fundamentalism, having given arms and advice to future terrorists?

Q: What is most important to the history of the world? The Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire? Some stirred-up Moslems or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the cold war?

http://www.takeoverworld.info/brzezinski_interview_shor...

SECOND PART --


The US spent $100's of millions shooting down Soviet helicopters yet didn't spend a penny helping Afghanis rebuild their infrastructure and institutions.

They also spent millions producing jihad preaching, fundamentalist textbooks and shipping them off to Afghanistan. These were the same text books the Western media discussed in shocked tones and told their audiences were used by fundamentalist teachers to brainwash their charges and to inculcate in young Afghanis a jihad mindset, hatred of foreigners and non-Muslims etc.


Have you heard about the Afghan Jihad schoolbook scandal?

Or perhaps I should say, "Have you heard about the Afghan Jihad schoolbook scandal that's waiting to happen?"

Because it has been almost unreported in the Western media that the US government shipped, and continues to ship, millions of Islamist textbooks into Afghanistan.

Only one English-speaking newspaper we could find has investigated this issue: the Washington Post. The story appeared March 23rd.

Washington Post investigators report that during the past twenty years the US has spent millions of dollars producing fanatical schoolbooks, which were then distributed in Afghanistan.

"The primers, which were filled with talk of jihad and featured drawings of guns, bullets, soldiers and mines, have served since then as the Afghan school system's core curriculum. Even the Taliban used the American-produced books..." -- Washington Post, 23 March 2002 (1)

According to the Post the U.S. is now "...wrestling with the unintended consequences of its successful strategy of stirring Islamic fervor to fight communism."

So the books made up the core curriculum in Afghan schools. And what were the unintended consequences? The Post reports that according to unnamed officials the schoolbooks "steeped a generation in violence."

How could this result have been unintended? Did they expect that giving fundamentalist schoolbooks to schoolchildren would make them moderate Muslims?

Nobody with normal intelligence could expect to distribute millions of violent Islamist schoolbooks without influencing school children towards violent Islamism. Therefore one would assume that the unnamed US officials who, we are told, are distressed at these "unintended consequences" must previously have been unaware of the Islamist content of the schoolbooks.

But surely someone was aware. The US government can't write, edit, print and ship millions of violent, Muslim fundamentalist primers into Afghanistan without high officials in the US government approving those primers.

http://www.tenc.net/articles/jared/jihad.htm

[Chemisse]

9. I only know what I read about Islam or the Muslum faith

But haven't Muslims been saying all along that terrorism is against their faith and that Al Qaeda and the other hate groups are not following the Karan (sp?)?

That suggests to me that blaming their religion is inaccurate and insulting to the people who follow that religion.

[Codeine]

11. I don't care about insulting religions.

All religion is a cancer and the adherents thereof a poison.

[AwakeAtLast]

12. Why, how tolerant of you!

There is absoulutely no proof that this was caused by religious beliefs. Please be considerate of the family members of those killed by not wildly guessing about the cause. All will be revealed in due time.

[Codeine]

14. It will be revealed to be religiously motivated,

and you will still mouth the same empty platitudes.

Were it a Jesus Freak you'd not have the same carefully-constructed apologia. I guarantee it.

[AwakeAtLast]

15. You mean I wouldn't ask you to think about family members of the victims?

Um, you're wrong.

[emilyg]

44. I have not seen you

defend Catholics when they are bashed here.

[AwakeAtLast]

58. What does that have to do with anything?

Neither have I bashed any Catholics, but that is not the point. :shrug:

[Chemisse]

13. How about respecting a culture?

Most Muslims are good people who have no interest in killing Americans.

[arcadian]

30. Do you rail against Christianity as much as you do Islam?

[Codeine]

33. Probably more.

Islam is a generally powerless force here, whereas the Jesus Freaks are around me every day waving their stupid cadaver god around like a bunch of imbeciles.

[Flaneur]

37. So 99% of the population of the planet is "poison."

How do you tolerate living here? I'm not a religious person myself, but that's just stupid and bigoted. And that's at least twice I've had to say that about your posts on just one thread.

[defendandprotect]

54. Agree re organized patriarchal religions ... however . . .

large parts of this warmongering could be identified as Christian crusade . . .
And Rummy certainly was in the Pentagon trying to spread Christian "values" . . .

However, US has largely worked to pervert and make Islam violent --

See my post above in reply to you---

[Hannah Bell]

19. Steaming, bigoted horseshit.

[malaise]

23. And the slaughter of people in

Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Gaza etc. is what exactly? What about the torture business? Are those the side effects of Bush's 'Crusade' or are they serving some 'higher' religious purpose.

An atheist who hates all killing in the name of all religions and other lies wants to know, because the empirical evidence shows that all wars are about economics -stealing the resources belonging to others.

[Codeine]

34. Judging from the recent article in Harper's about

the influence of the religious Right on our armed forces and how it's manifesting in our conduct in Iraq and Afghanistan I'd have to place a big chunk of the blame on good old Jesus Freakery. Plenty of religious vomit to go round.

[Th1onein]

25. Nope. But it might have been a result of an SSRI drug.

I'm telling you, I've seen this too many times lately to suspect anything else. These drugs are given out like candy nowadays. And we're going to see more and more of these massacres until someone starts paying attention.

[Flaneur]

36. Really stupid post. And bigoted, too.

Deal with it.

[Spoonman]

46. It ain't biggotry

when it's true!

Allahu Akbar was his battle cry.

Deal with that!

[sandnsea]

4. kick

interesting info. Had to be something peculiar it seems to me. A Major is smart enough to know all he has to do is sit down and stop working in order to not go to Iraq.

[spanone]

5. watergate is the last time the media did their job

[rvablue]

8. Agreed. Hoping the call out might help in some miniscule way. n/t

[Hannah Bell]

20. lol. depends on what you think their "job" is. the owners' idea is probably different from ours,

& it's also possible watergate wasn't what we thought it was.

[Ruby the Liberal]

6. I have your back. There is more to this than "Muslim!!"

None the least of which, continually sending our men and women back into these quagmires over and over again.

I do not apologize for this man's horrendous actions, but we do a disservice for not looking at the other angles on this. Yes, his faith may have led him to an action that others of us would never have contemplated, but that doesn't get to the root of this. Not by the least.

[Chemisse]

10. I think the cries of terrorism will play out thoroughly

Since that makes for such lively news stories.

And then eventually we will get the truth - or whatever version of the truth the military wants us to believe.

[Ruby the Liberal]

16. The sign of ignorance.

If we could only force them to be tatooed,(ala- heres yer sign) so they could be easily identified.

[rvablue]

17. I'm shamlessly kicking this. Not for the murderer, but

for a bright shining light on scientific evidence.

[Overseas]

18. K&R. This should be explored, I agree. //nt

[Th1onein]

21. I'm betting on SSRI drugs causing this.

I've seen it too many times.

[excess_3]

22. the perp is a M.D.

a psychiatrist

so he drugs himself --> not exculpatory

............................

if incorrect in some way,
please enlighten me

[Th1onein]

24. Yes, you're incorrect.

That the perp is an M.D. makes this scenario even more likely--he is more likely to seek help from someone prescribing these drugs.

It would not matter that he is "drugging himself." Not with SSRIs. These drugs cause some people to act in very strange ways, killing their entire families, etc., while believing that their actions are perfectly reasonable and rational. Just some examples: Andrea Yates, who drowned her five children in Texas, the Virginia Tech shooter, the Columbine killers, the Amish school shooter, and yeah, even O.J. Simpson. They were all on these drugs, or coming off of them (which also can induce psychosis) when they committed their crimes.

It would not surprise me one bit to find out that Hasan was also taking an SSRI drug. In fact, as I said in my post above, I would bet good money on it.

[excess_3]

26. he chose his fate

choices have consequences

[Hepburn]

27. If he chose a drug that caused horrible side effects....

...that makes him blameworthy?

Ummmmmmmmm...no.

That like saying a Mom who took Thalidomide way back when chose that fate for her child.

JMHO

[excess_3]

28. self medicating is legal, or not? .nt

[Th1onein]

31. What causes you to assume that he chose to self-medicate?

There are no facts available to us that would cause you to consider this a probability. Simply because he's a doctor, he's supposed to have prescribed his own meds to himself? That's one heck of a leap of logic.

There's a difference between drinking and getting behind the wheel and wiping out a whole family, and taking a prescribed medication for anxiety, pulling out your guns, and shooting everyone around you.

In terms of SSRI drugs, they are so widely prescribed that it was just a matter of time before something like this happened in one of our military facilities. If the perpetrator is on these medications, it will be a damned shame if the press tries to spin it as Islamic terrorism.

[excess_3]

43. I don't know that, yet ...

people are writing about...


ptsd he has been in a war zone, or not?
....................

psycoactive drugs.

he was a user?
legit (presrcibed by someone else), or not.
.....................
if legit, he should not be in the Army

[Th1onein]

45. Unbelievable.

He did not have ptsd. He had not been to Iraq or any war zone yet.

And lots of people are in the Army and on antidepressants.

Geez.

[excess_3]

48. so its ok (hypotheticlly) for a doctor who taking antidepressants

to be in position to presrcibe the same med to others?

[Th1onein]

49. Of course.

n/t

[Th1onein]

29. No, that's not an example of choosing one's fate.

The purpose of these types of drug is to alleviate depression. This is a side effect. That's not choosing one's fate.

[defendandprotect]

55. Didn't know all of that . . .

guess I have to go back and look at those cases . . .

Had some idea the Columbine teens were on something --

OJ Simpson???

[Th1onein]

56. Yep, OJ. Strange, huh?

Actually, there are a lot of psychiatric professionals now speaking out about these drugs, and their link to violence, AND to the school shootings.

I just heard on the news that the Orlando shooter was on "medication." How much you want to bet that he was on an SSRI?

[defendandprotect]

59. You know these things keep jumping up and go on a while and disappear . . .

and you rarely get back to giving them a second look --

Good that someone -- like you -- is doing that --

And, yes, I do think we have tremendous problems with the drugs everyone is getting/taking.

And, wow -- what the military is getting.

[Liberation Angel]

38. I certainly hope that if it IS SSRI's that we are told ASAP

As you know, TH1onein, I am in 100% agreement that SSRI's are extremely dangerous and DO cause such heinous reactions in some people (and almost impossible to predict whom will go off)

It could be a combination of drugs too.

I just hope this gets revealed asap.

His cousin said that his deployment was his worst nightmare. He was living his worst nightmare. And since that is the case it is very possible that he received some sort of medication which triggered this.

The meds discussed in the OP may have been involved as well.

I just hope we find out whatever it was if he was taking either SSRI's or the other drugs which result in acts of mass homicide and suicidal mania.

Someone in my family was a victim of SSRI's - it is very harmful to many many people.

[Th1onein]

57. Did you know that they sealed the records in the Virginia Tech case?

I wonder who was responsible for that sealing? It was KNOWN that he was on psychiatric meds, but they won't tell us which ones.

I don't hold out much hope on getting to the truth in the highly publicized (and politicized) Ft. Hood slayings.

[Echo In Light]

32. K&R

[BrklynLiberal]

35. We may never know all the facts....

[Liberation Angel]

39. BUT we should be TOLD if he was taking SSRI's or the other meds mentioned in the OP

If our troops are receiving medication when they are already suicidally depressed and/or homicidal (I lost a friend and her baby to a homicidal Iraq vet) that CAUSES such rage and insanity WE NEED TO KNOW.

I suspected SSRI's from the start, but frankly this other RX sounds just as scary-crazy for traumatized military men and women.

[BrklynLiberal]

42. I agree. We SHOULD...but WILL we?

[Johonny]

41. If he survives and is willing to talk

we probably have a better chance than most of these cases.

[kimmerspixelated]

40. You'r probably right, but the media is bought and sold by Big Pharma.

The last thing they want to do is have a major news broadcast story about one of their precious money-makers. Using a big giant foot, the real truth will be squashed!

[AtheistCrusader]

47. I don't buy it BUT

I will rec, and I think all points should be considered.

[defendandprotect]

50. Too late for "REC" . .. yes, I think all of the crap we're throwing into soldiers

has an overall effect -- and this one could be very specific!!

[roody]

52. I took an antimalarial last summer. I bought the expensive one,

because it had the least side effects. I don't recall its name, but it was not one of those you mention. No surprise that the soldiers are getting the cheap stuff.